Wallace's Third Age travels
Kerry Bailey talks to Wallace Giddings, co-founder of the Peterborough U3A, about his methods of keeping the local retired community busy.
For Wallace, it all started in the summer of 1950 when, whilst working as a newly qualified accountant for a shoe manufacturing company in London, he was approached and asked to arrange a staff outing to boost morale.
“I knew that the Southend-on-Sea Illuminations were being revived – having been switched off since 1939 due to the Second World War – and so I began making plans for the factory and office staff to attend the official switch-on ceremony,” explains Wallace. “When at 5pm on that Friday evening, over five coach loads of my excited colleagues pulled out of the factory gates to make their way to Southend, I knew that I was going to become hooked on organising group travel!”
A lifetime of organising
And hooked Wallace certainly became. Throughout his working life, he has been involved with various associations that have allowed him to indulge his passions for organising travel and is still involved with the ‘Twin Town’ concept, which marries UK towns and cities with similar locations overseas and allows residents to participate in exchange programmes.
It was in 1992 however, that a close friend John Knight approached Wallace with the idea of creating a Peterborough branch of the steadily evolving nationwide organisation U3A. Also known as the University of the Third Age, the U3A is a self-help organisation for retired people who would like to learn a new skill or take up a new hobby. “I wanted to introduce an organisation that retired people could lean on for social, cultural and educational activities in the local area,” he says.
Wallace continues, “Today, the branch has over 1500 members with various classes and groups run by a team of volunteers in the local area covering subjects from art appreciation and painting to local history and travel.”
In 2000 and with membership steadily increasing, Wallace decided to devote his time solely to leading one arm of the Peterborough U3A and became the group travel organiser for the Travel Club, where he organised all manner of trips and holidays. As the membership of the Travel Club and the U3A continued to grow further, group travel organiser and fellow Travel Club member Keith Temperton took on the responsibility of organising theatre trips whilst group travel organiser Paul Parker began organising day trips.
Wallace finds that this approach works well for him. “I also have a committee of five people, who help me brainstorm on potential locations for forthcoming trips and also with the planning and publicising of them.”
“Everyone gives their time voluntarily,” he continues. “There is no financial gain and, although we do charge a £2 annual membership fee for the Travel Club, this goes towards the hire of the Bretton Woods School Theatre for each of the seven meetings that we host every year.”
When explaining how the meetings work Wallace says, “Everything is done from welcoming new members and talking about what we have been doing to promoting new trips.” He continues, “I give a short talk on what members can expect from each of the tours and trips that are being offered and then, at the end of the meeting, there are various stands dedicated to each destination dotted around the room, where members can pick up an application form and pay a deposit.”
Day to day
For a group with varying interests, theatre trips are a fairly universal activity and Keith Temperton organises around 40 trips to both West End and regional theatres a year for members of the Peterborough U3A.
Keith tends to stick to the same suppliers and uses Grettons Coaches, a coach operator based in Peterborough, for transport to and from the theatre.
When it comes to purchasing theatre tickets in bulk, meanwhile, Keith occasionally negotiates rates with theatres himself, however admits that the London-based ticketing agency Group Line offers ‘excellent’ group discounts and rates on West End productions. “Group Line is the only ticketing agency that I ever use and I have a good relationship with the team.”
One of the most successful recent theatre trips, which springs to Keith’s mind, was an outing to see Billy Elliot The Musical at the Victoria Palace Theatre in London in December. “I booked the tickets through Group Line and took 106 people. The show was absolutely fantastic!”
There are also various day trips on offer throughout the year to members, which are organised by Paul Parker. Last year, for example, groups ventured to Sudbury in Suffolk in May and Hampton Court Palace in Surrey in July. Paul books direct with attractions for day trips and arranges the coach travel with local tour operator Grettons Coaches.
Inland stays
When it comes to planning an overnight break, Wallace does not use the services of one particular tour operator. “I pick the tour operator according to my needs,” he explains.
“For example, I find that InterChoice Holidays, based in Wolverhampton, is excellent at planning our short breaks whilst I sometimes prefer to use Yorkshire-based Airedale Tours and London-based Travel Editions for longer holidays, both are fantastic to deal with. Gloucestershire-based Travelscope, meanwhile, is particularly good at arranging cruising holidays, so it really depends on what kind of holiday I am planning as to which tour operator I use.”
Wallace’s use of tour operators does not interfere with his own methods of organising however. “I still do the organising,” he insists. “I decide, with the help of the committee, where we are going to go, for how many nights, what excursions we will do, the route, coach seating plans, dining room arrangements and so on.”
When I go to meet Wallace in December, he has only just returned from a four-day break to Sherborne in Dorset with 88 members that he had arranged in conjunction with InterChoice Holidays. “We stayed at The Sherborne Hotel, a Hollybush Hotel, which I had previously visited on a familiarisation trip and thought was excellent,” he says. “We enjoyed various excursions to attractions in the surrounding area such as Brewers Quay in Weymouth and the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton.”
Around the same time last year, in November 2005, Wallace and a group of 92 made a three-day trip to Teesdale in County Durham. “I had previously visited Teesdale on a familiarisation trip, which had been arranged by the County Durham Tourist Board,” he begins. “I knew that the group would enjoy the area and so I booked the St. George Hotel at Durham International Airport and we took over the whole place for three days, it was great!”
The year before in November 2004, the group enjoyed a three-day ‘Turkey and Tinsel’ break on the Isle of Wight. “I booked the Sherwood Court Hotel in Shanklin myself and also arranged the day excursions myself, which included a guided tour complete with mulled wine and mince pies at Osborne House, which the group loved.”
A popular destination for the group is Scotland and Wallace has arranged several breaks here for the Travel Club including a three-day break in Edinburgh for 40 people in August, in conjunction with Market Harborough Travel. “It was really excellent as our visit coincided with the Edinburgh Festival. On our first full day in the city, we enjoyed all of the free street entertainment of the Festival before heading to the grounds of Edinburgh Castle for the Military Tattoo in the evening. On the following day, we made a most interesting visit to Glamis Castle, the former home of the Queen Mother.”
Prior to that in June, Wallace accompanied a group of 46 on a ‘Highlands Tour’ of Scotland, arranged by Airedale Tours where the members enjoyed afternoon tea in the grounds of Balmoral Castle amongst other excursions.
Ventures abroad
Wallace finds that his own personal knowledge and experience of overseas travel comes in handy when organising holidays overseas and he regularly includes trips to destinations all over the world in his portfolio.
“We’ve been all over the place,” he says glancing at a list of destinations that the group has visited. “France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy and even Canada!”
The group has a particular fondness for cruising holidays and Wallace tends to use the services of the Gloucestershire-based tour operator Travelscope when organising these.
“One of the most enjoyable trips was the ‘Sunshine Cruise, on which I had taken 46 people for eight days on Travelscope’s ‘Van Gogh’ vessel. It was an outstanding success! The cabins were spotlessly clean and all sorts of activities were on offer onboard such as keep fit classes and dance lessons,” he continues. “A real highlight of the cruise was seeing the Rock of Gibraltar, where we could stand and look across to North Africa. There were lots of monkeys running amok here and one even jumped on to the head of one of our ladies causing lots of screams,” he says with a chuckle.
The Travel Club’s overseas adventures do not stop at cruising holidays however. Wallace travelled to Belgium and Luxembourg in September 2004 on an eight-day break with 44 people, organised by Airedale Tours. “I very much enjoyed this tour,’ he remembers. “Amongst other excursions, we spent a full day in Brussels, where we took in all of the sights on a pre-arranged guided city tour and another full day exploring Luxembourg.”
Also organised by Airedale Tours was a three-day cruise aboard the P&O Ferries vessel ‘Pride of Hull’. Forty-six members accompanied Wallace and the cruise set sail in May 2002 from Kingston-upon-Hull. “The cruise was simply marvellous,” says Wallace enthusiastically. “It was all in aid of a fantastic world horticultural event that only comes around every 10 years called ‘Floriade’, which was taking place in Holland.”
Future endeavours
Looking to the future, Wallace has no immediate plans to slow down and is busy organising trips for this year. “I am planning a three-day ‘South Wales Weekend’ in March in conjunction with InterChoice Holidays, staying in Swansea,” he reveals. “There will also be two overseas trips in May; a seven-day holiday in Malta with Kent-based Mercury Direct, who he will be using for the first time, and a six-day cruise to Norway with Travelscope. Also with Travelscope will be our six-day cruise to Vancouver in September.”
Evidently, the Peterborough U3A Travel Club will remain as busy as ever. “Organising for the Travel Club has been the most exciting part of my retirement,” Wallace says. “And when you are approached by your members – especially those who have recently lost a partner – telling you how much of a difference the Travel Club makes to their lives, it’s all so worth while,” he concludes.