Starting collecting your Butlin's Bognor Regis Memorabilia items with eBay, have a look at these items below
Staff Card - 1965
I spent the summers of 1963 working as a barman at Butlins holiday camp in Pwllheli. The first summer I had just left school and the others were in the university holidays. The railway line to Pwllheli ran in a cutting through the camp and in those days the majority of campers and staff arrived by train at Penychain, the camp’s own railway station. Having lugged your suitcase up the lane, staff reported to the security office by the main gate. This was actually the old guardroom from wartime days as a Navy base and it still fulfilled the same function - though perhaps without the detention cells!
You then had a mugshot taken holding a board with your name and staff number chalked on it - just like a police criminal mugshot. Caernarfonshire had strict licensing rules and the staff pass contained a warning that staff were not allowed to drink in camper's bars after 10.30, a rule widely disobeyed as the staff bar was a cheerless place, albeit with cheaper booze.
You had to carry your staff pass to enter the camp, to collect your wages and could be challenged at any time to show it. The security office was the base for the camp’s own “police force” with uniformed Commissionaires who manned the main gate, escorted cash & valuables around the camp and patrolled to deter rowdiness. One of our barmen remustered as a commissionaire to great hilarity in his uniform with a peaked cap. There were, just like the police, plain clothes security who investigated crimes on the camp, particularly pilfering by the staff!
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