Escape from holiday horrors – at home

FEARFUL of having your summer holiday ruined by acts of God? Appalled at tales of stranded travellers battling for days to make their way back to the UK with no money in jam-packed buses trundling through distant lands? Or just beaten down by the relentless rise in petrol prices pushing the price of a foreign jaunt even higher?

A retro summer holiday may be beckoning for many. We could recapture the experience of the 1950s as we book into holiday camps an easy drive from home. No more torment of uncertainty waiting to hear whether your flight is in three hours or three weeks.

The bus holiday re-beckons – Tam’s Sunshine Tours to the Trossachs, or as far north as Aberfeldy if the chip fat fuel permits. Should the bus break down in a cloud of hailstones, the hitch-hike home could be over in a week, blisters and midges permitting.

Why risk even this eventuality when we can set out with camping gear, spare underwear, ground sheets, tinned food and cooking equipment? We would have no fear of our luggage ending up at Riyadh, or Ryanair charging us extra for those billycans dangling merrily round our necks.

Why venture so far only to face the predictable frustration of being abroad in an emergency? How tempting this summer to escape from it all – and holiday close to home.