By the 1980s, after decades of immense popularity, the great British holiday camp was in terminal decline. The huge camps founded by Billy Butlin and Fred Pontin — the chalets, the dining hall, the redcoats (Butlin’s) and bluecoats (Pontins) — were becoming passé. Now the few that remain have been rebranded as holiday villages.
But why not bring them back? Surely old-fashioned camps had exactly what we need today: simplicity, gentle fun and a sense of community. They were about team effort, not atomised nuclear families. Above all perhaps, they had a sense of identity. And they were a life-changer for me.
I recently came across an online video of Gunton Hall, near Lowestoft, in the late 1970s. The film — all 19 minutes of it — was sheer time travel, because there on the screen, along with hundreds of other campers, were my brother, my dad and me.
Also recorded for posterity were the canoe races — no life jackets, only rickety vessels on a deep lake; the donkey derbies with more hair-raising spills than the Grand National; and the archery without adult supervision. It’s a wonder that we all survived without serious injury, but we did — possibly because we’d learned to watch out for ourselves.
There was a structure to a week in the camp; it wasn’t simply about lazing around. When people arrived, they’d be split into two houses. For the rest of the week, dozens of activities helped gain points for your house. These were done as a family, with no individual prizes. After months locked up in our homes, don’t we yearn for a sense of shared endeavour again?
For my parents, the experience was bitter-sweet. My dad had lost a very good job, so the overseas holidays went, together with the nice car and sharp suits.
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