Hunting high and low

'Do you know what a Scavenger Hunt is? Nor would I, if I hadn't been to the Slieve Donald Hotel in Newcastle, County Down, years ago'

At this time of year, when everyone is going off on holiday, I find my mind going back to the first holiday I can remember, which was in Northern Ireland.

Why Northern Ireland? Because my father thought Northern Ireland was a wonderful place. He had been stationed there during the war, with the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and although the place was previously unknown to him, he was converted by the experience. There was, especially, a place called Killyleagh, which he loved. He used to say to my brother and me: "I had the happiest times of my life in Killyleagh. We must all go back there one day. And if we don't, then you must go back there one day." And one day I will go there, I swear it, and so does my brother, though we haven't been there yet, and time may be running out now.

So we used to go to Northern Ireland on holiday, and, if not to Killyleagh, to places like Annalong and Downpatrick and Newcastle, County Down, where the Mountains of Mourne come down to the sea, and they were great times. And one year, too, we stayed at the Slieve Donard Hotel in Newcastle, which was very nice, though all I can remember about it now is that they had lots of fuchsia and that the hotel one day organised a Scavenger Hunt to keep the children happy.

Do you know what a Scavenger Hunt is? No?

And nor would I, if I hadn't stayed at the Slieve Donard Hotel in Newcastle, County Down, all those years ago, and if the people who ran the Slieve Donard Hotel hadn't said to themselves, "Jesus, would you look at all these children running round the hotel creating mayhem, with their parents apparently unwilling or unable to control them, why don't we give them a Scavenger Hunt or something, that might keep the little devils quiet for one afternoon..."

And we were actually slightly mischievous, we children who came there with different parents but, though total strangers, coalesced into one gang. One afternoon, I still recall, we all went along to the bar of the Slieve Donard Hotel to talk to the barman, who had become our friend during the holidays. But he wasn't there and there was nobody there, not anyone, only an abandoned pint of beer on the bar. Beer was not a thing we were allowed to drink. So somebody (a girl, I think, for some odd reason) said: "They obviously don't want this beer any more – let's drink it!" And we did, though the taste itself wasn't anything special, only the delight of taking it.

And then the barman came back, our friend, but instead of being pleased to see us, he said: "Oh, Jesus, who has gone and drunk my free pint of beer, the only free pint of beer I get all day long from this bloody place?" And we all realised we had done a terrible thing and slunk away, since which day I have always respected lone glasses of alcohol apparently abandoned by their owner, and not molested them.

So anyway, the hotel organised this Scavenger Hunt, and the idea was that we were issued with a list of things to find, and the winner would be the first team that found all of them. Moderately hard things to find. Things like, a penny with the date 1946, or a certain kind of shell, or a yellow golf tee... things like that. And me and my team raced through most of this till we came to an object that we thought was impossible.

"A picture of Nottingham Castle."

How on earth would we find a picture of an English castle? In Nottingham, wherever that was? Would we have to go to an encyclopaedia of castles and cut it out? Find it on a cigarette card? Take a boat to England and a train to Nottingham, then take a photo?

"How's the Scavenger Hunt going?" asked my father, as we rushed around the hotel aimlessly.

"It was going very well till we had to find a picture of Nottingham Castle," I said bitterly. "Where on earth are we going to find a picture of Nottingham Castle?"

"On a packet of Player's cigarettes," said my father. "It's pictured on every packet."

God bless you, Dad. God bless you for being the all-seeing, all-knowing Dad instead of the ignorant, all-behind-the-times Dad that you later became. We raced off and got a packet of Player's out of a bin. And maybe we even won the Scavenger Hunt, I can't remember, but what I do remember is that you can find a picture of Nottingham Castle on Player's cigarette packets, and that Northern Ireland was a great place for a holiday, and that my dad knew everything, and what more can you ask from a holiday than that?