Holidays to Butlin's might be on hold at the moment but a new book evokes memories of summertime fun at the Skegness camp visited by thousands of Notts families.
Barry Lewis, who worked at the camp in the 1960s, portrays all the colour and laughter of a particularly wet summer, capturing a defiant national spirit at a time when Billy Butlin’s original vision of ‘fun for all the family’ was under threat from cheap foreign travel and the faltering English weather.
In Butlin's Holiday Camp 1982, photographs show a knobbly knee competition, Red Coats entertaining visitors with a rendition of the Birdie Song, Mushie the lion, kids at play and mealtimes.
Barry says: "My photographs from over 35 years ago seem to be looking even further back, to a vanished age – the hair and clothing styles, the attitudes, the activities, the wartime buildings – with a certain innocence, in a world before mobile phones and the internet, where a holiday was annual and special, making everyone determined to enjoy themselves to the full, whatever the weather!"
The hardback book, published by Hoxton Mini Press, is priced £16.95.
