Coffee and dried milk

War, holidays and youth hostels 1939-45

War ended in 1945. War that threatened the end of holidays now determined and boosted a better future.

Glen Nevis youth hostel had changed by May 1945. One hosteller who had been there in 1938 found a well stocked store that now was bare.

In the common room the stove glowed. Kilted lads and lassies sang Gaelic songs and cooked bannocks and porridge and broth. Visitors from over the border felt very suthern and English.

In the warmth of the common room all the talk was about victory in Europe. The next day would be VE day. The might of Germany was going to surrender without conditions and the government had declared two days of holiday to celebrate.

Not lost

On VE day, 8 May 1945, one hosteller did no celebrating. She walked from Crianlarich to Monachyle. Lost, in rain and mist, she and her companion climbed and crawled in what they hoped was the right direction until a farmer’s wife assured them that they had arrived where they expected.

They had not by accident wandered over the 1000 metre Ben More. They had come over the pass as intended.

They spent that night in the little wooden hostel at Monachyle with its retired tea planter warden. They celebrated with drinks of coffee and dried milk while people in the rest of the country cheered, danced and sang.

Many more

War had threatened an end to tours and holidays. War had brought change but it had not ended touring.

By the end of the war the world was better placed than ever for those kind of holidays. By the end of the war, touring was a well established kind of holiday for many.

The dream of young people escaping the city into the freedom of holidays and the countryside was now a reality. Heel and toe holidays were available for many more than might have been expected.

Careless

Many more people could now enjoy socialising, adventure, and achievement uisng youth hostels. They could concentrate on holidays taken one day at a time, with no demands except arriving at that day’s destination.

Many more could enjoy holidays with not a care in the world, free of burdens except what they carried in a rucksack or pannier. Movement, food and water, and not much else concerned them.

Post war austerity suited those holidays just as a fashion for hiking before the war had done. The wider world supported those holidays. An established organisation also now supported those holidays.

Holidays for all

An organisation awaited with more than two hundred hostels across England and Wales, not as many as there had been before the war but that would change.

Soon many more little triangles would litter the maps in the annual handbook of hostels. YHA completed the freehold purchase of 20 youth hostels in 1945.

International contacts began again. YHA officials visited France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Norway though travel in Europe was still difficult.

Mainstream

In the summer of 1945 hostels in popular holiday regions were overcrowded and many were full at weekends throughout the year. More than two thirds of YHA’s members were under 26 years of age.

By the time war ended, hiking and cycling holidays had become mainstream, expected by many. Legislation for holidays with pay, passed before the war, became reality.

Holidays now had the chance to become part of everyone’s lives, especially for young people. Freedom for a new generation lay ahead as war ended. War had not ended the idea. War had boosted it.

This is the last in a series examining holidays during the 1939-1945 war. The first in the series was Nectar…

More about the history of youth hostels, in “Open To All, how youth hostels changed the world”. Available in paperback and digital editions.

Notes

Image of a group at Buttermere in the Lake District from 1956, courtesy of the YHA archive at the University of Birmingham. Groups like these benefitted from the boom in holidays and holiday making in the post-war years.