Like many other Butlin Redcoats, I had come from the fringes of show busi-JlJ ness. I had just finished a schools’ tour with a children’s theatre. Other Redcoats included teachers, casual workers, showgirls, dancers, singers, musicians and comedians just starting out doing the minor clubs.
Some had been working the summer season at the camps for years, spending the winters painting the outdoor swimming pool. Others just felt like a change from shop, factory and office.
After the interview in London, I went to Clacton to join a group of other young women to train for Radio Butlin.
After finishing the course at Clacton, two of us went up to Filey for the season. It was an eight-hour journey by steam train in those days and upon arrival we had to have a photo taken for our identification pass. Without having a chance to wash first, I was stuck all season with this terrible picture pinned to my jacket with all the railway smoke and grime on me.
The wages were £6 a week, plus cafe vouchers, so that we didn’t pull our jacket pockets out of shape with loose change. We were issued with two jackets, two white blouses and two white, drip-dry skirts, which we washed, then placed inside a stocking to dry to keep the pleats in. They were long enough to fit most heights, so we rolled them up from the waist so that the hem just touched the knee, the fashionable length at the time. The showgirls rolled theirs right up to mid-thigh to show off their splendid legs – a precursor to the mini-skirt. The older women, who had been working there for years, as pianists and ballroom teachers, wore their skirts at their full length.
There were three of us working shifts in Radio Butlin – all women because either the female voice carried better over the air, being higher pitched, or so it was possible in this way to make the job a low-paid one.
In Radio Budin, I had some LP’s of my own I had bought from Scarborough on a day off – Eileen Joyce playing Beethoven and an EP of Wagner. I would play them for my own amusement, in less busy moments, through what I thought was a free channel.
Shortly after breakfast one day, I received a frantic phone call telling me to turn it down. The Ride Of The Valkyries was going out into every dining hall on the camp and there’s only one way to play Wagner – loud.
The daily routine began with the announcement for the first sitting for breakfast. Meals were referred to as: breakfast, the midday meal and the evening meal. This was because of local variations in what meals were called. Dinner for some is lunch to others; tea may be confused with supper; and we always had to say “available”, not “served” or “ready”.
After the breakfast announcement, the plugs had to be put in to link the dining halls for the entertaining Redcoat to make the day’s announcements. I had to learn not to cross the plugs over nor to make more than one mike live at the same time. During the day, I would have to link up the outdoor pool for the gala. Instrumental music would have to be played at various times and there would be more back-up info about the day’s events. This being Yorkshire, the cricket scores had to be announced.
In the evening there would be band breaks – records to play to give the Modern Ballroom and the Old Tyme bands a break as well as Light Programme-type music for the French Bar. Young nursemaids would bring in the baby calls to go out. I would announce these direct into the bars but the theatres had to be phoned where the usherettes would put the numbers up on a board and flash a torch at it.
At eleven o’clock, I would have to put the pips through to the French Bar, so that the head barman could put the towels over the taps. That just left an hour of whatever fate or absent-mindedness might bring, then the male Reds would return the mikes.
It was a curious existence. A closed world, with its hierarchy and its in-jokes, its rivalries and alliances. Because I left before the end of the season, it took me about 12 hours to get clearance to get off camp. I had begun to think I might have to tunnel myself out!
Mary-Rose Benton
