Holiday camp

This article is about the UK tourist accommodation. For the 1947 comedy film, see Holiday Camp (film).

Holiday camp, in Britain, generally refers to a resort with a boundary that includes accommodation, entertainment and other facilities.

As distinct from camping, accommodation typically consisted of chalets – small flats/apartments arranged in blocks of three or four storeys, and terraces of ten to twenty long. In the UK large numbers (some in the many hundreds) of static caravans are termed holiday camps.

History

Cunningham's Young Men's Holiday Camp on the Isle of Man is sometimes regarded as the first holiday camp. However, it differed from the definition above – especially as accommodation was still in tents.

Billy Butlin is generally regarded as the man who created the holiday camp as defined above, stating that he was dissatisfied with the appalling quality of facilities available to British holidaymakers. However there were already a number of camps in existence before he opened his first site at Skegness in 1936.

What distinguished Butlins was the size of the camps and the range of entertainments available. His primary competitors were Pontin's (founded by Fred Pontin, first site in 1946) and Warners (founded by Harry Warner, first site in 1931). Neither could match Butlins for sheer ambition and by the 1960s and 1970s Butlins had vastly more customers than the other camps put together.

There are usually extensive childcare facilities such as a crèche and various clubs to keep youngsters occupied, enabling parents to follow their own pursuits.

In addition there are usually other facilities for which a fee is charged: bars, restaurants, amusement arcades.

However, by the mid 1970s the market began to decline as people began to holiday abroad taking advantage of the new, cheap package holidays. The smaller size of the Pontins camps meant that they suffered less during this period of decline than did Butlins, having fewer beds to fill.

In the 1980s many camps were shut down, holiday camps seemed increasingly to represent family poverty, lack of imagination and low social standing. People wanted to be seen to be taking aspirational holidays, either in the sun or to see the cultural histories of European cities. 1983 saw the Butlins Camps close in Filey and Clacton.

However in the 1990s substantial investment in the remaining camps (including Butlins original Skegness site) continued, and new entrants (such as Center Parcs) boosted the quality and popularity of the offering, especially for young families. In the late 1990s two of the Butlins remaining camps were substantially rebuilt and branded Haven – Pwllheli becoming Hafan y Mor and Ayr becoming Craig Tara. Meanwhile the number of Pontins Camps were dramatically reduced with several sold off or redeveloped for housing estates. Warner's camps were also sold off at this time and the Warner name used for a series of leisure hotels instead of camps.

Over recent years a number of camping directory’s have been launched on the web to help campers find their perfect campsites. The fastest growing directory is www.campingsitesinbritain.co.uk and the number of new campsites being added daily keeps increasing.

Entertainment

Included in the price would be entertainments provided on site. These would include all or some of the following:

• Ballroom dancing
• Swimming pool
• Funfair
• Table tennis
• Snooker / 8 Ball Pool
• Cinema
• Bingo

Catering

Holidaymakers would pay a fee for their accommodation and decide whether to go full board (all meals would also be included in the price), half board (only the main meal would be included) or self catering (no meals provided). At the larger camps it was not impossible for up to 10,000 people needing to be catered for. these camps would have two sittings for each meal, usually an hour apart. This could mean that a camp would serve over 200,000 meals per week, all cooked on site. In a typical year in the early 1960s, Butlins would cook:

• 3.5 million eggs
• 100 tons of sausages
• 120,000 gallons of soup
• 1,570 tons of potatoes
• 34 tons of tea (enough for over 20 million cups)

• 240 tons of pork chops (requiring over 8,000 pigs!)

Colour coats

One yardstick of the relative cultural impact of the three companies is that the Butlins' Redcoats (a sort of hybrid of general staff, entertainer and steward) are remembered more vividly than Pontins' Bluecoats and Warners' Greencoats are hardly remembered at all. With the growth of caravan parks in the 1970s and 1980's, the entertainment teams adopted new names that didn't describe the 'stripey' style jackets they wore. Most notably were HavenMates and TeamStars.

Famous ex-redcoats

• Michael Barrymore
• Cliff Richard
• Jimmy Tarbuck
• Jimmy Perry – co-writer of Dad's Army and Hi-de-Hi! (a comedy set in a holiday camp)
• Dave Allen

Famous ex-bluecoats

• Shane Richie
• Brian Conley

Famous ex-greencoats

• Roger deCoursey
• Joe Pasquale

External links

• [1] Butlins website
• [2] Pontins website
• [3] Haven website
• The Guardian – Happy Campers – Comedian Johnny Vegas recalls holidays at Butlins
• [4] Pontins camps closed & remaining
• http://www.campingsitesinbritain.co.uk - Camping Site Directory to help you find your perfect campsite

See also

• Trabolgan Holiday Village