Oh What A Time... - #3 Holidays and Recreation

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

As the annual kid's 6-week holiday swings into gear in the UK, we thought this week we'd look at Holidays and Recreation through the ages. This episode's major talking points: have we discovered the cleverest pig in history? Elis brings us a completely legitimate reason for a neighbour to turn up to your house with a dead horses head on a stick. And lastly, the gravestone of Butlin's creator Billy Butlin is described. (In short, holidays in Ancient Rome, the Mari Lwyd, fairgrounds and package holidays; it's all here). This first series will contain 12 episodes that we’ll be releasing weekly; you can look forward to topics such as humour, marriage, sport, a life at sea, parenting, partying, pets, and lots more. And thank you so much for your support for the podcast since our launch last week. If you like it, why not drop us a review in Latin? We'll read out our favourites next week. If you’d like to get in touch with the show (perhaps to tell us when was the worst period in history or if we've INEVITABLY got something wrong) you can email us at: [e-mail] We’re also on Twitter and Instagram @ohwhatatimepod And thank you to Dr Daryl Leeworthy for his help with this week’s research. And thank you for the artwork by Dan Evans (idrawforfood.co.uk). And thank you for listening!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Savings may vary. Eligibility and member terms apply. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that tries to decide if the past was as awful as it seems. I'm Ellis James. And I'm Tom Crane. And I'm Chris Scull. Each week, we are looking at a brand new subject.

And today, we're going to be discussing holidays and recreation, from holidays in ancient Rome to the strange Welsh tradition of a vali llwyd to the history of the fairground before finally the incredible story of package holidays. And thank you so much for your support. Once again, the ratings and reviews have been coming in thick and fast. and thank you so much for your support once again the ratings and reviews have been coming in thick and fast we thank you for that now we asked you a couple of weeks ago to leave your review in latin tom and boy have they done that yes they have oh sorry rex have they done that no that's not right what is boy about the very limit of my latin the vast majority are in english but some have done it in Latin.

But I love them all, whatever language they are. As long as they've got five star attached, I love them. Do you fancy another little Latin test? Shall I read one out? Oh, yes, please. Here's a nice simple one. It's simply ego ver freundum est. The three of them have got massive egos, avoid.

Correct. And that's from my mother. It's very cruel, but to be fair, she's a good judge of character. Oh yeah, she's spot on there with that character assessment slash assassination. No, that is simply, I really enjoyed it. And that's from Chris.

Thank you very much. Isn't that nice? Very sweet. Lovely, lovely. If you do want to leave us a review, it really does have a huge impact on the show. There's another way you can get in contact, isn't there, Ellis? Yes, but I'm not going to tell you. That would be too boring. I'm going to ask Olivier-winning actor David Bradley to tell you. From the films?

All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at oh what a time dot com and you can follow us on instagram and twitter at oh what a time pod now clear off so well let's before we plunge into this and holidays in the past let's talk about holidays now we're all parents what is a holiday now a holiday for you how are's talk about holidays now we're all parents what is a holiday now a holiday for you how are we feeling about holidays at this point in our life we we didn't take stefan my son abroad until he was four we went to portugal this year um so we because i

just said listen holidays are hard and uh i i just cannot be bothered to travel too far. We went to really boring places. We went to Berkhamstead. Berkhamstead, just because we didn't have a flat with a garden in lockdown. So we just hired a slightly better house than the one we lived in and went there for a week and then came back. And I thought, such is my lack of ambition. I'm going to Berkhamstead on holiday. So today we are going to be talking about holidays, holy days, sort of

feast days and celebration in general. And I should say, because if that might sound a little bit vague, holidays as we now know them, i.e. going to Berkhamstead to hire an Airbnb that's slightly nicer than your house for a week before going back to your house that you don't like anymore because it's been locked down and you don't have a garden. The sort of holidays that we all recognise. It's quite a modern invention because for tourism to thrive, you need a certain degree of political and economic stability. So the, I suppose, the Halcyon days of Pax Romana, which is roughly 30 BC to AD 200. That was the longest unbroken period of peace that Europe has ever managed. So after that, there was just loads and loads of warfare. So going on holiday to Berkhamstead or Camberley, which is just within the M25 and a great commuter town that kind of thing it became it became much more difficult so we'll be talking about uh things like package holidays a little bit

later i am going to be talking about uh fairgrounds and the experience of leisure and people having breaks and the uh the kind of the growing popularity of the fairground and all the weirdness they're in uh chris what are you going to be talking about? And then I will be talking about package holidays. I really wanted to talk about this, and I've got some really interesting stuff. I've always wondered how they came about, and you're about to find out. But firstly, Ellis. I'm going to be quite wide-ranging.

I'm going to be talking about pagan festivals, early Roman holidays, and also the kind of celebrations that they used to have on the continent. Okay, so tourism in ancient Rome. Now, one thing I found absolutely fascinating is that the way they went on holiday in ancient Rome, it quite closely resembles the way we go on holiday today. So across the entire Mediterranean world, you had this quite elaborate tourist infrastructure, which anticipated our contemporary version.

And it had emerged to cater for the Romans' distinctive needs. So they stayed at roadside inns. They complained about hard mattresses and bad service, they ate at dubious restaurants, they got drunk in smoke-filled taverns and they wrote poems about their hangovers, which is quite recognisable, isn't it? I mean, I've never written a poem about my hangover. I've certainly sent a sort of brutally lurid and descriptive WhatsApp about my hangover, but I've never actually, I've never been moved to write a poem about it. Now, the parallels between a chyfeirio WhatsApp am fy hangover. Ond dydw i ddim wedi cael fy modd i ysgrifennu poem amdano. Nawr, mae'r rhwydwaith rhwng hyn neu'r hyn y gwnaethant ei wneud yn ymwneud â thuriswm modern yn eithaf sylweddol.

Felly, wrth gwrs, o amgylch y tynion gwahanol yma o'r atrofiadau gwirfoddol, roedd gennych chi llwyth o gyfeiriadau troffiaid proffesiynol, yn enw Mr Goggy, y who show sacred places to foreigners. And they would pay good money for a good floor show. So you would crowd-pleasing Egyptian priests keeping crocodiles in a pond, and at scheduled times they would feed them morsels of flesh, squirt wine into their mouths, and then they would hand-polish their sharp teeth. I mean, say what you want about SeaWorld,

but at least the animals aren't pissed. Do you reckon as well? A pissed crocodile. Can you then have a crocodile alcoholic? Like waking up thinking, God, I need a drink, man. I can't wait for the squirting session to start again. The one thing worse than a crocodile would be a really hungover crocodile. Yeah.

They're grouchy enough. And then a bit like TripAdvisor, there'd be reviews. Many of the ancient travel experiences echo down the ages. So one Roman traveller's comment about the locals of Alexandria. They worship only one god there, Cash. You're like, oh, yes. This sounds exactly like Benidorm. That's exactly what I thought.

I thought, hang on, I've been here. I think I've been on holiday in ancient Rome. I wonder if the ancient Romans were doing what I do whenever I'm in a museum on holiday and I think midway round, why am I in a museum? I live in a city with museums and I never go to any of them. Why am I now in Venice in a museum when I could just be doing anything else,

drinking wine and eating food? Yes. Do you not get that? There's an obligation, I think, sometimes on holidays where you feel you have to sort of make use of it in the way that you should i need to fill this day with these cultural sort of things i wonder if that was the case there but that's definitely what i'm like especially with kids and you're like listen you are gonna you are gonna walk up this belfry and you are gonna enjoy it yeah and then part of you thinks hang on

no one enjoys a belfry what what what the kids like was the slides in the swimming pool. We should just be there. This belfry is a waste of time. Well, as you all know, on my stag do to Bruges, Josh Whittaker, my best man, had booked a trip for us all to go up the belfry in Bruges and look over the skyline. We got to the bottom of the belfry.

There was a little bit of a queue, and everyone was like, let's just not bother. That was the one thing that had been booked in the day and it just fell to pieces um yeah so you have certain dates of the year holy days would coincide with significant celebratory feasts or wakes some of which have pagan ancestries others are christian inventions and this just reminded me of a welsh tradition which uh we studied at school called uh the marie lloyd a very lloyd in welsh o ddiddordeb Cymraeg, a ddysgu'n ysgol, yn enw'r Mari Lloyd, Mari Lloyd yn Gymraeg. Ac roedd yn fustu gwylio'r ddynion yn ystod Cymru. Felly byddai'r ddiddordeb yn cynnwys

gwrs hobby sy'n cael ei wneud o sgwrs gwrs, wedi'i gosod ar y pol, ac wedi'i gyrru gan unigolyn wedi'i ddynnu o dan llawr. Felly, dechreuodd y cyntaf yn y cyfnodau cyntaf 1800, rwy'n credu. hidden under a sackcloth, right? So it first started in the early 1800s, I think. That's the first recording of it. And it was a tradition performed around Christmas time by groups of men who would accompany the horse on his travels around the local area. And although the makeup of the groups would vary, they typically included an individual to carry the horse, a leader, an individual's dress,

a stock character such as Punch and Judy. Now, I'm going to stop you there. Has anyone ever found Punch and Judy funny? Oh God. It is awful. Rubbish. So bad. So rubbish.

And a bit scary. Too violent. It is too violent. Have you ever been to, I'm sure in Covent Garden, there's a plaque in Covent Garden from where Samuel Pepys went to watch a Punch and Judy show

Oh really? I wondered, was that show any good? But also, has there ever been a Punch and Judy show that was just mind-blowing? That just was rude You know, was like brought tears to your eyes Like Hamilton, you've got to see this

Well you know, Succession was initially a Punch and Judy show. And then it was moved from the Punch and Judy stall onto TV. Well, the men would carry the money away to local houses. They'd request entry

through song. The householders would be... Just to quickly catch up. So there's a horse's skull on a pole with a drape across it. Lots of people are dressed up as fools and all these sort of things, and they're following this dead horse.

So the householders would be expected to deny them entry, again through song. Understandably. And the two sides would continue their responses to one another in this manner. So I'm guessing you'd be like, will you let me in? No, I won't. I'd quite like you to sod off, actually. And also, have you seen my horse?

I haven't seen my horse in the last... I had a horse until yesterday afternoon. It is that. I recognise that skull. If the householders eventually relented, the team would be permitted entry and given food and drinks. The Marley Lloyd itself consisted of a horse's skull that was decorated with ribbons and affixed to a pole.

The back of the skull is attached to a white sheet which drapes down to conceal both the pole and the individual carrying this device. Terrific. In some instances the horse's jaw was able to open and close as a result of a string or lever attached to it. Can I ask you a question about that? Because you

mention, just more it's not a historical question, more your point of view on this. It says that sometimes people would relent. I think you're right. I can't see a point where I would relent and let them in. Even when it's ruining the game and everyone's sat out on the street going,

come on, you're the last house, you've got to let us in. I'd be like, you're not coming in. And you've run out of verses. Yeah, exactly. I'm sorry. I'm aware you've all gathered, and this is a big celebration, but you're not coming in. And you've run out of verses. Yeah, exactly. I'm sorry. I'm aware you've all gathered. This is a big celebration but you're not coming in. I think they'd wear you down.

Your neighbours, there's no escape. You can't escape from your neighbours. Like, year round you'll be the guy who didn't open the door to the dead horse's head. Yes. Yeah, that's how you'd be. The miserable old sod who hasn't opened his door to the horse's head that's covered

in ribbons. You also know that they're going to do that, you said that the mouth moves, at a point they're going to start pretending to be the horse pleading, oh come on, please move the mouth of the horse and everyone's laughing and I'm still going no, you're not coming in. I don't want to

let a horse's skull into my house, all right? My son has trouble sleeping. We've just got him down. I guess the difficult thing is now, like if you're almost trying to invent a new holiday, it's like you're going up against Christmas, Easter. Yeah. Great holidays with bank holidays.

Great traditions now bedded in that everyone buys into. You can't be turning up with a dead horse's head on a stick going, what about this one? I've got this new one. Who's up for it? No one is. I say new one. It's actually very, very efficient.

I'm trying to bring it back. I was having a really nice pub lunch once in Dorset and then there was a lot of noise and everyone started to become very excited and I looked out the window and there were Morris stances in the car park and I thought, come on lads

it's 2014 give it up it's never going to be big again it's over it's over it is over I always think like the Maypole

we've got this is we've got PlayStation 5 now I don't even know what number we're on the Maypole is competing with a FIFA you know guys

well you know but you know the biggest biggest game on the PlayStation 5 is a country dancing game you know guys well you know but you know the biggest biggest game on the playstation 5 is a country dancing game you know that it's massive it's really big it's bigger than fifa and virtual virtual morris dancing you put yeah you get you get a stick it's like it can tell when you're moving it in your front room like it's really very very very clever actually i just want to go back on punch and Judy. I talked earlier about the plaque that's in Covent Garden. It actually commemorates the one that Samuel Pepys saw

was the first ever Punch and Judy show in England in 1662. And it's featured in his diary. It's the first one ever. And that makes me realise 1662 was the first Punch and Judy show. I saw it 330 years later. Still shit. Yeah, exactly. I guarantee you when that ended samuel

peeps went well that'll never catch on that's the last we see of that so i'm going to talk to you about leisure and more specifically about funfairs and traveling shows okay was there a funfair rumor when you were at school that someone got flung out of the spinning thing and was found like a mile away in a tree was that a thing that when the water was one of those things like razor blades in the water slide? I've always wondered if that actually happened at the funfair near me or if that's just something people said everywhere in the country. I've never heard that. Razor blades in the swimming pool and down the slide.

I used to hear that all the time about Swansea Leisure Centre. The fair ground ride I used to hear was that the dodgems were so fast. One poor boy, there was dog mess in the dodgem, and he put his foot down, and the dodgem went so fast that the dog mess flew into his face. That's what I was told, and I was about

ten. That's the most disgusting story I've ever heard. It's also completely, clearly untrue. And I can't believe I believed it Give you a bit of background In the 18th century, basically, fairs were just trade environments That's what they were for And then in the 19th century, they sort of started to shift a bit more towards entertainment

Which kind of reflected political and economic change at the time For three main reasons First of all, the French Revolution Gave sort of ideology of sort of secular freedom and enjoying yourself in that way. Secondly, the Industrial Revolution dragged people to cities and sort of new forms of mass entertainment came along. And then thirdly, they also seemed to kind of basically reflect the progress of the Industrial Revolution, sort of the great strides that were being made there. And people loved this idea of riding on things and invention and pleasure and stuff that was modern.

It kind of basically came wrapped up in this idea of what modern life was at that point. And people just flocked to them with excitement. So all of which sort of led to the funfairs that we see today. And before the modern funfair, there were some really, really weird attractions, which people used to flock to to enjoy. And I'm going to take you through some of these.

Okay. Going back to 1817, one of the biggest attractions in England, it was huge, huge, people loved it, was Toby the Sapient Pig. Now, Toby was considered the most famous of the learned pigs of his era. Was he like those animals that claim they can predict World Cup results? Literally, yeah. Poor the octopus. Well, would you try and guess?

There are, I think there's five things that this pig could do. Would you try and tick them off? What do you think they might be? Basic maths. Yeah. Yeah, sort of. Okay. Could it count somehow?

These are all sort of right areas, but they're more specific. I think one of the things would be it would wear a hat, like a university... You know, it's going to dress... Something about the way it looks has to be. I would say any pig can wear a hat. You just can't put it on. Surely you can just put a hat on a pig.

But that would be part of the mystery. He would come out from his abode with the hat on. And then talk about its book deal. Well, Ellis, you don't know how close you are. So the things thatby could supposedly do were he could play cards he could read he could tell the time from a pocket watch and he could guess a person's age and it was also his big trick he could discover a person's thoughts so it's cleverer than most of the humans in my life cleverer than most of my friends so those are the things he did but you talk about his book

deal after the success of this well people flock to see him he then even apparently wrote his own autobiography which was one of the big selling books at the time called the life and adventures of toby the sapient pig with his opinions on men and matters and then it says written by himself as well it's written under me you could technically sort of i reckon you could shove a pen into the slot between two cloven hooves there might be a way you could get a pen in there but this book was hugely popular written by this he's not using a typewriter in your imagination he's he's physically writing it out a typewriter would make way more sense. No, the hoof is too big to hit the individual key,

so it has to be a pen. He's always not got a normal human-sized keyboard. He's got a massive pig-sized one for his trotters. Like the piano in Big. So if you're interested where this skill came from, good old Toby is good enough to explain in his autobiography. In the book, the pig writes about where this skill came from um good old toby is good enough to explain in his autobiography in the book the pig writes about where his talent come from came from saying my mother in the early stages of her pregnancy unwittingly entered a gentleman's flower garden where she came obliquely to the entrance of his library and she entered and in a short time cast her eye over numerous volumes it contained such was her haste she disordered some while others

she minutely perused, nay absolutely bereaved of their leaves, chewing and swallowing them all so great was her avidity so the story is his mum ate loads of books when she was pregnant that's why he's such a pride pig. If only

it was that easy If knowledge could be gained by eating books, I would genuinely consider it. That's what my very irate dad used to say when I didn't revise, when I wasn't revising for my GCSEs and E-Levels. He would go, you'd revise it up there? And I'd say

no. And he'd go, if you could inject the knowledge, that would be fine, but you can't, so you need to do some reading! Sorry, dad. Now, are you can't, so you need to do some reading. Sorry, Dad. Now, are you familiar with the fairground attraction, which is known as a boxing booth? Yes, absolutely.

I know a little bit about boxing booths. No, I don't know. What's that? So aside from animals and rye, this was the big draw in fairgrounds for a long time as well actually so in their heyday um which kind of and they actually existed up until about the 1970s in a very you know not there weren't many of them around at that point but they were around for centuries before that in their heyday basically each region of the country would have something called a boxing booth where and they travel around the circuit with boxers fighting for championships at both a regional and national level for example in the west country uh jack and alice gratton traveled

uh gratton's boxing show with their son who was known as one round gratton who was a legend from paul depends ants because he always knocked out his opponents in the first round so yeah but what was particular about these things is that local hard men if you thought you were hard you had the opportunity to go three rounds and win a pound, is what it was described so you would go into this booth in front of other people in the fairground and you'd have to try and fight these trained

boxers to try and win money but it didn't matter how big they were or how small the boxing booth boxer was so South Wales has got a fantastic record for producing world boxing champions, but they tend to be in the smaller weights, you know, like flyweight. So Jimmy Wilde, who was a Welsh boxer, the Tidus Town Terror, the ghost with a hammer in his hand,

he was born in Quaker's Yard near Merthyr Tydfil, and he was only five foot two, right? Now, five foot two is, for a bloke, is small. That's really small. He would be fighting local farmers who would weigh 200 pounds and

that's where he learned to box at the age of 16. So he might not have even been 5'2 at the age of 16. I don't know if he'd reached his full adult height by then. Kept getting punched on the top of the head. He was fighting for 16. So that's right, they'd fight whoever turned up. That's exactly right.

And loads of fight in a day. So have you heard of this chap called Billy Wood? Have you heard of him? No. So Billy Wood was a fighter in Dumfries who recalled setting up the ring at the Durham Miners Gala in 1919. The booth opened at 7am and closed at 1 o'clock the following morning. During that time, Wood fought 18 colliers, knocking out 15 of them.

Can you imagine how hard a collier would be? Absolutely. Working all day at the pit face. You're fighting the local hard blocks but not once 15 you'd be absolutely shattered by the i think i'll have to fact check this so if i get this wrong uh please by all means uh let us know um i think that if you lost a fight you weren't paid oh but yeah a lot of the welsh boxers who came of age at the turn of the 20th century had learned their trade in boxing booths. Yeah, fascinating things. Wow.

However, there is a kind of a rosy end to this story as I wrap this up. England is in a way indebted to these boxing fights because in a fairground boxing ring in 1930, a young pitman from Northumberland managed to win his three rounds okay and he used his pound to then buy a wedding ring for the girl that he loved and his name was robert charlton and his bride-to-be with cassie and his two of his sons were called bobby and jack and then fast forward to 1966 there you go so it wasn't for this money that he won to buy the wedding ring, which then led to him having children.

There's an argument England wouldn't have won the World Cup in 1966. It's probably quite a loose argument. No, no. I'll take that argument. Yeah, that's lovely. Exactly. His father did that. His father fought and won in one of those places.

And it just goes to show how hard, how genetically hard the Cholton brothers must have been. Yeah. I will say this. I went to see the UFC at the O2, and it was the first big fighting for a championship event that I'd ever seen. I've seen boxing, but never for a world championship.

And the exhilaration, the thrill of it, two men going at it, there was something incredibly carnal about it it was one of the best things i've ever done like the crowd was so partisan you get caught up in it and ultimately with fighting you know it's not like football where a team could go two nil up and you're kind of confident they're going to win because we're fighting it could end at any moment yeah and as a sporting spectacle it was exhilarating. It was so good.

So I really sympathise with it. I understand why boxing moves made so much money. You'd watch bare-knuckle fighting on the hillside. Six in the morning. You're going to go to the cheese rolling and watch this. Chris is pro the idea of a horseshoe within the glam as well, aren't you? You're kind of absolutely backing it, making it as violent as possible. Tab out more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs. And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600.

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all right lads let's jump in our time machine i'm taking you you back to the 5th of July 1841 at Leicester Railway Station. There's a train on the way to Loughborough. 500 people are about to board it. The trip has been organised by a Mr Thomas Cook. That will hopefully sound familiar. These 500 people to Loughborough are going on the first ever package holiday. Thomas Cook, a go-getting businessman, has seen a gap in the market for what would become package excursions using the railway network. Soon he branched out into longer excursion

tours that were to include Europe, the Middle East and the United States. To add to the tourist experience, he produced travel guides, issued coupon books redeemable at authorised hotels, cafes and restaurants and established fixed exchange rates using an early form of traveller's checks. By the 1870s, it was possible to book a round-the-world tour in 1870. Wow. I really do think travel broadens the mind, and I think holidays, they're fantastic things things a break from the day to day but in 1870 there is no way in hell I'm going on a round the world tour

because you're gonna die malaria will finish you off there's a thousand things snakes there's no infrastructure I don't need to see the world that bad in 1870 I don't think as a personality I'm intrepid enough.

I think some people do genuinely thrive and they absolutely love the idea of branching into the unknown and going somewhere completely different. Whereas most of the holidays I've been on, I'm fairly comfortably sort of Western. Like, I've never really roughed it. I mean, not that you would have had many home comforts if you were poor and Welsh anyway, but I would have been thinking to myself, are they going to have tea bags there?

Are they going to... I think that now. Are they going to have toasted mussels? I don't know, I've never been before. I can't Google it. The internet's 190 years away. Also, it would have taken so long, the Row the Word trip. It really is like, as soon as you've left your home,

you're not seeing that for a long time. It must take an age. It's by boat, isn't it? It's by boat and then whatever train or something, I guess, when you're on the land. But most of it's going to be boat. There's no flying at that point. So you're going to be gone for months, aren't you?

But then it's quite exciting, isn't it? There is something to be said for that point of history in travel where people really didn't know. They were going to completely new places in a way that now, you know, everything's filtered into our homes through magazines and tv and you know document you you've basically seen everything before you get there obviously i'm sure the the wonder of being on safari is it's far more dramatic than watching it on uh on iplayer but but you know you're still slightly prepared for it in a way that i imagine at that point it would be just completely just mind-blowing travel must be mind-blowing but then i'm always

surprised when people say oh it's one of my life ambitions to go on a safari it's like have you been to a zoo you know i've seen a lion i don't think that i'm not sure that i don't need to see that lion in his natural setting why not i've seen i've seen a giraffe i've seen all these things i just i don't need to go to Kenya. I just think if the famous naturalist Steve Irwin can die when he's out in the wild, all of the stuff that he knew about wild animals, and it still goes wrong for him, if I go on a safari,

I'm going to be eating crisps at the wrong minute, at the wrong second, and suddenly I've had my arm ripped off. Why did I go for beef flavour? That was such a schoolboy error. Just to go back to the beginning of your thing there, Chris. So Loughborough was his first place. And then he expanded.

I got this image of his estate agent with three clocks on the wall. Loughborough, Paris and New York. All right. Let me tell you more about Thomas Cook right so Thomas Cook's model of pre-packaged excursions and tourism was adopted mimicked developed by others railway companies and those operating the Grand Ocean Liners across the Atlantic all the

way through to football supporters clubs who had to fill the away stands on a Saturday afternoon so some of the first package holidays included the fa cup final that was a particular focus so supporters coming into london huddersfield manchester cardiff birmingham the railway made it all possible and the excursion holiday became a part of everyday life for the middle classes the phenomenon of the British package holiday was here. On August Bank Holiday 1914, 50,000 people travelled to Barry Island just before the outbreak of the First World War.

On August Bank Holiday 1914, across the Bristol Channel in Weston-super-Mare, 25,000 people that same day. On a bank holiday in 1938, talking of Barry Island, a quarter of a million people went to Barry Island. Now, Barry Island has always been popular. Can you imagine quarter of a million people? The queue for ice creams, the queue for chips. The local newspaper wryly commented that the bather who found more than a square yard of sand or pebbles upon which to deposit his or her clothes was unusually lucky. And there's pictures of Barry Island. It's nuts.

And it is absolutely crazy. It is like Glastonbury or something like that. It is completely mobbed. I find that panic-inducing. I lived in Cardiff and I was doing my history MA, if you need further proof of my qualifications for this podcast. And it was rumoured that it was going to be the hottest day on record in the UK, in South Wales.

So I thought, you know, I'm not going to be able to do much work. So I lived in one of those horrendous student houses that was uninhabitably cold in the winter and uninhabitably hot in the summer. So it was fine in March and September, but other than that, it was unpleasant. It just depended on which way it was going to

be unpleasant. So my friend said, why don't we all go to Barry Island? I'd be right, the problem was everyone in Wales had the same idea and it was standing room only on the beach wow what's the infrastructure like in Barry Island

is there loads of fun things to do is there like a promenade yeah it's a classic seaside town so there's

you know there's arcades there's coffee shops there's chip shops I've been I loved it great yeah

I mean I wouldn't say it could cope with a quarter of a million people. Yeah. Yeah, it was just so insanely busy. And then the train on the way back, it was like commuters, you know, everyone's nose to nose. Let me ask you a question. So,

you're heading towards Barry Island, is that 1933? Is that right? 38 was when they were quarter of a million. 38, and you're getting off the train you're walking you're going oh my

it's a quarter of a million people on that beach are you then going onto the beach or are you going well this obviously isn't what we're going to do with our day anymore

the problem is you've gone to Barry Island to go to the beach so you're locked in okay I think you have to go imagine the disappointment on your children's face

as you go we've come all the way to Barry Island, right, let's get in the arcade. You don't want to be the sea side of the beach, if that makes sense, as it's starting to fill up. And you're getting shoved

into the sea. Tides coming in. Further and further away from the ice cream van that sells over price bottles of water. You're thinking, I haven't thought this through. The queue for chips is 8,000 deep. The only way we can make this work is if you have one chip each.

That's the only way we can feed everyone. All right, well, in the 50s and 60s, I think the British seaside seemed to reach something of a golden age. And I certainly feel like this. I love seeing pictures of British people on holiday in the 50s and 60s in these seaside towns. So what happened is councils began to open municipal caravan parks to capitalise on the appeal.

In Llandud... Llandud, no? How's my pronunciation? We never said Llandud. Yeah, in North Wales coast, 200,000 holidaymakers were accommodated in July and August, with half a million day-trippers visiting in the same period. That's incredible. And then in the interwar years saw the start of the holiday camp craze, as associated most famously with businessmen Billy Butlinlin and harry warner fred ponton joined

them after the second world war isn't it funny that thomas cook billy butlin fred ponton all these names it doesn't feel real doesn't it they're actual real people who made yeah yeah billy butlin that's such a great name that's fantastic yeah little bino character the first butlins was opened at skeg ness in 1936 the aim was to provide customers with cheap but complete holiday holiday packages no more kind of basil faulty style hoteliers you know rip you off be rude to you at buttlins the idea was you had a chalet to yourself complete with electric lights running water you'd get your three meals a day in the dining hall lovely little club rooms recreation rooms you'd have billiards table tennis cards lounging sea and sand on one side the coast on the other and then there was also

physical kind of instruction free boating free bathing golf tennis bowls orchestral music and all of it part of one cohesive package it was so popular that butlin's opened their second uh holiday camp clackton on sea in 1938 and plenty more followed after the war including an island and barry island in the 1960s so i actually went on holiday to i was actually in a butlin's when I met my first ever celebrity. We used to go Butlins quite a lot. And I was called up on stage once to meet Cheryl Baker. So the glitz and glamour of Butlins continued well on into my lifetime.

Of course, they produced a whole generation of Saturday Night ITV talent, didn't they, in the redcoats? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Shane Ritchie. I nearly said Shane McGowan then. That would have been good. Shane McGowan as a redcoat. I would like to have seen that.

What's he doing? Is that singing? It would be terrible for 11 months of the year but then come Christmas when he does a live performance at Fairytale in New York people are going this is why we book him this is why

we don't sack him the 11 months of the year he's drunk on the job good stuff the manager single tear going down his cheek this is why I kept him on I knew it was the right decision. I'm about to relax.

What you're about to witness over the next three and a half minutes makes the last eleven and a half months worth it. Do you want some Billy Butlin facts? Yeah. I've got some great Billy Butlin facts. I went down a Billy Butlin rabbit hole. He was married three

times on his second marriage in 1959 he was surprised on his wedding day by amon andrews for his episode of this is your life oh my god on his wedding day so intense the priest pulls got pulls off the beard it's amonamon Andrews. Oh, my God. Billy Butlin, this is your life. And then they had to go and do the TV show there and then. Yeah, he had to go and do the TV show the night of his wedding day. No. So, scrap the reception, bin the vol-au-vents.

Please tell me the bride had turned up. It wasn't so mortifying. He was just waiting at the end of the aisle on his own. She's not turned up and then suddenly His second marriage was to the niece Of his first wife And his second marriage Lasted mere months after Eamon Andrews

Filmed that episode of This Is Your Life And Billy Butlin's Gravestone is in the shape of a double bed I wouldn't say that is The most iconic element of a butlin resort is it who did that do you mean the whole thing's like it's like a size of a double bed so you could lie down on it or do you just like it's just like a normal headstone okay yeah double bed odd thing to do Do it like a chalet.

That's in the shape of a gravestone. With a little window on it or something. So you can see the open casket. Yeah, and open the door. You can watch him decompose. Incredible. So, of course, the end of British tourism. Well, it's not the end, obviously.

We've just established Margate's fantastic. But in the 1950s, as relations of British tourism. Well, it's not the end, obviously. We've just established Margaux. It's fantastic. But in the 1950s, as relations between Britain and Spain improved, having been soured by the Spanish Civil War in the 30s, the summer resorts of the Mediterranean, the Balearics, the Costas, the south of France, all of these areas began to market themselves to the British tourist tour operators, reassured customers that hotels and boarding houses were carefully chosen to suit British ideas about food and hygiene. Essentially, a trip abroad was not an adventure.

Chips are going to be on the menu. Only fools and horses is going to be on the telly. It was a big deal, because obviously most people hadn't been abroad. So when it when it when it started to become affordable for normal people it was a it was a massive thing um going abroad i think i don't know when my parents i think my mum and dad went to cyprus in 1980 i think that might have been one of the first times that they went abroad and then they didn't go abroad again for another 12 years they just talked about cyprus all the time it's such an incredible time i had sea bus in cyprus 11 years ago but uh yeah now obviously

it's so common so the problem the british resorts faced in the 50s and 60s was that package holiday traffic was one way continental holiday makers did not book to come to Skegness or Barry Island anymore. Eventually, cheaper intercontinental air travel made more distant package holidays possible, including the Eastern Mediterranean, such as Dubrovnik and Beirut, and then eventually the United States, Canada, and of course Asia. It wasn't until the age of the staycation returned that British holiday destinations were to boom once more. So out of the three options from today's show,

which are you going for? I've got to be honest, the pagan stuff, not really down with that. The Feast of Fools, et cetera, it all sounds rubbish. How the Romans did it sounds pretty good, but really I want the security of a 1960s package holiday Even more than speaking to Ian

I know what I like Can I just remind you that you have the option of visiting a learned pig as well in 16th century England Can I go on holiday with the learned pig? Can the learned pig book my holiday? Will he get me the best deal?

The learned pig sounds like something smug that Jacus Rees-Mogg would say in Parliament, wouldn't it? Will the learned pig please sit down while I complete what I never do? It sounds like Heston Blumenthal's new restaurant. Have you been to the Loaded Pig? It's got five Michelin stars.

So you'd go package holiday rather than watching a pig pretend to read. Yeah. Yeah. Chips and beans, only for the nurses. I mean, that just sounds genuinely good. Yeah, absolutely. I'm with you as well. There's only one winner here, isn't there?

It's package holiday. Eat loads of breakfast. All day long. It's making me hungry for a fry-up. It is, actually. There we go. All done this week. Thank you so much for your support. Once again, if you enjoyed the episode,

why not give us a rating and a review? If you leave it in Latin and you leave five stars, there's a high chance it will get read out next week. Give us a five-star review, mister. That's how a Cockney paperboy would have asked, wouldn't he, in 1920? Give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, mister. Oi, mister.

I would absolutely listen to that podcast, by the way. From a cockney paperboy who lived in Victorian Britain. Oh, my God. Also, he'd be across the news as well, because he's handing out the papers. It would be topical. It would be historical. It's nice to hear the views of youth as well.

He'd be the most informed paperboy. It would be incredible. Give us a five-star review, mister. When I was in Prague, when West Ham got to the final of a European competition, yes, it actually happened, and I was wearing official West Ham United merch in my capacity as a host of the fan zone, and a young fan came up to me and went, Oi, mister, can I have your hoodie?

And I was like, Oi, mister, who talks like that? I was like, where's this talks like that so where's this kid been transported from Victorian Britain I was watching the Arsenal Stadium mystery have you seen this film

no no it's a great film set at Highbury where Arsenal used to play made in 1939 it's got the team and it's got the manager in it as well

as well as a lot of quite famous British actors from the team and it's got the manager in it as well, as well as a lot of quite famous British actors from the day. There's a bit where the team are winning and a little sort of paperboy style character, I think he might be a bellboy, at Highbury says excuse me sir, what's the score?

And somebody goes, well they are still winning 1-0. And he goes, ooh, yippee! And he runs away. I'd love to know if anyone has ever said the word and somebody goes, well, they are still winning 1-0 and he goes, ooh, yippee! I'd love to know if anyone has ever said the word yippee unironically. Well, I still use the phrase to spend a penny. I have quite a lot of these old, archaic turns of phrase.

So if anyone's like, I can see myself letting a yippee slip out at a party and then just having to leave immediately. Being so embarrassed. I say my giddy ant and whoopsie daisy as well. I say bye jingo. That's my other thing, bye jingo. I will answer the phone with ahoy ahoy, which is apparently how Alexander Graham Bell answered the first phone call.

Oh, wow. Okay, nice. I've never gone for that. Someone told me that once. Well, it's very pressing that you say that because we know that we've got some very, very clever, very learned listeners on this podcast. If we've ever made a historical cock-up,

if there have been any gaffes, if any little mistakes have slipped the net, please let us know on hello at owatertime.com because we will do a clarification section in future podcasts. So we're building up a collection

of clangers and then we'll read them out and apologise obviously because for crying out loud, there's enough misinformation in the world as it is. We don't want to be adding to it. And all we want from this podcast is for it to be perfect. So that's all we hope for.

And equally, if there's anything within the subjects we've talked about that you think we've missed out on, we should have talked, if there's any crazy facts that you think we should have picked up on send those over as well and we can check that out and if they're right having run them past a historian we might read them out all right that that's it for this week we'll see you next week thank you for listening bye