The magazine of the photo-essay
May 2020 issue
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
1982
With its ‘glamorous grandmother’ competitions and endless entertainment, Butlin’s in
the 80s was the ultimate British package holiday. Barry Lewis’ glorious photographs,
taken during a particularly wet summer at Skegness, capture a defiant national spirit
at a time when Billy Butlin’s original vision of ‘fun for all the family’ was under threat
from cheap foreign travel and the faltering English weather. Billy Butlin created his
holiday attraction 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. Lewis, who worked at Butlin’s in the 60s after leaving school,
returned to the Skegness camp in 1982 on a photography assignment to undertake
this project.
by Barry Lewis
