This film was made by cinema projectionist Ken Shaw, who filmed his family holidays at Butlins Filey during the 1970s. The YFA have these for three years running in 1974, 1975 and 1976. Ken initially owned his own cinema, the Savoy, in Sale, just outside of Manchester. Having sold this he became a projectionist at several cinemas: the Classic in Bury, the Palace in Staleybridge and the Palladium in Oldham. Ken also worked with Delta Films, the north’s leading distributor of motion pictures (one of their vans can be seen in the film, which he had borrowed for the holiday). The films were deposited by Ken’s daughter, now Gisela Szlatoszlavek, who can be seen in the film as a small girl. Gisela herself took over from her father and has made many of her own films with a camcorder of her holidays at Butlins’ camps.

 

In contrast to some amateur holiday films Ken was able to use his love and knowledge of film to some structure into the films. The film has a definite narrative form, with a beginning and end, so that it feels like a whole day of typical seaside holiday activities.  The viewpoints taken up by the camera add to this sense.

 

The films as a whole give a good picture of a holiday camp in the mid 1970s. This film from 1975 is fairly typical of them. The other films feature the Regency, a 'Glamorous Legs Competition' and various bands playing popular songs of the day. They all provide an interesting view of some of the fashions of the time.

 

Billy Butlin started opening amusement parks across Britain between 1927 and 1935. Born in South Africa, but spending his childhood in both England and Canada, Billy Butlin (later Sir) opened his first seaside holiday camp at Skegness in 1936 – charging £3 10 shillings a week inclusive – followed by Clacton in 1938 and Filey in 1939. The land for Filey was bought for £12,000, although the site wasn’t completed before the Second World War came along. Billy Butlin used this to do a deal with Hore-Belisha, the Secretary of State for War – shortly before he was sacked in January 1940. The deal was for the Government to finance the completion of the camp – camps were taken over and used by the military for the duration of the war – and for Butlins to buy it back as soon as the war was over, along with four others, all ready to be easily converted back from army camps to holiday camps.  Not only did Butlin lease out his existing camps to the Navy, he also had sites built for wartime use to his specifications so that he could easily convert them back. He leased these out to the Government, buying them back at 60% of cost price

 

In adverts during the 1940s and 1950s the camps were referred to as "Holiday Villages By-the-Sea".   Filey was to become one of the largest of the Butlins camps, with a capacity of 11,000 at its peak.

 

However, Butlin was pipped to the post by Jack Warner, who opened his first holiday camp at Hayling Island in 1931. He was followed by Walthamstow-born Fred Pontin, who opened his first holiday camp in 1946. Although rivals, Butlin and Warner became good friends and Warner helped with the design of the new Filey camp. But apparently on one occasion Billy Butlin turned up incognito at Pontin's Brean Sands camp to have a look.  Being spotted by the camp photographer, Butlin ended up having his picture in one of Warner’s brochures under a heading of, ‘All the best people come to Pontin's’! 

 

In their heyday in the 1960s, British seaside holiday camps attracted more than a million visitors a week. Whatever criticism the camps have got over the years – they don’t suit everyone – they have provided relatively cheap family entertainment for many years, and make it easy for hard pressed parents with children.  For more on the history of holiday camps see the Background Information for the YFA Online film Cayton NALGO.

 

By the time this film was made some of the older forms of ‘entertainment’, like the knobbly knees and glamorous granny competitions were being faded out by Billy Butlin’s son, Bobby Butlin, who took over as Chairman and Managing Director of Butlins holiday camps in 1968. Other notable features of the holiday camps were the Redcoats, and the Butlin's Beavers.  Holiday camps have spawned a host of commercial offshoots, including books of holiday romance and mystery: such as W. Murray’s The Holiday Camp Mystery. Perhaps the most famous spinoff was the 1980s BBC TV series Hi de Hi, set in a fictional camp in 1960s Essex. Created by Jimmy Perry and David Croft – who wrote many TV comedies – it was inspired by Jimmy Perry's real life experiences as a Butlin's Red Coat.

 

Butlins at Filey closed in 1983 for financial reasons, and was gradually demolished. Various attempts have been made to make the site a success in the meantime; the latest being by developers Essential Vivendi in partnership with Hoseasons. Going from nine Butlins camps in the mid 1960s, there are now just three: Bognor Regis, Minehead and Skegness.  During the 1970s more than 10,000 people stayed each week at a single Butlins camp, with 1980 a record year when 1.2 million holidaymakers visited Butlins.  Recently both Pontin's and Butlins have invested heavily in upgrading their resorts, and

after a long period when foreign holidays dominated, things are again picking up: around 4.5 million people now visit British holiday camps. 

 

 

Victor Middleton, British Tourism, Elsevier, London 2005.

John Walton, The British Seaside: Holidays and Resorts in the Twentieth Century, Manchester University Press, 2000.

Colin Ward, Goodnight campers!: the history of the British holiday camp, Taylor & Francis, London, 1986.

 

 

Rex North, The Butlin Story, Jarrolds, London, 1962.