It could be said the tourists were a little perturbed this summer. There was much muttering about journalists and I was asked if I had tipped off the quality London daily.

In Tamariu, Spain, it was business as usual with those who arrive there every year for their holiday in the little village, which I have likened to Flaunden by the sea - a little bay on the Costa Brava, some distance in appeal and miles from the likes of Palamos and Estartit. It has seven bar-restaurants and a hotel on the front. There is not room for any more in the small bay between the rocks, and the one late night disco died in the early 1990s. It is as far removed from Magaluf as is Moor Park from Blackpool.

And that was why the regulars at Tamariu were concerned. The London quality national had listed Tamariu as having one of the top 20 beaches in Europe and hinted that it was in the top ten.

The thought of so many holiday-makers committing to a last-minute booking for Tamariu and descending on the resort caused anxiety among the regulars.

In fact the accompanying article focused on the fact the reporter found few people on the beach who were prepared to talk about Tamariu. The simple reason is that they want to keep it secret.

I reassured those that asked, I had nothing to do with the article and their fears were probably groundless. The Mail on Sunday featured a full colour photo of Tamariu on the front page of their leisure section back in the 1990s and an even bigger spread was devoted to it in the Sunday Times a couple of years later, again on the front page of the section. But we did not note any discernible difference in the number of English who came here in subsequent years.

The area is not cheap because this stretch of the Costa Brava is within car-driving distance for much of Europe, it is perhaps the most expensive stretch of Spanish coastline. We camped in our motor-home for a month there; enjoying electricity, toilets and the newly-built modern shower block for the price it would have cost us to rent an apartment for a week: 700 euros. The 2,100 euro saving we made by using our motor home has in fact helped to pay another installment for the vehicle we bought eight years ago. We have stayed two weeks, mostly three but never a month before and one of the bonuses is that it has enabled me to catch up with many familiar faces on the beach, every year.

No matter if we visited Egypt or holidayed in the States or wherever, we have always been able to spare at least a week every year for Tamariu, and as now it is only three-hours by car and four in the camper from our home in the Tarn, it is little more than a morning’s drive away.

The days when we came to the village with four and then five girls has long since past but three of them are regular visitors over the years and the other two have bought an apartment in Javea on the Costa Blanca so the Spanish experience has certainly taken root: not least with the youngest who lives just outside Barcelona.

One morning, I had a brief exchange with a familiar figure on the beach, who was engaged in conversation with a mature couple. A little later, the female swam out, passed the comment that the sea was refreshing and in conversation I learnt she and her husband live in Sheffield. I then asked if she had been coming to Tamariu for many years.

“This is only my second visit, I am almost embarrassed to say. The man we were talking to, as you probably know, has been coming here 40 years, like most of the others we meet,” she said.

It is that sort of place: family and children-friendly with the front just a pedestrian precinct. Some England rugby players arrived there in the mid 60s and they are still coming every year. Their children have grown up and they in turn have returned with their new families.

“You look round the beach and it is sobering,” admitted Valerie, a former teacher who hails from the Manchester area. “You see the faces and they all look a year older and you notice that. Then you realise they must be thinking the same about you.”

In essence they are acquaintances rather than friends. We are pleased to see each other, much like an old school reunion, but we do not keep in touch during the other 48-50 weeks of the year but it is nice to catch up.

My wife Ellie cannot drink because of her medication and has never been one for swimming. So I head for the beach and later, after we have had a meal out, I go to a bar or two.

One night we ate in the village and the next day, one of the regulars on the beach asked: “Who was that woman you were eating with last night?”

She was amazed to learn it was my wife, and swore she had never seen her in the past 25 years. “You keep her locked up and never bring her out.”

In fact we go for a meal at sundry restaurants in the area every night but rarely in Tamariu because they excel at fish but not the meat dishes we prefer. While some might find it strange, Ellie enjoys her time at the campsite. She reads many books, plays games such as Scrabble against various opponents on the internet, sunbathes an hour in the morning and again in the afternoon and enjoys the tranquility and, I suspect, obtaining a few hours break from her constant companion in retirement: me.

When our youngest came up with her family for the last week, our grand-daughter, May, persuaded Ellie to put on her swimming costume and dip into the campsite swimming pool.

We had almost four rain-free weeks and they were pretty much cloud-free as well. The Costa Brava was hotter than the Costa Blanca in the south for much of the 28 days and it was even more ironic, it was hotter still up north, in our home in The Tarn.

It was sufficiently hot for non-swimmer Ellie to join the six-year-old in the pool. Later she showed me, with May’s egging, how she could put her head under the water. She had never undertaken that voluntarily before.

“Quite why someone would want to do that for pleasure, escapes me,” she said.