My first ever holiday abroad was in 1986 at the age of 18 to the Palma Nova resort in Majorca. My old pal Rick Clegg had managed to craftily purloin us the holiday through some chicanery from his employers at the time, a short-lived travel agent company called Jet Wing. The firm was based in Winckley Square, just round the corner from the Winckleys public house in Preston.
Site of the old Winckleys Public House. Image Credit mawconsulting.co.uk
We were booked on night flights, and I recall us watching the latest episode of Minder before the parental lift to the Aeroporto. On arrival at the apartment complex, we discovered there was no room allocated to us, but they finally found us some digs right next to reception, though it looked like we had taken the room off other previous residents, as there were several feral cats residing outside the patio doors giving us the evil eye!
Whilst there we had many games of pool and Galaxians via 25 peseta coins and lashings of dirty beer. On the Saturday we had to utilise the services of World Service in a bar to retrieve the PNE result. Somewhat predictably, we nearly ran out of money on the last day as the final traveller’s cheque drained away!
Galaxians. Image Credit blogspot.com
The returning flight was unfortunately redirected to Luton resulting in a 3-hour coach ride back to Manchester. I crawled into bed about 8am before being rudely awakened by a phone call from Rick about 3pm, who had reawakened his Boddingtons Bitter dependency that very lunchtime!
Majorca is the largest island of the Balearic Islands and is a huge tourist destination with around 28 million passengers passing through Palma De Mallorca airport every year. It has the odd fleshpot locations, but there are many beautiful spots on the island. One of my sporting heroes, the tennis player Rafa Nadal was born and raised and still lives there in Manacor. Other previous and current musical residents include Eakthay Ahn, composer of the Korean national anthem, John Lennon’s ex-wife Cynthia, dance producer DJ Sammy and Sheila Ferguson from the Three Degrees.
Sheila Ferguson. Image Credit Broadway World.
In subsequent years we have stayed in the resorts of Santa Ponsa and Cala D’or. In 2013 we headed to the most northerly resort of Alcudia. This sits close to Puerto Pollensa and the very picturesque old town of Pollensa old town.
In the resort there was a comfy friendly bar with sofas called Alcudia Bar Du 1. The first time I ever visited the owner who I had never met gave me a bear hug, which was slightly disconcerting, but he was full of joie de vivre! They had a large open-air stage and we saw a decent set there from a band called Soulsearchers. Further down the promenade there was another stage at Alcudia Harbour where we saw an act called Tres Quatro.
Throughout the fortnight I was tracking Andy Murray’s progress at Wimbledon before we headed home a couple of days before he secured his maiden title. We had glorious weather whilst we were away, and I recall we brought it home with us as Britain had a sustained heatwave for the next few weeks.
We were able to fly in and out of our small local airport at Blackpool which had the added benefit of instantly accessing the car park outside the building and a very short 30-minute commute home. Unfortunately, it was a last trip out of Blackpool as the airport shut permanently a couple of years later.
We must return mate – 40 year anniversary in 2026 ! I’ll get the recently re-acquainted Jetwing crew to book it (free again of course!)