Clifftop mansion once owned by holiday camp king Billy Butlin hits the market for £2.7million

Billy Butlin, a Canadian born in 1899 in South Africa, first had the idea for his holiday camps between the wars. 

He noticed that in Britain it always rained, and yet families were locked out of their dismal boarding houses during the day and had absolutely nothing to do. 

‘Everyone has a right to leisure’, he insisted, not only the idle rich, who anyway could always escape the downpours by travelling abroad.

With a fortune made from being the exclusive European agent for the newly invented funfair dodgems, Billy invested £18 million (in today’s money) in a 48-acre camp site in Skegness. 

The resort opened in 1936, and the season was fully booked — just as well, as Billy had purchased 16,000 pairs of roller skates. 

Advertisements promised ‘the diversions of the wealthy man’s vacation at a price within reach of the ordinary individual’s purse’ — and Billy aimed his all-inclusive package holidays at clerical workers, shop assistants, factory under-managers and, had he but known it, freelance literary journalists of modest means. 

A contemporary brochure announced that, ‘You can just quietly sit on your own veranda smoking your evening pipe’.  

What distinguished Butlin’s was the sense of community created by Bathing Belle pageants, Knobbly Knees contests, and prizes for the Loudest Snorer, Shiniest Bald Head and Bonniest Baby. Having made the final of the Glamorous Grandmother competition no fewer than 23 times, 76-year-old Alice Matthews ‘became a local celebrity in her home town of Leeds’.

Merriment was maintained by the famous Redcoats, in their smart jackets and white flannels. 

The Redcoats, among whom were numbered Roy Hudd, Des O’Connor and Dave Allen, though not Frankie Howerd who was advised by Billy to ‘find a different job’, also shifted pianos and marked out football pitches.

The success of Skegness led, in 1938, to a resort at Clacton, which boasted vast heated pools and cascades.

The camps were requisitioned during the war to become Pioneer Corps training depots. A sign went up: ‘Will re-open when finished with Hitler.’ Pwllheli was developed by the Admiralty following the evacuation of Dunkirk. Altogether 250,000 men trained at Butlin’s, and the armed forces saved a mint not having to construct their own barracks.

The holiday trade resumed in 1947, but the North Welsh were sceptical about Pwllheli. They thought ‘people who go to holiday camps will drop orange peel and play the ukulele all over quiet mountains’.

When Billy wanted to open a camp at Mosney, near Dublin, the Catholic clergy complained, denouncing Butlin’s as ‘alien and undesirable’.

The postwar period was perhaps Butlin’s heyday. 

Resorts uniquely provided ramps for disabled ex-servicemen and the civilians injured in bombing raids. The chalets were popular with newly-weds and courting couples, who could at last get away from living on top of their parents. Honeymooners were given an alarm clock as a wedding present. Billy was personally invited to around 200 weddings a year. A telegram was always sent instead.

By 1948, 200,000 families were failing to get a booking, so six further camps were opened, and there were nine by 1960, including those at Bognor, Barry Island, Ayr and Minehead, which was built on 165 acres of marsh. The plan was that there’d be a Butlin’s camp within a hundred miles of ‘every major urban centre’.

The entertainment was always lavish. Gracie Fields drew a crowd of 10,000 fans when she performed at Skegness. 

Laurel and Hardy in person judged a beauty pageant. Ringo Starr did two seasons at Pwllheli, where he was visited by Lennon and McCartney. ‘He went straight from Butlin’s to the Beatles.’ Julie Andrews, when aged 13, ‘brought the house down’ at Clacton, and in 1979, Catherine Zeta-Jones ‘was a finalist in the Junior Star Trail’. 

The Queen visited Pwllheli in 1963, and Billy was knighted the following year. In 1965, however, bookings fell. People now owned cars and could take the ferry to the Continent, where there were duvets, bidets and garlic. 

By 1972 and the beginning of cheap air package tours to the Balearics, Butlin’s was sold off to the Rank Organisation. Sir Billy retired to Jersey. He died in 1980 and ‘his holiday empire was gradually dismantled’.

In 2000, Bourne Leisure purchased the business and saw that ‘short breaks were the key to attracting middle-income visitors’.

Skegness, Bognor and Minehead had ‘a major facelift’, and consultations were held with Mumsnet to see what modern families wanted. The Redcoats’ red coats were re-designed by Zandra Rhodes and Jeff Banks.

Butlin’s is now the antidote to airport security checks and frustrations. Sir Billy’s original motto was Shakespearean: ‘Our true intent is all for your delight.’

• By Roger Lewis for the Daily Mail. Taken from THE NATION’S HOST by Kathryn Ferry (Viking £20)