The Chalet Lines

The Chalet Lines

"After dark the management ask guests to be quiet in the accommodation lines and consider elderly guests and children"

Welcome to the Chalet Lines

My dad always used to like an upstairs chalet because you tended to be further away from any noisy campers who might be walking along the chalet lines late at night.
The featured chalet M113 was the end of the row, and in this instance at the top of the staircase, which seemed to have an extra bit of balcony with just room to place a chair conveniently for sunbathing!
I don't recall any major disturbances in the camp, it did always seem to have a friendly atmosphere.

1969

The Chalet Lines 1969-1973

Here are a selection of photos from the chalet lines and you can see me wearing my Butlin's badges. We each had a key to the chalet, so that we could all come and go as we pleased. The keys were valuable in a sense that you surrendered them in exchange for skating hire and other activities and also had to show them to get a pass card if you left the camp gates. In avid reporter style, I even took a photograph of the chalet door to show the numbering.

The chalet 'at the top of the stairs' was actually M113, although the door pictured above is D113 which we occupied a different year.

Inside the Chalet

The chalets were very basic by today's standards. The roofs look like they were made of asbestos and most of the staircases were wooden. In some of the older chalet lines, new metal stairs had been fitted. Our later chalets were en suite with a bath and toilet and there was an electric wall heater for the colder months. A blue painted chest of drawers (and probably a wardrobe) was adequate for the few holiday clothes that you would need for sunny Clacton. Notice the glass (instead of plastic) Coke bottle.

On the matter of time:

The clock on the chest of drawers has some significance. When at Clacton in 1964 or 1965, I hadn't yet learned how to tell the time and I remember mum sticking a plaster onto the clock to tell me when to leave the chalet to watch Noggin the Nog in the TV rooms. In the photo above I am wearing my Timex watch which was a present from mum while on holiday in 1967 or 1969.

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Watch these pages for more related memories of Butlin's...

Noggin the Nog www.smallfilms.co.uk/noggin/ and The Northlands www.nogginthenog.co.uk

	Roger Moore as James Bond 007 Roger Moore's own account of filming Live And Let Die with exclusive colour photographs by Luisa Moore and stills from the film. This book was published while we were on holiday in 1973 and I remember going into Clacton town centre to buy this copy.