HOLIDAY CAMPS ARE NEW STATE VENTURE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25346, 20 November 1947, Page 9

HOLIDAY CAMPS ARE NEW STATE VENTURE

A WINDOW ON LONDON

. By

HARVEY BLANKS

London, October 28.—One of the most interesting of recent official announcements is that the Government has decided to go into the holiday camp business. There is nothing remotely like these mass centres of organised entertainment in New Zealand—for which I am heartily thankful. Butlin Holiday Camps now flourish in many parts of Britain. They represent a lot of invested capital, and they are amazingly popular among low-rate waga earners, to whom they offer a holiday with all the amenities of a Continental hotel. The price you pay, beyond cash, is regimentation. In a holiday camp you live in chalets, you eat in a communal hall seating thousands, you dance in vast halls at certain set times, you swim in ornate pools when you are told to. You spend your time obeying orders brayed through loud-speakers. One over your bed wakes you in the morning with swing music. A bright male voice tells you to “show a leg” in good old army fashion; and the same mechanised voice pursues you through the showers and ablution rooms whooping up the programme of the day’s events arranged for “you lucky people.” The Voice In the dining hall, as you begin your porridge, the speakers boom: “Are you enjoying breakfast?” You all have to scream back, “Yes!” If vou don’t scream loud enough the Voice insists. (In the new Government camps, will the Voice call for “Three cheers for Manny Shin well”? And will you have to wait for your reconstituted egg until you buy it?) After breakfast the Voice brisks you off to the swimming pool, or to the athletics ground, where speakers every 50 yards play a lively march at you. The Voice chases you round from beauty contests to community sings, from “get-together” dances to scooter races. When it runs out of directions it shouts: “Are you happy?” Then it orders you to show how happy you are by showing how high you can jump. . . . Camp attendants and organisers—insufferably hearty young men who refuse to leave you alone in case you are not enjoying yourself—wear distinctive blazers and ties and absurd paper hats. From time to time the Voice demands, “What do you do if you want to know anything?” And everyone, all over the camp, cries: “I ask a red-coat!” Hundreds of thousands of Britons every year look upon holiday camps as an escape from their drear, drab everyday ■ existence. Being regimented is heaven. It means that they don’t have to decide anything for themselves or think up their own entertainment. Mr J. Arthur Rank recently produced a very good film, “Holiday Camp,” which quite fairly pictured life and conditions in such a camp. People who like holiday camps thought it a first-rate comedy; people who loathe them thought it.a first-rate horror film. So it pleased everybody. The script was written by Godfrey Winn, the columnist, who made a personal appearance at its premiere. One newspaper, reporting the event, said: “Mr Winn stressed the point that although in the film there is a murder, a couple of spivs, and a girl who has a baby, it is not typical of the majority of holiday camps.” So “Punch” listed the remark under “Apologies Pending.” The Government knows enough about regimentation to be able to make Mr Butlin look like a diehard of laissez-faire. We shall see.

Criminals of the Bath We see it now telling people when to bath. The new Home and Factory Power Exhibition at the South Kensington Science Museum, opened this week by Lord Citrine, is full of exhibits designed to make you slink away feeling like a criminal if you have a bath in the morning. A series of panels depicts guilty citizens whose bath water is heated by gas or electricity. It depicts them behind bars. The idea is to make you take your bath in the middle of the night or at some hour when “workers’ transport” is not lifting consumption to a peak, which usually leads to power cuts. In one cute little model of a factory manikins toil at lathes and benches. The visitor is invited to turn on a one-bar electric fire or run hot water from a boiler, causing the element to switch itself on. The consumption of power—more than is used by an industrial motor of one horse-power—-immediately stops the midget factory. All the manikins stand idle. One panel carries the label, “Special Criminal.” This is reserved for those who run two-bar electric fires and waste hot water from immersion heaters. (Gas fires and bathroom geysers, apparently, also have their criminal uses.) The Next Leader? A considerable section of the British press now regards a change in the Government’s leadership as a foregone conclusion and picks Sir Stafford Cripps as next Prime Minister. In the House of Commons last week, Mr Attlee said: “To avoid any doubt there might be. I would like to say that it is the intention of the Government in the present Parliament to nationalise relevant portions of the iron and steel industry.” Two days later Sir Stafford said: “Those engaged in the steel industry are doing a magnificent job of production. Many, of them are working seven days a week . . . ana are already well on the road to their optimum target Of 14.000,000 tons.” To placate Aneurin Bevan and the Left-wingers who wanted nationalisation at once, Mr Attlee has attacked the House of Lords, creating an unnecessary and dangerous political quarrel among the people. .At the same time Sir Stafford acclaims the efficiency and magnificent spirit of the steel industry and pleads for the closest unity throughout the nation. Political observers believe this presages an open bid by Sir Stafford for the leadership of a Socialist Government or of a Coalition. There was not one word in his speech that could not have been uttered by a Conservative.

Sir Stafford took no chances. He adhered strictly to his notes, yet read them so well that it all seemed spontaneous, and stirred the House. The Socialist back benchers were chilled by this detached, impartial spjeech, but thrilled by the parliamentary performance, and cheered him loudly. “This is the man,” they were saying in the lobbies afterward. It is interesting to recall that two Conservative Prime Ministers have highly praised Sir Stafford. Thirteen years ago, after hearing him make a speech in the House, Lord Baldwin said: “There is a future Conservative Prime Minister.” Four weeks ago, at the Brighton conference, Mr Churchill said: “He is the ablest brain in the Administration, and at least we have one flrst-

class intelligence brooding over our affairs.”

Austerity Whether he is a future Prime Minister or not. Sir Stafford has been cut off from his daily copy of “The Times.” When he left the Board of Trade for the quite new post of Minister of Economic Affairs, the circulation manager of “The Times,” which met the new paper cut by reducing circulation instead of size, was asked by Sir Stafford’s secretary to have the paper delivered to his new office. But “The Times” has no favourites and makes no exceptions. A polite reply regretted, etc. . . . But as Sir Stafford would be aware, there was a paper shortage, and no new orders could be accepted'. The Minister might get what he wanted, if his old newsagent, as a favour, would transfer his order to the new address; and this was the only way. ... Guys, trundled by small boys with charcoaled faces, have already appeared in the streets, anticipating November 5. Most pf them are good enough to deserve the penny. But last night I gave sixpence to a politicallyminded young gentleman who had achieved a very fair likeness of several members of the Government. They were all in a barrow labelled: “Not for export”