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In the winter of 1982, seven of my friends and I began making plans for a summer holiday. They were halfway through their two years of 6th form, and I was about to complete my only year in the 6th, what having already passed my English O level that everyone thought I would fail so have to retake.

A schoolfriend worked in the travel department of WH Smiths, yes, they had one. And after much discussions we decided to travel to a place called Le Sérignan Plage near to the Cap D'agde. We were to get there on a bus.

A bus from London to the south of France.

What could go wrong.

This involved saving as much as we could, and stockpiling crap long life food as it is well know that France is crap for cuisine. So, we had packs of Vesta curries and other meals, along with Fray Bentos pies. Not that we tried how to cook any of these things before we left, we would just wing it.

Come the second week of September, we caught a coach to London, to meet up with the one taking us south.

There is a shot of the eight of us having lunch on some waste ground near to Victoria coach station, surrounded by our parents spare suitcases.

We boarded the coach ready for our twenty hour trip. We had to go to Dover for the ferry, all seemingly excited by thrill of an adventure.

Once on the other side, the reality of a twelve hour non-stop coach trip to the south of France hot home. I am a crap sleeper on such journeys at the best of times, so I stayed awake as all slept around me.

We did stop somewhere for breakfast, some town centre where the person behind the counter spoke no English, so all I could remember from my CSE French lessons was jambon croissant. And then back on the bus.

We arrived at the beach with the sky totally clouded over and a cold breeze blowing. It had been like this for a while, and even the sea was cold. We unpacked, went to the site shop and bought bottles of cheap sangria for pennies. Or cents, and dined on a vesta curry and bottles of cheap plonk.

We were all tired and so slept well.

Next morning we woke up to find the usual mess when teenagers drink too much cheap booze. sSo we sober up, clean up and begin the day of enjoying ourselves.

The rep arranged us all to go to the nearby town of Béziers for Sunday afternoon. It was closed. But we wandered around in the now warm sunshine, looking at the chic fashions in the shop windows. And laughed at the woman we saw with yellow shorts so tight it left nothing to the imagination.

This, we found out later, was our reps girlfriend, and spoke perfect English so understood what we said.

Bugger.

Anyway, life settled down. Some of us got bored being on the beach every day, so we hired the last three bikes the site had to explore the countryside.

It was hot and the bikes too small for us, but we had fin in the autumn heat, and harvested grapes from the side of the road to feat on for the rest of our friends that night.

They were horrible.

And then I got sunstroke.

I was advised by the site first aid guy to stay out of the sun for four days.

So, I had to go on day trips, and my friends took turns to keep me company. On a cold and windy day, Charlie and I went to Carcassonne, climbed to the medieval hilltop town, had steak and frites at a small place in the basement of an ancient house. What we had was written on the paper tablecloth, and we settled up at the end of the day.

Another day, Rebecca and I went on a trip to Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert.

We did a tour of the caves, then sat by the stream that ran through the village and feasted on fresh green figs we scrumped from someone's front garden.

We dumped all the Vesta meals and Frey Bentos pies in the bin, as we ate steak and fries every night in the camp bar. We just about had the money to do it.

Last day we played a huge game of football with some other Brits with a plastic ball on a huge expanse of muddy sand. A simple pass would make the ball go hundreds of metres in the wrong direction as the wind got under the ball. It was a hot day, so we all got sunburn or sunstroke. Perfect for the return mamoth jorney back home that night.

I returned home to the reality of Thatcher's Britain and the fact I had failed to apply for an apprentaship, signing on and applying for endless deadend jobs on pay of less than a pound an hour, which I failed to get.

We had left as schoolchildren and returned as adults. In training.