I’m glad Roger Waterfall exploded the myth that Club 18-30 was the first operator to cater for the youth market; but I’m afraid I have to correct Roger in turn and say that Under 30 Holidays (actually, Under 30 Travel Club, surely?) was not the only forerunner of Club 18-30 in the youth market.
When I originated Chalet Party Skiing in winter 1958/59, I imposed an age limit of 17-35 which was maintained well into the days when the company was relaunched as Small World Travel in the early 1970s.
Many of my chalet girls (or Muribirds as they were nicknamed) were under 21, as were several of those who ran my summer villa parties (just like chalet parties, but hotter) all round the Med from 1959.
One girl of 18 rode her Lambretta scooter all the way from Goring-on-Thames to Elba to run our villa party there.
The girls were as tough as the scooters in those days.
My brochures often poked fun at other operators. I actually took the Under 30 Travel Club to task in my winter 1963-64 brochure for recommending their clients to wear “a thick pair of ski trousers which can be secured at the ankle”.
I suggested that Murison Small clients would be better advised to choose trousers which could be secured at the waist.
In those days, of course, one certainly did not suggest that the fourth of the three Ss would be in evidence.
Indeed, for a decade the brochure stressed that “friends may always share a room – where appropriate that is”.
The wheel came full circle some years later when I took a call in about 1984 for a timid client who said she was going on one of my holidays with her boyfriend – and was wondering whether it might be possible for them to sleep in separate rooms.
O tempora, o mores – how times change!
Colin Murison Small
Hidden Greece
London