Communications

Tom's Field old sign lit by sunlight
That caravan was replaced by a newer one in 1998 about the same time the opening times  for the site were extended until the end of October.  This caravan was much more salubrious.
There was, and always have been, many loyal customers who came for the place, for Tom and the delights of Purbeck. The site is in such a perfect situation surrounded as it is by fields and leading via pathways to the extraordinary Dancing Ledge, Seacombe and Winspit and , of course the famous Square and Compass Public House in Worth Matravers. Many of the customers come purely for the joy of visiting that famous hostlry and stumbling back along Priestway to the campsite.

However there was another range of visitors who maybe did not look on themselves as customers, they, sadly, took advantage of Tom’s galiant efforts to manage on his own. These people were proud to recount to others that they had stayed  and not paid, they would lose themselves among the holiday makers or drift into the area right at the top of the field and lurk around bonfires of branches ripped off the trees.. It is quite amazing that there are some, fortunately very few, people who think it is perfectly all right to drive into a campsite without any reference to anyone and can become affronted when challenged. Would they, one wonders walk into someone’s house and settle into one of the rooms and say ‘Oh but we always used to sit in this room when the last people were here’

In the early 1990s, when John and Sarah arrived, the only phone was an old brown telephone box. No phone in the shop and Tom did not have a phone at home. At that time callers, who happened to have that number, only got an answer if Tom was passing.  For several years it still rang with some hopeful camper at the other end. Perhaps ,if it was answered, it would be Tom still saying about his successors ‘Theyv’e got a lot to learn’.
 In 1993 we installed a fax machine and telephone line in the shop. They often reflected on the revolution in communications. No longer are there long queues outside the telephone box of a summer evening. Not only did Tom never take reservations but would have found it hard to believe that now 99 per cent of all new customers come via the world wide web, sending email inquiries.


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