IT was a fairly standard British August, I suppose. The crisp heat of June and July had gone off the boil and curdled into oppressive mugginess.

August. The month of thunderstorms, horrible little bugs that delight in tormenting humans and the time of year that is forever associated with harvest.

Autumn starts in August. The best of the summer has now gone as the first brown tints appear in the tops of trees and russet starts to move like a painter's brush over the hedgerows.

But why should I care that the best had gone. For my family and I were off on our holidays and about to leave all our woes and cares behind.

I'll never forget August 1963. That was the year my parents had decided to break with tradition and go somewhere different for a change.

Throughout the 1950s, we had loyally trekked to the east coast and stayed at a village called Anderby Creek, just south of Skegness. Ahead lay a two-week saga of bitingly cold winds, mudflats and chips fried in lard.

The journey itself was a large part of the fun. The big, black taxi would arrive at the house and the four of us would pile in. The smell in the car was utterly delectable - an intoxicating blend of Woodbine smoke, polish and hot sun on walnut wood dashboard.

Then there was the train, this coal-stained monster huffing and puffing its irritable way along the platform. And the driver, of course, with his cheeky, grimy face and shiny cap.

But everyone else was smartly dressed. It might have been a hot August day, but Dad wore his suit, collar and tie, topped off with his best trilby hat. His hand luggage included a garden spade which he carried next to him in the carriage, like a soldier with his rifle.

A garden spade? Yes. Such was his enthusiasm for making sandcastles that he always went equipped with his garden spade. The toy metal spades with the red blades invariably broke two or three days into the holiday, you see.

No good at all for serious beach work.

If one meant business, then it was necessary to go equipped with the right gear. But a man in a suit, on a train, clutching a garden spade? Seems perfectly normal to me...

But there was to be no pilgrimage to Anderby this year. No. This time, the train was heading due south, bound for Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

We travelled through the night, and I seem to recall that we changed trains at a place called Woodford Halse in Northamptonshire. Then it was straight down to join the Ryde ferry just as the dawn was coming up.

It is always a thrilling feeling to see the early morning mist clear over the Channel. Such surges of excitement and anticipation persist to this day.

But compared to previous holidays, this one would be marked by one notable difference. For instead of staying in self-catering accommodation, this time we would be lodging at an hotel.

Now, you might not think that such a move held any real significance. But believe you me, it did. And, at this stage of the narrative, I should now perhaps couch what follows in somewhat delicate terms and tones.

I will get straight to the point. The thing is, that, erm... I used to wet the bed. Not every night, of course, but nevertheless with sufficient regularity to pose a problem when going on holiday.

Up and until then, my parents had worked around the handicap by choosing a bungalow or flat. But this time we were staying in an hotel. And common decency decreed that my nocturnal incontinences should not be inflicted on the innocent staff at the Cedars Hotel, Ryde, Isle of Wight.

This establishment was run by a Mrs Marshall, a strange shrew-like creature who exuded a kind of rodent-esque friendliness. Easily confused, then as now, I provoked a gale of laughter when, upon being introduced, chirruped: "Pleased to meet you, Mrs Cedars. I trust you are the proprietor of The Marshalls?"

Despite this inauspicious start, the good lady seemed pleasant enough. I was just glad she did not know about my dark secret.

And she need never know. For my mother had devised a master plan to eliminate the slightest risk of causing stress to the snow-white, crisply laundered sheets of The Cedars. It was breathtakingly simple, yet potentially devastating in its effectiveness.

Plastic pyjamas. Yes, completely waterproof jim-jams, tailormade and rendered even more effective by the added feature of elasticated bottoms and cuffs.

Each night I was to be sealed in this polythene capsule, like an astronaut encased in his space suit.

Nothing could get in - but, more importantly, nothing could escape. And as an added precaution, the neck to the jacket was polo-style, thus counteracting any seepage heading in a northerly direction.

I am sure the reader will not accuse me of overstatement if I said that the prospect of some pretty steamy nights lay in store. It was August, after all.

Our accommodation at The Cedars was a family room, all four of us making do, and preserving our modesty as best we could. My sister slept behind a kind of screen, my parents' bed being in the middle of the room.

Yours truly's sleeping arrangements were situated in the space between the wardrobe and the sink.

I'll never forget that last night. Mum and Dad were listening to their portable wireless and my sister was poring over a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of Constable's The Haywain. I was sat up in bed reading Into The Rocky Mountains, a tale of the Old West.

Came the night. And an uneventful one, at that. And, praise be, nothing to report on matters to do with dryness or otherwise. Although, I was not altogether comfortable - sleeping in plastic togs on an August night is not really conducive to a cool period of slumber.

I awoke, and through my bleary, sleep-kissed peepers, I could make out the unmistakable form of my father reading that morning's Daily Telegraph. The entire page was covered in masses of black type.

There was a picture of what appeared to be a bridge spanning a railway line. My father looked up from the page.

"There's been a great train robbery. They think several million quid has been stolen," he gasped, particles of burning tobacco ash falling from his pipe to the floor and singeing the pile.

The entire room fell silent. We didn't know it at the time, but a man called Ronnie Biggs and his gang of robbers had pulled off the crime of the century.

Britain was in a state of shock for the remainder of that summer of exactly 40 years ago. And so was I. And I'd like to take this opportunity to belatedly thank the Great Train robbers for achieving what those plastic pyjamas could never have done.

I can only suppose it must have been the shock of the whole thing. For the whole episode stopped me wetting the bed. For the time being, at least.

n Next week: Children, Edward? No Tubbs - demons, monsters!