How did Butlin's start

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A.� All through the vision of William Heygate Edmond Colborne Butlin, a quiet but astoundingly successful businessman.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� Biography please

A.� Billy Butlin was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1899. His mother was a West Country woman who imported and sold bicycles. She returned to Bristol and young Billy spent most of the time in a caravan with little education. They moved to Canada where his mother remarried and at the age of 15, Billy spent a holiday at a lakeside summer camp. It gave him an idea.

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Q.� Which led to ...

A.� Butlin served in the First World War with the Canadian Army and afterwards returned to England where he got to know travelling fair folk in Bristol. He joined them - and began to have revolutionary ideas, upping the prizes at the hoopla stall until he was making big profits. By 1927 he opened an amusement arcade at Skegness, Lincolnshire and soon another in nearby Mablethorpe. By 1933 he was employing 900 men plus 2,000 seasonal workers. And then came the first holiday camp...

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Q.� Where

A.� Skegness in 1936. Butlin designed the camp: 1,000 people in 600 chalets with electricity, running water, 250 bathrooms, dining and recreational halls,� theatre, gymnasium, swimming pool and boating lake. The grounds had tennis courts, bowling and putting greens and cricket pitches. This was a luxury camp, with three meals a day, and free entertainment from 35 shillings to �3 a week, depending on the season. And then there were the redcoats...

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Q.� Who

A.� The redcoats made sure the holidaymakers were happy campers. First redcoat was Norman Bradford, who invented the idea. He also first coined the phrase Hi-De-Hi...

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Q.� Hi-De-Ho!

A.� Correct reply. Butlin planned another camp, at Clacton-on-Sea in Essex and it was built in 1938 after initial local opposition. Its theatre featured stars such as Gracie Fields, Florence Edmonds, Elsie and Doris Walters, Jack Warner and Will Fry.

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Q.� And then war...

A.� In September, 1939, as war broke out, Butlin's camps were requisitioned. Soldiers took over Clacton's accommodation and the Navy had Skegness.

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Q.� After the war

A.� Camps still retained their popularity and the empire expanded throughout the United Kingdom. Highlights included the introduction of Chinese meals in 1958 (one menu: chicken chop suey and chips) and the appearance the same year of Cliff Richards and the Drifters (later the Shadows) in the Pig and Whistle bar at Clacton.

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Q.� And how was Billy doing

A.� Billy was knighted in 1964 and retired to Jersey in 1968 for tax reasons, handing over control to his son Bobby. Times, however, were changing. Lunch was abandoned - and holidaymakers could buy that from outlets in the camps. Another aspect of the 'family' theme went by the board when midnight cabarets were introduced for adults-only audiences. The company also started to diversify into caravan parks. Instead of being the trendsetter, Butlin's was becoming the camp follower. Fortunes revived, however, and Butlin's began too surge ahead of the competition.

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Q.� Then

A.� In 1972, the firm was sold to Top Rank, with Bobby Butlin remaining managing director. Radio Butlin played the last 'Wakey Wakey' call to holidaymakers in 1977. Sir Billy Butlin died in June, 1980: his headstone at St John's cemetery, St Helier, Jersey, adorned with images such as a holiday camp scene and a Skegness fisherman. Clacton Holiday Camp was closed as uneconomic in 1983.

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By Steve Cunningham

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