Beloved holiday park open for 30 years leaves no trace after closing forever | UK | News

It was a place where entire families would descend for a week or two of classic British seaside fun. It was one of the largest holiday camps in the UK, with hundreds of chalets, a fun fair, indoor games room and a swimming complex.

But if you were to try and find it today, instead of rows and rows of chalets and a train and tram system, you’d find a housing estate, gravel car park and a patch of green clifftop land. You’d have no clue whatsoever of the scale of what had once been here, or the tens of thousands of people who’d travelled here from all over Britain to enjoy it.

The Butlins holiday resort (which later became Barry Island Holiday Resort) was a sight to behold. Generations of the same family, from grandparents to toddlers, would arrive here to be find their chalet (colour-coded either yellow, red or blue), which housed up to four people and included a lounge, kitchenette with a cooker, fridge, two bedrooms, a bathroom and toilet.

The location was remarkable — Nell’s Point is a clifftop headland jutting out on the south Wales coast between two of Barry Island’s famous beaches. The camp covered the whole thing and had everything you’d want for a family holiday in a seaside holiday park. It was considered serious value for money.

It had one of the largest indoor entertainment complexes anywhere in the UK, the Tropical Indoor Reef Club swimming complex and the camp’s focal point: a huge outdoor pool with super flumes and a stage where there would be regular entertainment. To get around it all, you could hop on Timmy the train or Tammy the tram between 10.30am and 5.30pm every day.

The entertainment on offer was almost endless, from indoor bowls and five-a-side soccer competitions to starring in your own music video by visiting the ‘pop box’ and being filmed dancing along to a song of your choice, with various elaborate computerised backgrounds added on.

In the 2,000-seater Gaiety Theatre there were four different family shows a week, while the Gaiety Ballroom had big bands playing seven nights a week as well as the camp’s competitions such as Best Dressed Woman, Glamorous Grannie, Lovely Legs and the Miss Majestic Beauty Contest. There was more than £2,500 of prize money up for grabs.

Over in the Princes Ballroom, there were even more competitions to enter, like Bonnie Baby, Father and Son, Fancy Dress, Mr Macho and Picture of Health The Pig and Whistle showbar featured showgirls, artists and comedians from 8pm, Ebony’s Lounge was a more sophisticated vibe and the Co Co’s disco didn’t even open until 11pm (in the day it was used for kids’ activities like the Whizz Kids Wakey Wakey Club.

The Princes Shopping Centre had a large supermarket, hot bread shop, sweets, a chemist and a hairdresser, while the Boulevard shopping mall had shops for photos, shoes, rock and sweets, toys, fashion, cigarettes, drapery and beachwear.

Inspired by an unhappy holiday at Barry Island in his youth (when he had reportedly been locked out of his B&B all day by his landlady) Billy Butlin took out a 99-year lease on the headland at Nell’s Point and Butlins opened in 1966.

Despite its success, in 1986 Butlins announced that Barry Island would not be part of the company’s future and it closed on New Year’s Eve. The camp re-opened in May 1987 as Majestic Barry Island, which was later renamed The Barry Island Resort after a complete refurbishment under the late Rick Wright, who was hailed at the time as “the saviour of Barry Island”.

The Redcoats became the Bluecoats, following Butlins’ threat of legal action over the use of the name in 1991, and things continued happily for many years.

It’s hard to believe that this sort of thing would have been possible even in the 1990s, but happen it did. In 1992, Michael Jackson, at the peak of his fame, was appearing in a concert in the now-demolished National Stadium in Cardiff as part of his Dangerous world tour.

The camp’s entertainments manager, Martin ‘Scott’ Clowes, decided to advertise that Jacko would be driving through the camp on his way to the gig to wave to fans. It drew the entire holiday park out, all hoping to catch a glimpse of the megastar. Homemade banners read “Jacko, we love you.”

But instead of the Thriller superstar, there was a bluecoat wearing a Michael Jackson mask Clowes had bought in the town and a sparkly glove, waving out the window of a Mercedes which flew past at high speed. The entertainment team even went to elaborate measures of bringing in two security guards to add to the prank, arranged a police escort and played Michael Jackson music from the poolside area.

Mr Clowes has previously recalled: “The mask looked a bit shiny so we powdered it down and sat him in the back of the car. It was done as a joke. It was amazing, everybody turned out for it, but I got into trouble for it. I didn’t tell Rick Wright what was going on and kept it a bit of a secret. He was actually quite cross with me for health and safety aspects. I got a bit of a roasting! He was a formidable character and I remember I was hauled up to the office. They were worried about Michael Jackson’s people and that it was a hoax that got out of hand.

“I had to go into the Gaiety Theatre in costume that evening and make sure everybody knew it was a prank. People were laughing and joking, they thought it was funny. I had been a bit worried. I didn’t know if they were going to laugh or whether they were going to lynch me! It is something I will always remember, it was a bit of fun that got slightly out of hand.”

Kerry Instone went to Barry Island at least once a year from the mid 1970s to early 1990s with her family, travelling down from the Berkshire and Hampshire areas.

“I remember the freedom of being able to go where we wanted whilst we were at the camp — my brother and I had a chalet key on a shoelace around our necks and if we wanted to go somewhere, we did,” she previously told WalesOnline.

“I remember going into the Princes Building for the indoor fair and snooker. I seem to remember so many tables and I can almost still smell what it was like.

“The arcade through the Gaiety building, the smell of popcorn, the seafood stall, the shops selling Welsh dolls, Welsh hats, the stripy candy canes with sweets in, rock.

“The sound of the arcade at the top, I spent hours each holiday there. I also remember playing bingo, it was fab. I loved the adrenaline of sliding those shutters across and saving up for prizes! There was a Welsh lady that used to do the calling, very dark curly hair, glamorous and lovely Welsh accent.

“I remember Toot & Ploot, Beaver Club, 913 Club, fun on the sports field. The outdoor funfair, the roller skating rink, the slide, the dodgems, the twister and the paratrooper as well.

“I loved riding the cable cars. I recall a young guy working on them whose name was Daz, I remember thinking it was a really exotic name and I guess I may have had a crush on him!”

Ms Instone always stayed in ‘Blue camp’ with her family: “Blue A 216 we asked for and got every time, which was lovely. It was overlooking the beach, it was fabulous. Some of us used to go down to the beach and write messages in the sand for the others up in the chalet.

“I remember the chalet, the furniture. the bedding, the cutlery all marked with the Butlins logo, the whistling kettle, 50p electricity meters, washing my hair with a jug for the water.”

While Butlins left in 1986, the camp continued for another 10 years. But maintenance had become an issue at the camp, especially with the chalet’s flat roofs and wooden panelling.

BBC show That’s Life! even visited to investigate and a report aired in January 1989 under the headline “It’s Barry Awful. It’s Barry Hell”. It encouraged anyone who was off there that summer to send them a postcard and while it did indeed receive 8,000 postcards, only 40 of them were complaints. Mr Wright sued and Majestic received £500,000 in damages.

But in the years that followed, storm damage caused more problems and the Vale of Glamorgan Council threatened to refuse the renewal of its entertainment licence unless work was carried out to improve the then 30-year-old site. It closed for good on November 7, 1996 and was sold for £2.25 million to the council. Most of it was demolished by the following October and the land was sold to Bovis Homes, which built homes there between 2002 and 2003. Some of the camp still remained until 2005, when two original camp buildings and the outdoor pool were torn down.

Today, what was once a beloved holiday camp is now a housing estate, some parkland and a temporary car park for the thousands that still head to Barry Island’s beaches on hot days.

Former guest Ms Instone went back to the camp when it was half demolished.

“It was very sad,” she said. A security guard took me in through the gate and took me inside the buildings that remained like the Regency, the pool, the Gaiety (old, empty shops, the theatre and the ballroom). It was heartbreaking.

“I’ve also been back since it’s become just houses and, again, it was very sad. Happy days indeed and it makes me incredibly sad that I won’t see a time like it again, but my memories remain.”