The Day War Broke Out Read online

  8

  HOLIDAYS

  HOLIDAYS WITH PAY WERE VIRTUALLY UNKNOWN BEFORE THE First World War. Even in 1925, just one and a half million people were entitled to a paid holiday. That figure increased in 1937 (to four million) – still a tiny proportion, given that the workforce at the time was close to twenty million.

  A Holidays with Pay Act introduced by the government in 1938 for industrial workers signalled change ahead – yet it was not enacted until after the war. Only then did paid holidays start to become more commonplace in the UK.

  So, what sort of holidays would people take in the 1930s?

  Holidays abroad were not on the agenda. Those were strictly for the rich and privileged. Flying was relatively new, though the general public were well aware of the enormous travel possibilities aviation opened up, thanks to cinema newsreels and newspaper stories about the exploits of aviators, especially homegrown flying heroines like Hull-born Amy Johnson, who stepped into global superstar status with her solo flight to Australia in 1930. Flying circuses, air displays at which anyone could queue up and pay for a short flight, also developed in the 1930s, increasing public awareness of aviation.

  During the 1930s, commercial aviation expanded. Passenger flights were available, albeit at a price that was far too expensive for most – and often very uncomfortable by today’s standards. As for all-in affordable package holidays abroad, inclusive of flight and hotel, these would not reach the budget of ordinary people until the late 1950s.

  It had, of course, been the advent of the motor car right at the beginning of the twentieth century that altered the pattern of life generally. Car ownership in the 1930s was still very low by modern standards – a total of just under two million privately owned vehicles were on the road in 1938 – but there were also close to half a million motorbikes, many with sidecars, as well as large numbers of scheduled bus and coach services on the roads. And, of course, trains were an easy means of transport to seaside resort or countryside.

  Going to the coast or the seaside, of course, had been an established leisure activity as far back as the beginning of the railways in the mid-1800s, which ushered in the development of well over a hundred seaside resort towns in Britain by the end of the nineteenth century.

  Around that time, a tradition of an unpaid one-week summer holiday for workers was established. At first, it was the Lancashire cotton-mill owners who enabled this, closing their factories for a week – and in turn, all shops, post offices and schools in the area closed too.

  Known as Wakes Week, this one-week factory closure tradition spread to other industrial towns in Yorkshire, Staffordshire and other parts of the Midlands, where from mid-July to mid-September, each town closed down to enable workers to enjoy a week or two’s holiday at a big, bustling seaside resort like Blackpool, dubbed ‘the pleasure factory’ by the throngs of holidaymakers from Lancashire mill towns who holidayed there, or Morecambe, which attracted more visitors from Yorkshire and Scotland, thanks to its rail connections.

  Further south, popular seaside resorts like Eastbourne, Brighton, Worthing, Bognor and Bournemouth, with their attractive piers, promenades and pretty beach huts, were also drawing more and more summer holidaymakers and day-trippers, though such were the social distinctions of the times, certain summer resorts held themselves aloof in order to lure a better class of visitor.

  Snooty Eastbourne, in East Sussex, – ‘built by gentlemen for gentlemen’ – banned slot machines on its pier. Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, took great pains to distinguish itself from its brasher neighbour, Clacton-on-Sea – known as ‘the town of temperance’ Frinton did not have a single pub until the year 2000 and ice cream vendors were banned from the beach. Bexhill, also in East Sussex, which still boasts one of the 1930s most iconic leisure centres – the Art Deco De La Warr Pavilion – saw itself as infinitely more genteel, its visitors vastly superior to the crowds of ‘Kiss Me Quick’-hatted day-trippers in neighbouring Hastings. And so on. Seaside snobbery prevailed in the 1920s and 1930s, but it couldn’t stop millions enjoying what Britain’s coastline had to offer.

  FAMILY TIME

  Frank Mee’s childhood holidays in the 1930s were journeys by car to coastal resorts or beauty spots near his home in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham.

  Holidays were a regular thing for my sister Sylvia and I. My father had two cars, a newish Ford 8 and an Austin 7 two-seater with two dicky seats [fold-out seats at the back of the car, where the boot would usually be]. We would pile in the Ford, Sylvia and I, our two cousins, Timmy and Jeffrey, Mum, Dad driving, Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Cecil, complete with picnic. Often a freshly cooked pie and cakes, fresh-baked bread, our own ham and salad, plus tea maker, a paraffin stove thing, cups, plates and crockery, then off to the coast. We went to Seaton Carew [a small seaside resort in Hartlepool] one way or Redcar Marske or Saltburn, the other way. Sometimes it would be the Cleveland Hills or the Moors, the Sheepwash [on the North Yorkshire Moors] being a favourite.

  I blotted my copybook with Aunt Phyllis, who was not called ‘The Princess’ for nothing – she dressed for every occasion. One time, I was sitting between her and Uncle Cecil, with a bilberry pie on my knee. When we got to Marske, there was a rush to get out to play. I put the pie on the seat Cecil had been on. Aunt Phyllis, dressed in a fashionable white suit, getting out of the car, fell back on the pie. White and bilberry definitely do not mix! She made Dad drive her back home to change and came back dressed more for the ballroom than the beach – I was never forgiven.

  Dad would also take Mother, Sylvia and I to Saltburn-by-the-Sea, where we would stay in a boarding house for a week. He went home to continue to work while we had a very enjoyable time on the beach, rockpool diving or sitting in the Italian Gardens, listening to bands play. We also had relatives in Goathland [a North Yorkshire village in the Scarborough area, the setting for the TV series Heartbeat]. They were sheep farmers. Sylvia and I would often spend a week’s holiday with them.

  Our relatives would all come to stay with us when it was Stockton Horse Racing Week. The women all went shopping in Stockton’s famous market – the widest High Street in the country, so it was said. The men went to the races and then the pub later.

  My piano got a good thrashing when they were all here, as singing round the piano was what we did. After a couple of nights, they were back on the trains and gone. Dad then got the piano retuned for my practice.

  Caravanning holidays also started to proliferate in the 1930s as motoring became more popular. The earliest versions designed to be pulled by a motor car were produced by Eccles Motor Transport in Birmingham. This early type of Eccles caravan was essentially a box on wheels; later models in the 1920s were incredibly heavy to tow, made of wood, lined with hard woods like mahogany and with cupboards made of oak.

  By the early 1930s, the squarer original designs gave way to more streamlined models and by the end of the decade, caravans were larger, with baths under the floor, toilet compartments, gas cooking facilities and built-in radios.

  Caravanners tended to be prosperous – a four-berth Eccles caravan sold for £130 in the mid-1930s – and celebrities of the day, like Gracie Fields, were deployed to help promote the attractions of caravanning. The fast-growing Caravan Club of Great Britain started to hold rallies in the early 1930s, requiring members to turn up for dances in full evening dress. Caravan parks were virtually non-existent in the pre-war years: people could park by the road or in a field at night (after the war ended, such was the severe housing shortage, many caravans were lived in full time).

  Hiking and rambling were other outdoor pursuits for the health-minded holidaymaker. By the early 1930s, the rambling boom soon gave way to other holidaymaking activities, like youth hostelling, cycling and camping.

  For families on a tight budget, pitching a tent in a field was an affordable, if somewhat basic, way of holidaying. It became so popular through the decade that new laws banning the sales of milk, bread and butter on campsites were introduced amid governme
nt concern: it was felt that the countryside was at risk of being swamped by poor people.

  D. A. Bishop remembers his early camping holidays in the late 1920s and 1930s:

  My holidays might have been on a fairly primitive level but they were really enjoyable nonetheless. At our Methodist church in Plumstead, South-East London, we got to know of a camping club set up by a nearby sister church and it wasn’t long before some of us youngsters were invited to join. In those early days the holidaymakers were almost all children or teenagers, but during the 1930s the inclusion of family tents was adopted, after which my mother would also take my two younger siblings. Dad went only once, but then he usually volunteered to supervise school journeys and never seemed keen on the idea of family holidays anyway.

  My first experience of the Invicta Camping Club was when the chosen site was Pagham, just outside Bognor Regis, West Sussex. This resort had just earned the Royal title after King George V had recuperated there in 1929 after a serious illness. Aged thirteen at the time and despite prevailing unsettled weather, I thoroughly enjoyed being able to holiday with so many young people. Our homes for the fortnightly summer breaks were ex-army bell tents, comfortable enough under most conditions, although it paid to be able to select a really sound one.

  Unlike modern tented homes, any facilities consisted of whatever we could provide that would fit into our very limited space. The only provided extra was a straw-stuffed palliasse [mattress]. An advance party would travel down on the Friday afternoon to set up tents and fill the palliasses and a large marquee housing a ‘honky-tonk’ piano would be erected by professionals.

  After the inclusion of family camping and when our church had become more fully integrated, the catering was taken over by a volunteer couple from our church, who did a marvellous job with the limited funds available. The usual charge for the two-week holiday did not exceed £2 at the time.

  Our very able pair generously augmented the kitty by adding their Co-op dividend for their own purchases during the year and I well recall how the menus satisfied even the voracious appetites of myself and friends.

  The appetising smell of good bacon being cooked over an open fire was usually enough to ensure prompt attendance at breakfast by even the laziest members, who would otherwise be suffering by lunchtime. Bread and butter with marmalade taken from 7-pound stone jars completed the meal, for which unlimited tea would be available from a huge urn.

  The camp’s only paid member, who was keen enough to work very hard for his pittance, was known as Old Cookie. Of indeterminate age but definitely elderly, he cheerfully supervised cooking during the whole two weeks, usually being pressed to take a solitary half-day out of camp.

  Our own fatigues would be limited to an hour or so each week, with perhaps an occasional forage for firewood. In-camp entertainment would be laid on at least once a week to include all local talent. For some of that we knew we could rely on Old Cookie, who would have regaled us for far too long, given full rein. His star piece song bore the title ‘She ’It Me Wiv A Poker’, a gory little number providing an insight into domestic disharmony during the late-Victorian period.

  In later years, when our camping sites included Somerset, Devon and Dorset, our style became rather more sophisticated when some of us were able to take our own cars. On my earliest venture I remember a spirited discussion as to whether the old motor coach would manage to reach the summit of Berry Hill before running down towards Bognor.

  Inevitably, juvenile romances were set up, but for my own part in those days, I was content to enjoy the romance of the English countryside and seaside.

  Two scenes which have remained vivid in my memory: viewing Corfe Castle in Dorset by the light of a full moon on a wonderful summer night, and taking in the grandeur of Fingle Bridge in Dartmoor (the latter is part of the upper Teign Gorge as the wild river flows rapidly towards the sea on the South Devon coast).

  Without the discovery of the Invicta Camping Club, my early life would have been very much poorer.

  By the mid-1930s, the wind of change was blowing. The typical British holidaymaking experience had distinct shortcomings sometimes, given the combination of the unreliability of the climate and the system of inexpensive bed and breakfasts run by landladies who did not want guests to linger on the premises until the evening meal. The idea of a very large holiday camp, where families on a budget could be accommodated, fed and entertained round the clock, all for one price, might have seemed ambitious at the outset. Yet this idea – an obvious gap in the market – would transform Britain’s leisure industry, thanks to a man called Billy (later Sir William) Butlin.

  The first ever Butlin’s holiday camp opened its doors at Skegness, Lincolnshire, at Easter 1936, officially opened by its guest of honour, the aviatrix Amy Johnson. The brainchild of the entrepreneurial Butlin, a showman with a background in running hoop-la stalls and managing seaside amusement parks, the first Butlin’s cost £100,000 to build and could accommodate 1,000 people.

  A Butlin’s Camp was effectively a miniature seaside resort with the focus on giving holidaymakers a chance to escape from everyday life. The overall style of building was modern in appearance, and there would be an outdoor swimming pool with cascades. Inside, there were large dining rooms, bars in the style of a grand hotel or luxury liner and ballrooms, all designed to create an atmosphere of luxury. The chalets where the campers slept were up-to-date for the times, with hot and cold running water, but these were built in a traditional, more homely mock-Tudor style with exposed beams.

  Entertainment was at the heart of the Butlin’s holiday camp experience, with the company’s famous Redcoats on hand to ensure that everyone, of all ages, had a good time. By the standards of the day, it was a good deal: a week’s full board, with three meals a day and free entertainment for all, for £3 a week at peak season. Promoted by Butlin as ‘A week’s holiday for a week’s wage’, it was a revolutionary idea whose time had come, though the majority of early Butlin’s campers tended to be lower middle class, like bank clerks and their wives.

  A second Butlin’s, at Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, followed in 1938. A third Butlin’s camp at Filey, North Yorkshire, which Billy Butlin planned to be the jewel in his crown, was half-finished when war broke out and the three camps were requisitioned as military bases.

  After the war, more camps opened up and the Butlin’s brand became one of the country’s most successful and well-loved holiday venues. With the coming of the 1970s and the era of the cheap package holiday abroad, however, British holidaymaking habits changed. Subsequently, Butlin’s was sold to the Rank Organisation in the 1970s, although the brand still lives on, with three Butlin’s family resorts in Minehead, Bognor Regis and Skegness.

  Bill Hathaway and his two brothers were Londoners with relatives in Skegness, on the Lincolnshire coast.

  My uncle kept a wet-fish shop there, so during the holidays, my mother took us to stay before the Second World War. In the mornings, she worked as a cashier in the shop, where it was not considered hygienic for a shop assistant to handle notes and coins as well as the raw fish. We three boys were left to amuse ourselves.

  Even in the early 1930s it was obvious that the sea was abandoning Skeggy. South Parade, the road that once fronted the sea, still had the eight-foot drop to what was once the beach, but now the sand had been replaced by lawns and gardens. Even further out was the vast boating lake and only beyond that did the beach begin.

  Along the sea front ran the ancient charabancs with their bench seats stretching the width of the vehicles. It cost a penny to ride from the Clock Tower all the way to Uncle Arthur’s, the amusement park opposite the Derbyshire Miners’ Home at the north end of the sands. We didn’t think Uncle Arthur’s was a patch on Butlin’s bigger, brighter amusement park back down the beach, seaward of the clock tower.

  Butlin’s Big Dipper was higher, faster and noisier than Uncle Arthur’s and day and night, a clown, in coloured lights, bounced a ball – also in lights – across the front
of the park.

  In those pre-war days, the sea still reached Skegness pier. Admission for children was a penny, though I remember one year, as an advertising gimmick, you could go on free by showing your Ovaltineys badge [Ovaltineys was the name of a 1930s children’s club to promote the sale of Ovaltine, a sweet, malt-flavoured drink made with hot milk and often drunk as a nightcap].

  There was another way on, much more exciting, during the year they were repairing the decking on the pier. By scrambling up the ironwork and along the supports over the sea, a boy could pop up through a hole in the planking halfway along – all free! On the pier were the penny-in-the-slot machines with such names as ‘The Allwin’ – which usually meant the ‘All Lose’ – and models in glass cases of things like prison buildings, where a penny would open the big doors to show a prisoner surrounded by officials, including the Governor and a parson. A figure of a warder moved a lever and the prisoner, with a noose around his neck, dropped through the trap-door, which opened beneath his feet. It was all over in a few seconds!

  At the very end of the pier was a tall lattice tower with diving boards. At high tide times, Leslie, a man who had lost a hand in an accident, drew crowds by performing spectacular dives. His swallow dives, half- and full twists and back and front somersaults kept the spectators applauding as he climbed the ladder from the sea back to the top of his tower. He constantly reminded the audience that ‘some of my young ladies will pass among you with a collecting box. Don’t forget the diver, every penny makes the water warmer.’

  Along part of the boating lake was an artificial cliff. There was a passage through – ‘The Axenstrasse’ – with openings over the lake and a promenade at the top. This ‘cliff’ was one of my favourite climbs. Several years ago, to the embarrassment of my wife and the surprise of a couple walking along the top, I climbed it again. They didn’t expect to see an old gentleman appear over the edge of the cliff, artificial or not.