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[crashryan]

Following the discussion of English holiday camps sparked by The Toff Goes to Butlin's, I became intrigued by the concept. After some online research I took Paw Broon's suggestion and viewed Holiday Camp, a 1947 feature released by Gainsborough Pictures. Much of the film was shot on location at Butlin's camps. It provides a fascinating glimpse at what, to my American eyes, looks like another planet.

The movie is an odd mixture of drama and comedy, following the intersecting lives of several vacationers. The central figures are the working-class Huggett family (Huggett, not Hoggett; there are no talking pigs) Rubbing elbows with them are gamblers, a middle-aged spinster looking for meaning in her life, an unwed mother, even a serial killer. The story is okay and the acting is good. Viewers liked the Huggetts so much that they spun off into three more films.

I looked up Holiday Camp on IMDB and scanned the reader reviews. Most were what you'd expect: plot synopses, opinions about the production, and reminiscences from people who'd been to Butlin's. I was brought up short by one entry, a diatribe of astonishing bitterness glorifying the Huggett family and decrying how "six decades of Social Progress" have destroyed their world:

"The Huggett family [was] deeply rooted in working-class culture, decent, God-fearing, patriotic, proud of their place in society and secure and optimistic about the future for both themselves and their country. 60 years later their descendants, hedonistic, alcohol-fuelled, violent, stain their country's reputation in countries their great grandfathers helped to free from the very sort of nihilism they display."

The comment is written with such ferocity that I had to wonder what the world did to this fellow that he should end up so thoroughly miserable. Anyway, social progress aside, Holiday Camp demonstrated some curious cultural differences.

The first thing that struck me is how "communal" (for lack of a better word) the camp was. The idea of paying a fair amount of money to spend a week sharing a bedroom with a randomly-assigned stranger is incomprehensible to me. Maybe in 1947 there were also such arrangements in the USA. I can't say because I hadn't been born yet. On the whole, though, Americans always like to keep a perimeter around themselves. Consider the Butlin's meal arrangement. Everyone eats at the same time in a huge hall, the diners sharing tables with people they don't know. Over here that might happen if every single table were occupied, but it would make for an uncomfortable meal. More than likely one would sit outside and wait for a table to open up.

Group activities seem to have been a big deal. The campers gather for calisthenics on the beach. The whole gang celebrate their vacation's end by dancing through the camp in a huge conga line. Speaking of huge, the camp's population is enormous! At one point someone says there are five thousand people in attendance. That's a thousand more than lived in my home town.

One final item caught my eye: the buttcycles. They look like ordinary bicycles, but they aren't powered by feet turning pedals. Instead your feet are planted on stationary pegs and you propel the vehicle by pumping your posterior up and down. It looks terribly uncomfortable.

[paw broon]

I suppose we had a completely different culture here, bearing in mind these aren't that long after the end of WW2.  Jack Warner was a major British star and played Dixon of Dock Green for far too long imo, but he did a great job as Inspector Lomax in The Quaterrmass Experiment.
There are a couple of other Huggets films and this one of them:-
Vote For Huggett from 1949:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0TZH7Cytt8
We even get a song from Petula.  Unfortunately, the other films don't seem to be on youtube.
If any of you have access to the Doctor Who story, Delta and The Bannermen, it is set in a Holiday camp in 1959.

[Andrew999]

That's a good summary of what holiday camps were like - somehow they worked. Perhaps British people were more used to communal activities from schooldays (eating together in the dining hall) and works canteens - hard to say.

As an aside, one of my favourite movies set in a holiday camp was Every Day's a Holiday with Freddie & the Dreamers. Odd that there was never a Carry On film (as far as I recall) set in a Butlins type holiday camp - it would have been perfect.

[The Australian Panther]

I could guess that one of the attractions, if you were younger, was being able to meet and associate with those of your own age outside of a school context.
I assume, 'Camp' in the US sense was a place you booked your kids into on School vacation, to take them off your hands. Plenty of US movies on that subject, Forming cliques and competition between them seem to be the main themes of these. Not many comics on the subject tho.
Australian traditional habit was to go to the beach at Christmas ( always the same beach, always the same place to stay) with your family (and sometimes extended family and friends) and stay in a Caravan or tent or shack. Swim, Fish or go walking or hiking or a long drive, eating, sleeping and reading (or go to a drive-in and see a movie). If you were with an older group of blokes, fishing and drinking. Mostly drinking!
               
Cheers!     

[Drahken]

People here in the states sometimes go to "camps" or "resorts" ("resorts" usually brings to mind high-end fancy places, but is also sometimes used for low-end camping type places) for vacations. The big difference is the communal aspect. While there are oftenorganized group activities (like dancing) or accidental group activities (like everyone being attracted to the beach), every family or group lives by themselves in their own cabin/rv/tent/etc, eat their meals independantly of other families/groups, plan their activities independantly, etc.
I remember that episode of top gear where the guys went to some caravan park, I felt that place looked pretty miserable, the total antithesis of a vacation.

[crashryan]

Yes, Drahken, the communal aspect of the English holiday camp is what I found most interesting. After some thought I realized that the life at Butlin's pictured in the film was very much like life at the Boy Scout summer camp I attended. Events were organized into groups (e.g. archery, boating). Everyone shared a mealtime, which featured singalongs and group stunts like skits and games. We shared cabins (six or eight people each) with both friends and strangers. It was all very Butlinsesque (new word).  Of course it was all boys...unlike in Scout Camp movies there was no Girl Scout camp nearby to invite misbehavior.

[Robb_K]

Following the discussion of English holiday camps sparked by The Toff Goes to Butlin's, I became intrigued by the concept. After some online research I took Paw Broon's suggestion and viewed Holiday Camp, a 1947 feature released by Gainsborough Pictures. Much of the film was shot on location at Butlin's camps. It provides a fascinating glimpse at what, to my American eyes, looks like another planet.

The movie is an odd mixture of drama and comedy, following the intersecting lives of several vacationers. The central figures are the working-class Huggett family (Huggett, not Hoggett; there are no talking pigs) Rubbing elbows with them are gamblers, a middle-aged spinster looking for meaning in her life, an unwed mother, even a serial killer. The story is okay and the acting is good. Viewers liked the Huggetts so much that they spun off into three more films.

I looked up Holiday Camp on IMDB and scanned the reader reviews. Most were what you'd expect: plot synopses, opinions about the production, and reminiscences from people who'd been to Butlin's. I was brought up short by one entry, a diatribe of astonishing bitterness glorifying the Huggett family and decrying how "six decades of Social Progress" have destroyed their world:

"The Huggett family [was] deeply rooted in working-class culture, decent, God-fearing, patriotic, proud of their place in society and secure and optimistic about the future for both themselves and their country. 60 years later their descendants, hedonistic, alcohol-fuelled, violent, stain their country's reputation in countries their great grandfathers helped to free from the very sort of nihilism they display."

The comment is written with such ferocity that I had to wonder what the world did to this fellow that he should end up so thoroughly miserable. Anyway, social progress aside, Holiday Camp demonstrated some curious cultural differences.

The first thing that struck me is how "communal" (for lack of a better word) the camp was. The idea of paying a fair amount of money to spend a week sharing a bedroom with a randomly-assigned stranger is incomprehensible to me. Maybe in 1947 there were also such arrangements in the USA. I can't say because I hadn't been born yet. On the whole, though, Americans always like to keep a perimeter around themselves. Consider the Butlin's meal arrangement. Everyone eats at the same time in a huge hall, the diners sharing tables with people they don't know. Over here that might happen if every single table were occupied, but it would make for an uncomfortable meal. More than likely one would sit outside and wait for a table to open up.

Group activities seem to have been a big deal. The campers gather for calisthenics on the beach. The whole gang celebrate their vacation's end by dancing through the camp in a huge conga line. Speaking of huge, the camp's population is enormous! At one point someone says there are five thousand people in attendance. That's a thousand more than lived in my home town.

One final item caught my eye: the buttcycles. They look like ordinary bicycles, but they aren't powered by feet turning pedals. Instead your feet are planted on stationary pegs and you propel the vehicle by pumping your posterior up and down. It looks terribly uncomfortable.

Yes, the communal style is very European.  This is one area where The Brits were similar to The Continentals.  But, as I remember, growing up in Canada AND some in USA, as well, both Canadian AND US children's summer camps operated that same way in the years immediately after WWII, and throughout the 1950s.  I don't know if it changed around the mid 1960s or afterward.