'never thought we'd end up being Caravanners'

I never thought we’d end up being caravaners, our story started in the 60’s when we used to go camping with the kids mainly Cornwall, I was a Plumber working mainly in London and the S/E I considered myself to be a handy kind of guy could turn my hand to anything constructive  so I  bought a VW van and converted it to a type of Camper, tent on the roof rack /kids in side they absolutely  loved it and off to France still camping, then we were persuaded to drive to Spain well we liked what we saw the warm sunshine and food/drink were cheap apart from the driving we enjoyed our Holidays we  continued that type of holidaying up to the  when we decided to look at static vans, well we were sucked in and decided to buy.. We liked it at first but then after exhausting the area on land and on sea we sold at a loss realising that type of holidaying wasn’t us. Now there’s ‘justthetwoofus’ kids are off doing their own life thing. We really wanted to explore further afield and not only in England but on the continent too I was never afraid to drive on the continent in fact I prefer to drive on the Right, there really is so much more to see. We decided that maybe Motor caravanning was the way to go so we looked around at different Models and was given some great  advice which stands firm today, ‘Buy the best one you can afford’ said the salesman  at Turners Motor homes in Dulwich (not there anymore) first one we saw we fell in love with an Eldiss Voyger1,  a 5/6 berth  over cab bunk+double at the dining area and a sort of double at the back where we could make the bed up and leave it made up whilst we used  the front part for living, we joined the Caravan Club and  did  a 6week stint  starting off in Belgium /Luxemburg /Germany/ Austria/Italy /France and back home, never forget that trip  that really was the  beginning of our Luxury camping and travels, we swapped the Voyager for another van, (my Wife says that was the worst decision I ever made),  but ended up with a Swift Kontiki best of the bunch(at that time).it had a rear lounge which we made up as the bed and lived in the dining area  still plenty of room though. We had many happy Holidays mainly in france,  been there about  a dozen times in our travels and with friends in tow with their van.     My Wife is a Florist and she was working for the shop we now own,  Our best Customers  believe it or not are the Caravan Club,       we had to sell our beloved Swift Kontiki because we could not afford the time to use it, It just stood there deteriorating such a shame I hope somebody’s having some nice holidays in her still.                But I always thought we’d come back to Travellering Holidays and we have, because of the fact of getting to site in the motor home setting up and then if we needed to go out any distance we had to pack up-go on our journey and then unpack when we got back,it was a chore and to be able to tow maybe a small car behind was an unnecessary expense at that time, 2 lots of tax/mots/insurance and Maintenance , So if we wanted to Tow why not look at Caravans so that’s what we did, I scoured the internet and we went to  see vans all around our area, we chose a van that appealed to us and we bought a Bailey Pageant  Moselle and had four great  holidays  in 2012 one in France , we enjoyed it so much we decided to go up a notch and buy a brand new van with a fixed bed  so we went to NEC  September 2012  and fell in love with the  Bailey Unicorn Valencia with a great package , now we are waiting for 2013 for it to be delivered so we can start the next story ‘ luxury camping travels’ , we still have the shop but our Daughters and staff  have kindly given us some time off to use it ‘cant wait’.