Boy with his Boat

 

This is yours truly with a toy boat. Not sure what it is. I seem to think it was blue.

Butlins, circa 1964 or 5.

ONE PIECE PLASTIC SPEEDBOAT ANYONE?

This is an old family shot of the Woodsies and chums at Butlins in the Sixties.

That's me in the stripey T-shirt holding the ship.

Does anyone recognise my blue speedboat with its pull-string lying on the floor?

I'd love to know the make and name again!

Did you go to Butlins?

TWO WEEKS IN SWORDLAND PLEASE!

Just been watching an advert for Disneyland Paris. Wouldn't it be amazing if there was a theme park or resort just for us toy nuts! Somewhere were everything is toy-related and even better, to do with space toys. It'd have names like:

SWORDLAND or

PLANET SPACEX or

THUNDERWORLD or

STARBORO or

SANCTUARY 21 or

GOLDEN ASTRESORT or

CENTURY PARKS

And why not! Disney fans get there own place to hang out. Well, I suppose they are kids with their parents aren't they. But hey, us space toy nuts need somewhere to relax as well! Just nowhere designed by Michael Crichton!

What would be in your ideal [ or Triang, Mattel, Palitoy ...! ] resort readers?

SPLISHING AND SPLOSHING

During those warm Sixties Summers the only thing that would cool down us overheating children was water. We weren't bothered which form it took. Ice was great for eating, especially flavoured and covered in sprinkles with neat names like FAB and SkyRay. When ice didn't do it then there was nothing for it but to leap into the nearest pool of liquid water like a gaggle of ducks!

Butlins, the quintessential British baby boomer holiday resort, was festooned with all manner of water features for leaping into: fountains, paddling areas and full-on swimming pools with that most terrifying of childhood haunts, the Deep End!

Here are a few snaps my family took of me dabbling in Butlins' many wonderful watery playgrounds. Did you enjoy a good paddle when you were Kids readers?

OK Mum, I'll take it from here!

Wow, I'm the King of the Fountain!

Damn, Stuart's here! There's no peace!

And now my Big Brother Steve's here!

Where's Steve gone?

I'm here! C'mon Paul, the Deep End's great!

That's easy Bro! Hmm, on second thoughts!

PLASTIC ADVENTURE: FROM BUTLINS TO BUESUM BY TOY BOAT

When I was a wee nipper back in the Sixties my folks took the family to Butlins every summer. Butlins had holiday camps dotted around the UK. We went to Minehead and Pwllheli. One of my great passions back then were toy plastic boats and Butlins was a great place to get Mum and ex-sailor Dad to buy them for me and because of the paddling pools everywhere, a great place to sail them!

 

Here I am at Butlins around 1964 with, from left to right, my late Mum, my brother Steve, Uncle Gordon, their son Stuart, Auntie Terry and me. My Dad's absent as he will have taken this particular Kodak moment! As you can see I am proudly displaying my latest vessel with another one near my feet. Sadly I don't remember much from my childhood very clearly so I rely on photographs to jog what memories I do have. But just what are Steve and Stuart doing to thier thumbs? Is it a signal?

 

 

I don't remember the two toy plastic boats but the one in my hand appears to be black-hulled ferry maybe, with red decks and a yellow chimney, which I assume all snapped together. The blue one on the grass seems to be a much simpler blow moulded blue speedboat with possibly a red rudder.

 

Both boats were on the ends of strings, which may have been part of the toys. It would make sense since they were sold at Butlins, which was awash with pools and lakes. Neither of these beauties have survived and I have no idea of the manufacturers, probably Tudor Rose or Woolworths. They will have been made in their thousands, mass produced for holidaying kids like me. I have had half an eye out for similar toy boats ever since.

 

So it was with utter astonishment that I saw what I thought was something like one of them in a shop window last week whilst holidaying in Buesum last week on the North German coast. The shop turned out to be an old tobacconists who had a few toys thrown in to keep the Kinder happy. I enquired about the toy boat in the window.

 

It was nestled half behind a rack of pipes and some tins of tobacco. The old shopkeeper hauled it out and said it was Zwei Euro, that's two Euro's, about £1.70 or two dollars and sixty cents. Kerching! I asked if he had any more and groping behind a shelf he pulled out a second but wholly different plastic boat priced the same! Kerching again. Bagged up and pleased as punch I took my booty off to the nearest bench to study them. This is what I bought both in and out of the bags:

 

 

The brightly coloured boat has no markings on it at all but the black-hulled boat has this nice header card - it was made in England by one Springwell [Mouldings] Ltd of Tonbridge, Kent. It's not dated or indeed bar coded.

 

 

But its biggest secret only revealed itself when I inspected the stern:

 

 

 

It says TUDOR ROSE LONDON! It's a Tudor Rose! This old boat has been re-bagged and sold to a modern audience! I was and am chuffed to bits and the icing on the cake is that it looks a bit like my old plastic Butlins boat too! Result! It deserves a little Steve Carell dance of joy!

BUTLINS: THE LAST RESORT

 

During the Summer my thoughts turn inexorably to childhood. It seemed to always be summer in the Sixties! At least, I don't remember any of my first ten winters! My hard-working Mum and Dad always enjoyed taking us kids away for a summer holiday. Like Cliff Richard sang, 'We're all going on a summer holiday, no more working for a week or two'. and we sang it as a family all the way to the coast till our throats hurt!

 

Back then these were still called Wakes Weeks in Lancashire, North West England, but rather than going to the nearby Pontins in Blackpool, they would get the map out and venture further afield.

 

 

Butlins was our destination: Pwllhelli in North Wales, not far from the iconic Port Merion, where the Prisoner was filmed and Minehead on the Somerset coast in South West England.

 

 

We would set off in the Zephyr at around the ungodly hour of 4 in the morning with the aim of getting in our chalet for lunchtime. It was great fun and we entertained ourselves in the back of the car with paper and pens and counting the different makes of car and trucks on the newly fangled motorways. Once there, Mum, Dad, Barbara, Irene, Steve, me and family friends like the Hindles and the Gotts slept in neighbouring chalets and basically lived outside.

 

 

Butlins was a magical park of childhood dreams. There were star-shaped decorations, pools, fountains, diving boards, parks, rides, woodlands, crazy golf, lakes, pedalos, rowing boats, shops and eating halls. There were always special events on organised by the redcoats too. I remember clearly a pirate day, where one of the redcoats, suitably garbed as Blackbeard, was thrown into the big pool by hundreds of screaming kids!

 

 

 

Me and cousin Susan Woods discussing launch procedures!

 

 

 

Butlins also had space rides dotted about and supercool mono-rails winding round the resort, which I thought were fantastically futuristic [still do!]. There were plenty of toy kiosks and comics stands too so us kids never ever got bored. I used to get boats on strings and plastic tugs for messing about with in the paddling pools. Stuff like Tri-ang Scalex boats and dead simple Hong Kong one peice plastic speed boat jobs.

 

 

Occasionally I would harass my Mum and Dad for other toys like a football, a die-cast and plastic cap rifle or even a Project SWORD ship or a Zeroid from the Woollies in town near the holiday parks.

 

 

Me with new cap rifle walking with Jimmy Hindle, My Dad's best mate

and his son, David, who we went to Butlins with. Looks like it's been raining!

 

 

 

I just can't imagine growing up without Butlins back then. Butlins was summer and summer was Butlins. God knows what modern kids would think of it now - probably like a Gulag - but in the Sixties, as far as we were concerned, Billy Butlin, the parks' founder, was a national hero on a par with Johnny Morris or Morecambe and Wise! I do miss it a great deal.

 

 

What are your childhood memories of summer readers?