WISH YOU WERE HERE
A young William Butlin holidayed at a boarding house on Barry Island, South Wales, in the early 1920s. The holiday was memorable for all the wrong reasons. As he later recalled in his book The Billy Butlin Story: A Showman to the End (1982), “I was astounded by the way the guests were treated. We had to leave the premises after breakfast and were not encouraged to return until lunchtime. After lunch we were again made not welcome until dinner in the evening… When it rained life became a misery. I felt sorry for myself but I felt sorrier for the families with young children as they trudged around wet and bedraggled… until they could return to their boarding houses.”
A HOLIDAY REVOLUTION
Butlin’s experience would change the British holiday camp forever. When he opened his first
