I visited Golden Sands 40 years ago in August 1968 with my daughter and then partner on a cheap Balkantour holiday. There were 4 hotels possibly. Meals were on a voucher system. Breakfast was not a Bulgarian concept. Coffee was made by machine on the beach from beans to expresso/turkish. Rose scented sunoil attracted 100s of wasps. The sea was cold and the weather hot. There were real peasant crafts, real Roma with dancing bears, real Roma/Bulgarian music, Muslim families, communes to visit, and the Mullah Nasreddin to laugh at - the guy who rode a donkey backwards to make his flatterers look silly!
In Sofia the Bulgarian security were beating up left-wing international students prior to the student revolution that affected every European country East and West and also America. I was a student at LSE. By chance we met my partner's relatives, Uncle, Aunt and second cousin from Canada. They were working class Jews, International Labour League activists - that is communists and one was a Maoist who lived in China.
It was a strange different world. Now we are strangely different.
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