THESE young woman walking arm-in-arm in the Butlins holiday camp at Ayr in 1960 seem happy enough, although the cardigans and headscarves would suggest a nippy wind blowing off the sea at the Heads of Ayr. Butlins, originally a navy camp, operated outside Ayr for 40 years after the war with indoor and outdoor pools, a fairground, and theatre. However opinion was sharply divided. Glasgow’s middle-classes, who would soon be taking their first tentative trips to Spain, thought it was a cesspit of ne’er-do-wells to be avoided. The working-class thought it a marvellous colourful explosion of fun that took them away from the greyness of Glasgow life.
Chick Young, the doyen of Radio Scotland sports reporters, who has witnessed top sporting occasions around the world, was once asked for his favourite memory. Eschewing the world’s top stadiums, he merely replied: “The summer I spent as a young single man as the press officer at Butlins.”
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