Butlin’s Holidays
A
British institution
History of Billy Butlin
Billy Butlin was born William Heygate Colbourne Butlin in Cape Town, South Africa on the 29th September 1899. Butlin’s father was the son of a clergyman who had been sent to South Africa as a sort of punishment for being the black sheep of the family. Billy’s mother, Bertha Hill was the daughter of a baker turned fairground, traveling showmen. The marriage between his parents did not last very long and Billy’s mother soon found herself, young Billy and his brother living back in Bristol England with Bertha’s sister Jessie. Soon after arriving in Bristol Bertha decided to spend the summer traveling around different fairgrounds running a gingerbread stall for her brother, whilst her sister look after the two young boys. Unfortunately soon after they arrive back in England, Billy’s brother sadly died of infantile paralysis. This prompted Bertha to take Billy with her on her travels. During his younger years Billy Butlin travelled to many different places around the world. Whilst in Canada the First World War broke out so Billy went and signed up for the Canadian army against his mother’s wishes.
After the war ended Billy stayed in Canada to 1921, then Billy decided to return to England. Shortly after arriving back in Bristol, he started to look for work. It wasn’t long before he found work at Dorney’s Yard, which was a winter’s retreat for a travelling fairground. He started work on fixing and painting the rides for the summer fair. After settling in and working hard his uncle helped Billy to set up a small stall. The stall was a hoopla hoop type stall, the sort you throw the hoop over the little wooden blocks to win a prize. His first fair was held at Axebridge and it was a big success giving Billy a £10 clear profit a lot of money in those days. This amount was much better than the other stallholders. Instead of making it hard to win a prize Billy thought that it would be a good idea to let people win more offend by making the block smaller so the hoop would go over the block easier. This was so that people would tell their friends and return to spent more money. It was like they were almost guaranteed a prize at Billy’s stall and people love it. It wasn’t long before Billy started to think about expanding his business and came up with the idea of having a goldfish stall as well as the hula hoop stall. To make it look professional he kitted out his team with uniforms, made by Wildman’s a local business near Skegness. This consisted of a Red Blazer, White shirt, Red stripe tie and white trousers. The famous B on the pocket was added a bit later on. This made Billy’s workers the first workers to wear a uniform at an amusement park in the British Isles. Also he used the colours blue and yellow to paint he's stall. The same colour scheme he would use in the first Butlin's Holiday camp at Skegness.
The first camp did not come along that easy. Billy had all the plans, ideas and the backing for the camp but he did not have a location. One morning as the story goes Billy was being driven from his home in Skegness to an amusement park in Mablethrope. As the driver drove along they came very close to a village called Ingoldmells. At that point something in Billy’s head switch on and he told the driver to stop and he got out of the car and said, “I’m going to build my camp right here”. The site didn’t look much just turnip fields and bad farming land but it was on the main road to Skegness and something inside Billy just clicked. Work started on the first camp in October 1935 and the camp was opened on Easter Sunday 1936 by Amy Johnson who was the first woman to fly from England to Australia.
Butlin’s launched a big advertising campaign in the Daily Mail to promote the holiday camp. Billy Butlin was offering three meals a day all for 35 shillings or £3.00 a week according to the time of year. This had never been done before and the English holiday camp was born. Mr Butlin thought that the holidaymakers had settled in well and were enjoying them self’s, but he thought that something was missing they were lacking enthusiasm. So Billy came up with one of he’s best ideas and The Redcoat was born and Butlin’s would become a household name.
Bognor Regis Camp
The Bognor Regis camp was opened in 1960 and covered 60 acres being located a short distance from the town. The camp could hold 5,000 campers and had space to accommodate up to 5,000-day visitors. As the camp was being built heavy rain caused flooding that hampered the building. This made it hard for the workers to build on and the building programme fell behind. When the first holidaymakers arrived, the camp was not finished and the campers were offered alternative accommodation at the Clapton on Sea site. Some people decided to go but a lot of the holidaymakers stayed and they helped to finish the camp. Billy was so happy with these campers that he brought each one of them a bottle of champagne to say thank you for their help.
In the early eighties a lot of Butlin’s camps closed as cheap overseas holidays became more popular with the public. The Bognor Southcoast World. There was a newly built indoor water complex and all the holidays’ chalets were refurbished and updated. In 1998 there was another refit to the Bognor Regis site costing around £45 million this time. The refit was to bring Bognor into line with the other two sites Minehead and Skegness, which are the only other two surviving camps. The site was totally redesigned and was to have a centrepiece like Skegness and Minehead; this was a large under cover, structure called The Skyline Pavilion. This enables all the entrainment and other facilities to be undercover and accessible all year round. There also upgraded the chalets and the uniform was redesign for the Redcoats. In 2005 the Shoreline Hotel and surrounding landscaping was added costing £10 million the hotel has 160 rooms with all the normal hotel comforts as well as all the use of the Butlin facilities. The hotel was a big success and in 2009 a second hotel called The Ocean Hotel was opened. These hotels are very popular and Butlin’s are building a third hotel on the site called The Wave Hotel which will be opened later on this year.
