The architect John Madin is well known in Birmingham for helping to shape the city in the 1960s and ’70s. He was responsible for the Birmingham Post & Mail tower, the BBC Pebble Mill studios and, most famously, the Central Library. The library, an icon of the brutalist style, gained notoriety when it was cruelly…

As a child of the ‘70s, Saturday mornings were all about one thing… Tiswas.The anarchic TV show, fronted by Chris Tarrant and Sally James, along with Lenny Henry and Spit the Dog, was essential viewing for any kid with ambitions to act cool back at school on Monday.Multi-Coloured Swap Shop with Noel Edmunds? That was…

The splashes, screams and laughter fell silent as a Dakota bomber with D-Day stripes swooped over the outdoor pool.Later, the low rumble of our hot tub’s jets quickly grew louder and louder until we realised the thunderous noise was actually being created by a Typhoon fighter taking to the skies.Both planes had taken off from…

IT was good weather for ducks and surfers as we arrived at our holiday destination on the north Cornwall coast.We had neither feathers nor wetsuits to protect us from the driving wind and rain, but that didn’t totally spoil the start of our October half term short break. From our apartment, up a hill in…

The thought of taking the family on a winter break in a caravan had always left me cold. I had visions of us all cuddling together in one bed to keep warm while the caravan wobbled in the wind like a bowl full of jelly. But mobile homes have come a long way in recent…

A little piece of south Devon is leading the fight back against the modern day scourge of computer games, phones and Netflix. Self-catering destination Beyond Escapes is harking back to a simpler time when the biggest thrill a child could have was building a den in the great outdoors. Den-making kits, including ropes, groundsheet, camouflage…

Moving the mosquito net to one side, we rolled out of the four-poster bed in our safari tent, excited about the animal adventures that lay ahead. Later, just a ten-minute drive away, we got up close to some of the area’s magnificent wildlife – giraffes, lions, rhinos, zebras and those lovable meerkats. But rather than…

Do you remember the awful weather that swept the country at Easter time? Well, we were among those poor unfortunates who had booked a family ‘staycation’ during the school holidays. But as I drove past snow-covered fields and through flooded roads there was no fear that the weather would stop us having an action-packed break.…