Butlin’s
“Our true intent is all for your delight”.
In 1936 Billy Butlin had a dream to create a miniature seaside resort, an enclosed fantasy world, for its residents to echo the lives of the rich and famous, but cheap enough for working people. This book looks back to a vanished age: the hair and clothing styles, the attitudes, the activities, the wartime buildings, but with the innocence of a world before mobile phones and the internet, when holidays felt special, with everyone determined to enjoy themselves, whatever the weather!
Butlin’s Holiday Camp is available from Hoxton Mini Press https://www.hoxtonminipress.com/
Saturday morning arrivals
Reception hall, check in
A wet start to the holiday
Redcoats welcome a new day
Butlin's Skegness, unchanged since its life as a military camp in WW2
Billy Butlin's idea for the contest came after meeting Marlene Dietrich and being stunned to find she was a grandparent
The "human aquarium" swimming pool
TV rooms, one for each channel
After the Space Hopper competition
Spiderman passing a group of chambermaids
Before camera phones, the photobooth
Judging the Miss Lovely Legs competition
Donkey Derby during a rainstorm
Knobbly Knees competition
The funky chicken dance
Baron Wolfgang leading a conga through the camp
Sorting the soiled bedding on changeover day
Tired Redcoat in the reception hall
Happy Campers waiting for the sun
Lincoln dining hall