A PENSIONER who will lift the lid on the golden age of the British holiday today admitted: "It's not like it used to be."

Eva Kay is one of the stars in a programme about post-war holidays in Britain to be aired on television.

Eva, of Brooklands, off Livesey Branch Road, Blackburn, was one of hundreds of people whose experiences of 1950s holidays will make up the hour-long documentary Blackpool to Butlins.

And the 68-year-old said: "Those were the days." Eva was of an era when Blackburn would decamp to coastal resorts -- mainly Blackpool -- when the town's industries would shut down for the annual Wakes week every July. She said: "If you were not staying in the same guest house as your neighbour you would see them on the beach. Everybody knew each other and Blackpool was not just the place to be but it was the only place a lot of people could afford"

With everybody knowing everybody else the chance of a holiday romance was slim.

Eva said: "If you were courting the two of you would never go away on your own, we would always go away with another couple and the girls would stay in one room and the boys in another.

"We would go to the same guest house as our parents so the landlady would know your mum and dad and we didn't even think about sneaking into the other rooms."

Such was Eva's love for the Lancashire resort she and husband Joe had their honeymoon there.

But she said: "We still go but only on day visits now because we don't like all the drinking. When we went it really was an age of innocence and people would dress up, nowadays anything goes."

Eva and Joe can be seen on Friday at 10pm on ITV.