A Trip To Butlin’s In 1982

‘Our true intent is all for your delight’…

– Butlin’s holiday camp motto

 

 

Photographer Barry Lewis takes us on a holiday to Butlin’s Skegness in 1982. This was first ever Billy Butlin holiday camp. It opened at Skegness in 1936 – and still exists today.

Lewis had worked for the company at their resort in Bognor after leaving school in the 1960s and had “developed an odd affection for this enclosed, parallel universe”.

And in the early 80s he was back at the holiday park created by Billy Butlin in the 1930s, when British workers were granted paid holidays for the first time and families were drawn by the promise of individual chalets, a theatre and a swimming pool all cheered on by the army of bubbly Redcoats.

But in the 1980s the glamour was fading. A fun but too-often rainy week in Yorkshire was being beaten by sun, sea and sangria of a package holiday to the Spanish costas.

 

 

“My photographs from over 35 years ago seem to be looking even further back, to a vanished age – the hair and clothing styles, the attitudes, the activities, the War-time buildings – with a certain innocence, in a world before mobile phones and the internet, where a holiday was annual and special, making everyone determined to enjoy themselves to the full, whatever the weather”

– Barry Lewis

 

 

“My picture style was strongly influenced by Robert Frank in America and Tony Ray-Jones’ photographs of the British on holiday… a sort of loving but harsh approach. The big difference was that I shot in colour. This is important as, in our current digital heaven, anyone who has a phone can get good colour in almost total darkness. The only good colour film in the early 80s was Kodachrome. It gave rich colour but was very slow, factory processed, and could not be manipulated. In darkened ballrooms with a mix of rainy daylight, green fluorescents, and yellow lightbulbs – it was impossible to shoot without flash.”

– Barry Lewis

 

 

“Most people were at ease with me ducking and diving with the camera. They were happy to reveal their world, unashamed of who they were, and happy to be photographed. This has changed, especially in the UK, where a fear of instant exposure affects the public’s relationship to the professional photographer. ‘What are they for?’ ‘How is the photo going to be used?’, ‘Will my child be seen by monsters?’ are all real and valid fears perpetuated by a cynical media.”

– Barry Lewis

 

Butlin’s Holiday Camp 1982 by Barry Lewis is published by Hoxton Mini Press.