The excerpts below are from an article contrasting the modern day Butlins holiday camp experience with Lynne Wallis's own memories of Southdean Holiday Centre

The Guardian  -  Saturday August 31, 2002

Camping it up  -  By: Lynne Wallis

The Redcoats are still there, but what else remains of the traditional holiday camp? Lynne Wallis, winner of the 1976 Miss Lovely Legs Competition at Pontin's, finds out if Butlins still holds any family appeal...

...As a holiday camp child of the 1960s, I found the changes startling. Twice every summer until I was l6, my brother, my parents and I went to our favourite place, a small independent holiday camp called Southdean, in Sussex. It was a mile up the coast from Butlins at Bognor Regis, which we knew to be a huge, great place, if not a little tacky. Southdean, demolished about eight years ago and now a sea-front housing estate, was smaller, friendlier and a little more refined...

...In the good old days at Southdean, childcare consisted of parents leaving a hankie on the doorknob to advertise the fact that a child was asleep inside, and a child patroller who would walk past the chalets a couple of times every evening. Hard to imagine today, but then so are egg-and-spoon races, tug of war and keep-fit sessions after breakfast, now replaced by aqua aerobics...

 ...And he doesn't have to worry about his girls facing the disappointment of losing out: there are no winners in Butlins' competitions any more - all kids get a prize. By contrast, I remember from my time at Southdean that there were a handful of kids with pushy mums who won everything, much to the consternation of my brother and I. But then when we did win something, it was so exciting it felt like Christmas had come early...

...'People don't want to get involved and make an idiot of themselves on stage, like at the old-style holiday camps; in fact, many of them would be offended by that idea. They're paying for entertainment, and that's what they get. And they love the Redcoats, who are about 90% of our brand." Southdean had one main entertainer, a perma-tanned, charismatic man called Kenny Essex, whose talent for dressing up as a woman and diving in to the pool was unsurpassed in Sussex...

...Some of the original holiday camp attractions have endured, such as bingo and crazy golf, but the ballroom dancing, talent shows and visits to the local zoo are no longer on the agenda. And the very idea of going to a holiday camp that boasted 60 security guards on its rota would have appalled us back at Southdean. Being safe back then meant not going out on the shingly Bognor beach barefoot, opting out of judging the sandcastle competition for fear of making an enemy of your new best friend, and never eating the mashed potato...

Read the full article here