Peter Willsher - Fred Pontin: The Man and His Business: The Man and His Business - The Authorised Biography of Sir Fred Pontin

The British Barker - The Official Journal of the Variety Club of Great Britain

The Millionaire Mentality - by Michael Pearson, Seeker & Warburg

The Pound in Your Pocket - by Peter Wilsher, Cassell & Company Limited

Good night Campers - The History of the British Holiday Camp - by Colin Ward and Dennis Hardy.

Mansell Holiday Camps Directory and Magazine - 1948 and 1949 editions

Holiday Time at Butlin's - 1951 edition

Daily Telegraph Library - newspaper cuttings

New Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume 5, Micropaedia - ready reference edition

Dictionary of National Biography - Oxford University Press

Dance News and Recall - publications for ballroom dancers

David Gwyn's personal archive

Offer Document - Recommended Offer by Charterhouse Japhet Limited on behalf of Coral Leisure Group Limited for the whole of the share capital, issued and to be issued of Pontin's Limited

Records at the National Horse racing Museum, 99 High Street, Newmarket by kind permission of the Curator

Who's Who 1990

Extel Statistical Services Limited - Stock Exchange News Cards

BBC Television Light Entertainment Publicity - viewing figures

Pontin Family Tree - Mr L. Pontin

Annual and Interim reports Arena Leisure plc

Website - Scottish & Newcastle Breweries

Oh how the cliches come to mind when writing about a character like Fred Pontin.

'Hi - De - Hi', 'book early', 'value for money', 'thumbs up!' - they're all there! John Major when entertaining Sir Fred Pontin with other dignitaries at 10 Downing Street described him as a 'National Asset'. Lord George Brown thought he was an ideal candidate for the House of Lords when he was in power but the hint was not taken.

British holiday camps are part of the country's folklore and although Fred Pontin's business has changed hands on a number of occasions since he relinquished control in the late seventies and the concern was once again put up for sale and sold at the beginning of the twenty first century, deep down it is still the same operation catering for more or less the same type of customer. "There's no place like Pontin's' can still be heard at Blackpool, Southport and Prestatyn and the future seems secure.

Days when Pontin's were delivering handsome dividends to shareholders are now long past but the show goes on and so did Sir Fred, until very nearly his 94th year. He had outlived all of his contemporaries and remarried very late in life to a long-lasting friend who had devoted many years to his wellbeing.

Sir Fred could look back on an eventful and fulfilling life which has had significant influence on other people.

This is the story of Sir Fred Pontin and his business. He had a meaningful impact on the holiday plans of many hundreds of thousands of people in the twentieth century. Not many people can make or even justify such a claim.

Peter Willsher had known Sir Fred Pontin for many years but his indirect relationship extends back to the early fifties when Peter counted himself amongst the close friends of Valerie Dean, the daughter of Leslie Dean who sold to Fred Pontin his very first holiday camp at Brean Sands, Somerset.

Lunching with Sir Fred at the Institute of Directors dining room at Pall Mall in the late 1980s Peter was enjoying many of Sir Fred's stories of his days in the holiday camp industry and remarked 'Fred, you should write a book and if you don't I'll do it for you'.

Thanks are due to members of Sir Fred Pontin's family as well as to the management and staff of Pontin's both past and present. David Gywn, Jim Kennedy, Joyce Hey, Eddie Stamper, Joe Rubido, Trevor Hemmings, Stephen Haupt, Mike Austin, George Webb, Valerie Barnett, Ann Miller, Peter Hopper, Eileen Langridge, the late George Ross Goobey, Paul Rackham, Mr and Mrs Jack Sharpies, Colin Homer and many others also assisted me in the research for this work.

St David's Press www.st-davids-press.co.uk

Published in Wales by St. David's Press, an imprint of Ashley Drake Publishing Ltd. PO Box 733, Cardiff, CF14 2YX

First Impression - 2003 ISBN: 1 902719 220

Peter Willsher 2003

The right of Peter Willsher to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Design and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset by WestKey Ltd., Falmouth, Cornwall.

To my wife Beverley and my children, James and Charlotte

The little boy opened his eyes and, just as quickly closed them. It must be a dream. This wasn't his usual bedroom; or was it?

Again John Sharpies, aged five and half years, opened his eyes. Yes, he could hear the soft sound of his brother, breathing gently in the bed opposite but this really wasn't their usual sleeping place. There was no specially chosen wallpaper with the familiar elephants and giraffes; there were precious few toys on the floor; certainly not as many as there were last night, when he was put to bed by his mum.

Then it dawned on him! It was Pontin's! In that case it must be Southport, his favourite holiday camp; yet he had dropped off to sleep back home in the family's terraced house in Preston.

A shout of pure joy leapt from his young lips "Mum, we're at Pontin's. Come on mum, let's get out there!"

Anne Sharpies had been waiting for the reaction of her children but she was just as excited as young John. Pontin's was a great place to unwind after a hectic week.

It didn't take long to have breakfast; the sun was shining and there was so much to do. Eating corn flakes was not a major priority.

The Sharpies boys had been brought up, if not actually weaned on Pontin's. Their parents had, at first, been regulars at Butlin's but by the time that their children were of an age to appreciate what a genuine holiday camp had to offer Butlin's camps had become havens for rowdy teenagers who enjoyed group holidays with lots of, booze, noise and deafening music. This was not what Jack and Anne wanted for their active youngsters as far as the family holidays were concerned.

The Sharpies soon discovered that it was Pontin's who catered for families who wished for nothing more than an all inclusive holiday where parents could be assured of comfortable accommodation, nourishing, wholesome food, something to do during the day as well as in the evenings and, as far as the children were concerned, all the day round entertainment and supervised activities.

Above all, they would be mixing with other families, many of whom had become firm friends, being regular visitors who tended to put down a deposit on next year's holidays before they had finished the current year's.

Jack Sharpies had been having a particularly gruesome week in his self-employed occupation as a builder. Nothing had gone right; there were late deliveries of materials, the sub-contractors had left site without notice and the weather had been fine and sunny.

In normal circumstances the latter would have been good news when a new job had just been started. By Friday evening, however, he had had more than he could take and Anne's efforts in the kitchen had not been enough to encourage him to relax and forget the week's misfortunes.