The Tent, the Bucket and Me: My Family's Disastrous Attempts to go Camping in the 70s

by Emma Kennedy

Paper Book, 2009

Status

Available

Call number

796.54092

Publication

Ebury Press (2009), Paperback, 352 pages

Description

Emma Kennedy's hilarious memoir of wet and windy family trips, NOW ADAPTED FOR THE MAJOR BBC ONE SERIES THE KENNEDYS. For the 70s child, summer holidays didn't mean the joy of CentreParcs or the sophistication of a Tuscan villa. They meant being crammed into a car with Grandma and heading to the coast. With just a tent for a home and a bucket for the necessities, we would set off on new adventures each year stoically resolving to enjoy ourselves. For Emma Kennedy, and her mum and dad, disaster always came along for the ride no matter where they went. Whether it was being swept away by a force ten gale on the Welsh coast or suffering copious amounts of food poisoning on a brave trip to the south of France, family holidays always left them battered and bruised. But they never gave up. Emma's memoir, The Tent, The Bucket and Me, is a painfully funny reminder of just what it was like to spend your summer holidays cold, damp but with sand between your toes.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member BoundTogetherForGood
Since moving to the UK in August 2007 our family has taken many holiday trips. Some were even psuedo-camping (hiring a stationary caravan at a campsite) and therefore I can truly picture everything this book is about. This was an hilarious but painful look at a decade of holiday gone hellish for
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Emma Kennedy and her parents. Their desires for a happy holiday took them to Wales, other parts of England, and to France. Somehow the holiday faeries never seemed to find them and protect them. Reading this you keep waiting for just one glorious moment of sunshine, or luck, or even a pain-free moment at least. And, always, just as there is the faintest hint that things are beginning to go right...out falls the bottom! Poor Emma, Brenda and Tony. The story chronicles their travels from when Emma was age three until she turns thirteen. Since adulthood Emma has refused, hands down, to go on holiday with her parents. I went to her website and posted a quick not to her that perhaps the three of them could plan to meet at a holiday destination and confound the evil that has made prey of them so many times. I wish wholeheartedly for them to finally get it right.
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LibraryThing member magsK
Very funny if you have been on camping holidays especially when you were small. Having taken my kids on holiday to France, with a few disasters, that I could relate to this. However, friends in my book club just did not get it at all.
LibraryThing member mimal
amusing, britain-wales, adventure, autobiography-memoir, published-2009, summer-2013, nonfiction
Read from August 31 to September 01, 2013

Lots of mirror experiences here, read by the engaging author.
2 likes
LibraryThing member SharonMariaBidwell
A sometimes funny, a sometimes cover your eyes and peep through your fingers cascade of family holiday disasters, this book is also a nostalgic ride for those who lived through the 70s especially if your parents ever dragged you camping. Fortunately, my memories aren’t as horrendous as Emma’s
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but none have ever made me wish to go sit in a field in a tent again. At times, I really felt for her and recollected that moment when parents become embarrassing.
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LibraryThing member thewestwing
I laughed a lot when reading this book. If coronavirus is getting you down, this will make you laugh(and be glad you can’t go on holidays!)

Language

Original publication date

2009

Physical description

352 p.; 8.43 inches

ISBN

0091926785 / 9780091926786
Page: 0.651 seconds