The Sunday Times - UK (2021-12-19)

The Sunday Times December 19, 2021 5

Travel Family

BUTLIN’S...

BUT NOT AS YOU

KNOW IT

BUTLINS; ELLEN HIMELFARB

MY FATHER THE ‘REV’ COAT

Billy Butlin was the

grandson of a vicar, and

in pious, churchgoing

postwar Britain he built

Church of England

chapels in every Butlin’s

camp across the land.

Butlin soon found

himself in need of vicars

to fill them with — step

forward my dad, John

Harries-Jones, who in

the 1970s was given a

seasonal role as a roving

Butlin’s clergyman,

while the diocese of

Bangor covered his own

parish in north Wales.

Over two decades he

took up short residences

in Butlin’s holiday camps

— from Filey in the east

to Pwllheli in the west,

from Barry Island in the

south to Ayr in the north.

The job spec for a

holiday camp vicar was

broad — there was Holy

Communion almost

daily, children’s services

and sympathetic visits to

guests who wound up

in local hospitals. A key

task for a Butlin’s vicar

was judging the “bonny

baby” competition,

which — with Christian

charity — he always

awarded to the ugliest

and/or most dishevelled

infant on show.

Once, in Filey, he was

approached by a couple

who had attended a

morning service. They

had eloped to Butlin’s

and wanted to marry

without their families’

knowledge. With a

special licence hastily

arranged by the vicar of

Filey, Dad organised a

snap wedding. Mum was

the witness, a reception

was held in the bride’s

chalet and champagne

was served in tooth

mugs. The groom was

91; the bride 89.

Bethan Harries-Jones

John Harries-Jones

100 miles

Minehead

Skegness

Bognor

Regis

Manon, left, and Milla found Butlin’s to

be on target for adults and kids alike

prevented us from parking in Siberia had

I downloaded it earlier. When I did, I

found a resort map more detailed and

accurate than Google’s, and pages through

which to book activities and order food.

As it was, the parking attendant handed

over our keys for immediate access to our

two-bedroom apartment in the Wave, a

pristine hotel with art deco curves by the

architects who redesigned the five-star

Lime Wood in Hampshire. For the price

some campsites charge, I got an en suite

king room and the girls had a bunk

room with a TV on each tier. I

had to drag them out to the

main pavilion.

Once I had, they

wouldn’t leave. The

Butlin’s programmers

are no amateurs,

obviously. They know a

“silent” screening of Frozen

will entrance 200 juniors in

giant headphones, and that

Latin music in Studio 36 will

satisfy the olds. We found the

stragglers at the all-hours arcade,

a super-sized 21st-century update

of the one-armed bandit days.

For all the West End-style

shows and appearances from

Peppa Pig and PJ Masks, the

games are the resort’s real crowd-pleaser

— regularly Windolened and patrolled by

staff clutching allen keys to clear coin

jams. While Milla and Manon tripped

through three rounds of Dance Dance

Revolution I settled into the adjacent bar

with a welcome glass of merlot. Maybe

I hadn’t quite fallen for this place, but

I was more than coping.

When the girls discovered the

two-penny slots I bolted from my post to

cheer them on. The joyous symphony of

clinking copper on metal? Not even King

George could have resisted, I reckon. Over

two hours we blew through a cool tenner.

We made it to archery, eventually.

To keep things interesting our resident

bow-woman set up a competition, and

the girls took to their weapons like Katniss

Everdeen. Not about to lose to a pair of

nine-year-old boys, Milla led off with

a lucky bull’s eye and, for a finale, shot

a balloon clear off her rival’s target.

Celebration came in the form of a few

laps of the go-kart circuit.

Heading back to the Wave we paused,

captivated, outside a pre-schoolers’

pottery-painting workshop. Above them,

flashing screens exhorted us all to “feel

the magic”. Sure, I stifled an eye roll, but

I could tell the kids were feeling it.

Children don’t see kitsch; they don’t know

Bognor from Bodrum. Pleasing kids was

never a problem for Butlin’s.

It rained on our final day. I thought

about chucking it in, but the girls took me

exploring. We uncovered a billiards hall

with a full ten-pin bowling alley — booked

up by parents wiser than me. Then, for

fun, I dragged them into a staging of the

Little Mermaid at the pavilion’s theatre.

I know you’ve outgrown your mermaid

years, I said. Let’s just take a peek.

An hour later they were still rapt. If

that’s not magic, I don’t know what is.

Ellen Himelfarb and family were guests

of Butlin’s, which has four-night breaks

in 2022 from £84 for a family of four

(butlins.com); four nights’ room only

at the Wave in Bognor from £116 for four

Knobbly knees are old news, finds Ellen Himelfarb on

a family trip to Bognor with some very happy campers

I

knew the weekend was a winner

as soon as I realised I’d lost my

child in the pool. I wasn’t worried,

I should say. Camilla, now 12 and

a capable swimmer, was in the

competent sights of several unflappable

lifeguards. But the reason her

disappearance counted as a result was

because it was two hours since we’d

arrived at Splash, the new 6,300 sq m

pleasure pool at Butlin’s Bognor Regis.

Usually at a pool she’d have beaten a

weary retreat by now, pruny and dying for

a hot shower. And we were running late

for our next activity, archery. Chop-chop,

I thought, there’s more fun on the agenda.

But when she and her friend Manon

emerged, exhilarated, from the Helter

Skelter slide, eager to give it another go,

I realised I must suppress my scheduling

instincts. Let it go, as they sang.

Butlin’s in Bognor didn’t feel like the

obvious weekend break — I’m more likely

to be swanning around New York or

sitting by the fire in a country inn. And I

knew about its reputation for knobbly

knee competitions and seaside kitsch —

and how the location of its south-coast

outpost was immortalised by George V’s

supposed last words: “Bugger Bognor.”

But this wasn’t really about me. With

13 on her horizon, Milla isn’t long for the

simple, timeless pleasures of the family

entertainment that remains at the heart

of Butlin’s. If we were to share in her

childish innocence one last time,

something told us this was the place. It

didn’t hurt that four-night pre-Christmas

breaks were available from £91.

There’s the small matter too of the

future of Butlin’s. In their 1960s heyday

there were once 11 Butlin’s camps

(including one in the Bahamas,

incredibly). Now only three remain:

Bognor, Skegness and Minehead. And its

parent company Bourne Leisure, focusing

on international interests, is mulling over

a sale for a potential £250 million (a

“hi-de-hi” valuation, a Times commenter

wrote). It’s unclear which will vanish first:

my daughter’s childhood or Butlin’s itself.

Not that Butlin’s hasn’t moved with the

times. There’s Bognor’s £40 million

indoor-outdoor pool for starters. It can be

so popular that one mum I spoke to had

fled the changing room, unable to cope

with the mayhem. But when we arrived

near noon, the white surfaces had been

squeegeed clean and the masses

had filtered out to lunch, leaving us

in reasonable calm.

Entertainment is no longer the sole

province of the Red Coats either (they’re

in polo shirts now anyway). The company

recently signed the Catchphrase presenter

Stephen Mulhern to headline Bognor’s

spacious new 860-seat stage, Studio 36,

and added the singer Fleur East to the

roster — her track Sax was a lockdown

hit for us and many more.

And the notorious rubber-chicken

dinners of

yesteryear have

gone, replaced by

a high street’s

worth of late-opening

restaurants. Having arrived too

late for our pre-paid buffet dinner

(last orders at 7pm!), we staved

off our hunger with a large

margherita at Papa John’s. There’s

a new app, too, which would have

Pleasing kids was never

a problem for Butlin’s