Confessions from a Holiday Camp

by Timothy Lea

I wave to them through the sheet glass but they don’t take any notice because they are watching the conveyor belt for their luggage as if they reckon they are never going to see it again. Dad practically ruptures himself when his case appears and Mum starts running in all directions shouting and pointing. You don’t have to be an expert lip reader to know what Dad is saying to her. What a pantomime!

  When they come through the door Dad is already bathed in sweat – about the only bath he ever gets – and Mum and Rosie have got unflattering damp patches under the armpits.

  “Sir Anthony Eden, I presume,” I say approaching Dad. “Would you care to step into the Embassy Rolls?”

  “Oh, Timmy. Thank Gawd you’re here,” says Dad, dropping both cases on my foot. “Cop hold of these, will you? I wasn’t going to let any of those dagos get their hands on them. Never see them again. Cost a bloody fortune, those cases did.”

  “Very nice,” I say.

  “They were until the wogs got hold of them. I reckon they played bloody football with them. Still smarting about the World Cup, they are.”

  “But Brazil won the World Cup, Dad.”

  “Not that one. The World Cup. In 1966.”

  “Oh, give over, Dad,” says Mum giving me a big wet kiss. “How are you, Timmy love? You’re looking well.”

  “Smashing colour,” chimes in Rosie. “I’d lose that hat, though.”

  “I’ve got to wear that. It’s part of the uniform. You lot wrapped up well, didn’t you?”

  “You never know what to expect in these places,” moans Dad. “Floods, tycoons, you might find anything.”

  “I didn’t want to crease my things by packing them,” says Mum defensively, “this brocade wrinkles something terrible.”

  “Well, I hope you don’t evaporate on the way there,” I say. “It’s going to be very warm in the coach.”

  “Is Sidney coming?” says Rosie.

  Very probably, I think to myself. “No,” I say. “He’s rather tied up at the moment. He’s looking forward to seeing you, though. Now let’s get hold of these cases. I’ve got to make sure everybody gets on the coaches.”

  But I don’t have to worry about the cases, because a big dark geezer with hair sprouting out of his cuffs and sideburns that meet under the chin hoves into view. I suppose he is quite good looking if you fancy that kind of thing. Rosie obviously does because her knees start to wobble the moment she claps eyes on him. Ignoring Dad’s suitcases he snatches up Rosie’s vanity case and starts wrapping his lips round a slice of the Marcello Masturbani’s.

  “Permitta me to carry your kice, bella signorina,” he purrs. “I do not like to see a beautiful woman strangling.”

  “You mean ‘struggling’, don’t you, mate?” says Dad. “Look, if you want some exercise, slap your mits on this lot. And she ain’t no ‘signorina’ either, she’s a ‘senora’. She is married to our Sid. Elle est parleyed for. Comprenny?”

  “Don’t be so rude, Dad,” minces Rosie. “The gentleman is only trying to help.”

  “Yes, help,” beams Hairy.

  I notice that he has the letters R.V. and a semi-quaver embroidered on the breast pocket of his blazer and that a number of similarly clothed swarthy blokes are loading musical instruments on to the back of one of the coaches.

  “Ricci Volare?” I say.

  “And his Angels of the Sun,” says the man himself, waving his hand expansively towards the other geezers. “You have come from the Island of Love, and you—” he turns to Rosie “—are going there. It is very right. I will sing many boughtiful songs only for you.”

  “Oh,” says Rosie. “That will be nice.”

  “First of all you can help us get these bleeding cases on the bus,” says Dad. “Plenty of time for singing later.”

  So Ricci staggers off with Dad’s cases and I get the rest of the party aboard the two coaches. I am a bit surprised, because most of those sitting tired and weary before me are typical “Funfrall Folk” as Francis would say. One or two honeymoon couples but very few obvious “hanky panky” addicts. Still, you never can tell, can you?

  I travel in the same coach as the family and it is no surprise to find Ricci sitting next to, and virtually on top of Rosie. He is whispering in her lughole the whole bleeding way, and the stupid cow sits there with a glazed look in her eyes, beaming up at him. How Sid is going to react to this little lot I don’t know.

  Luckily the ferry is at the Jetty, the paintwork seems to have dried, and, since neither of the coaches broke down, the trip to the island has been an unparalleled success. Our luck can’t hold, I tell myself, but we get across to the Island without being torpedoed and there is Sidney and the welcoming Committee with their wreaths of plastic flowers. This is another great Funfrall idea stolen from those Polynesian birds who stick garlands of flowers round your neck. Of course, their flowers are real but, as Sidney says, it is cheaper and more hygienic to use plastic wreaths which can be washed and used again and again. Also, no flowers will grow on the island. Also, as Ted says, the wreaths will come in very handy if anyone dies of food poisoning.

  Dad, who has been very niggly ever since Mum would not let him take off his stiff collar in the coach, does not take kindly to having a wreath hung round his neck.

  “Bring me all this bloody way to play hoop-la with me,” he says. “I’d be better off at home in front of the tele.”

  “I wish you were,” says Rosie. “You’ve never stopped bloody moaning since you got off the plane.”

  I was looking forward to seeing Sidney and Ricci weighing each other up but Mr. Volare and his merry men melt away the minute we get off the boat. Maybe Rosie has said something to him.

  “Good to see you, Rosie, love,” says Sid with convincing enthusiasm. “That’s a nice little number you’re wearing. I bet that cost me a few bob.”

  “You’re looking tired, Sid,” says Rosie tenderly. “You haven’t been overdoing it, have you?”

  “Oh, he’s been going at it really hard,” I say, fixing Sidney with my beady eye, “he hasn’t spared himself. Twenty four hours a day, he’s been—”

  “Alright, alright, Timmy,” says Sid firmly. “Rosie’s got the idea. Don’t make me out to be some kind of martyr. There was a job of work to be done and I got on with it, that’s all.”

  “Sidney got on the job alright,” I say. “Nobody could argue with that.”

  “Right. Let’s show everybody to their quarters, shall we?” says Sid through clenched teeth. “Then they can change their money to the island currency.”

  This money-changing is another Funfrall dodge to rake in the ackers. The island currency is Tokens – Love Tokens, get it? – and these have to be used to buy anything that is sold on the island. Of course the exchange rate is fiddled so that a bottle of Coke costs twice as much as if you were paying for it in real money. It is a beautiful racket because no one understands the exchange rate and no one likes to worry about money on holiday anyway. You just find yourself spending twice as much of the stuff as you intended to. Your Tokens are worn round your neck like beads, and this too, encourages you to have millions of them so you can impress the other poor jerks.

  Dad does not like having to change his money into “pistaccios” as he calls them and is even less enthusiastic about Tokens: “like a bloody Co-op divi” he says, “I wouldn’t use ’em for washers.”

  Neither does the living accommodation appeal: “I’ve heard about rude mud huts,” he says, “but this is past a bleeding joke. You don’t expect your mother and me to sleep in that, do you? I’d need to shove a bone through my hooter first. It may be alright for your darkies, but not for me.”

  “What did I tell you?” I say to Sidney. “You tied a millstone round your neck when you brought him out here.”

  “Ungrateful old sod,” rants Sidney. “Doesn’t he realise he’s getting everything for free. You lot are all the same. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. You swallow the whole bleeding arm.”

  Poor old Sid is ob
viously under pressure and in the next few days it does not get any better.

  First of all there are the little things that go wrong. The shit house that collapses with the quantity surveyor from Penge inside it – jokes about the quantity he surveyed are considered in very bad taste. The discovery of ravenous insectlife lurking in the walls of the huts. The lady from Chippenham Sodbury who is horrified to discover that what she thought was a shoal of basking fish is in fact evidence of the extra strain being put on the plumbing arrangements. All these things are problems but they are not as disturbing as the failure of people to “inter-act” as Sidney calls it. Despite all the mood muzack being relayed over the loud speaker system, the efforts of the Fiesta Bunnies and Sun Senors, and the fact that everything in the place has a name that shouts sex, nobody seems to want to know. It is as if, when it is so easily available, nobody needs it, or maybe we have all underestimated how long it will take people to thaw out.

  With nearly all the love-bites on the island coming from insects, Sidney is a worried man and his state of mind is not made any easier by the fact that the one blossoming romance involves his wife and Senor Volare. Every night Rosie can be found in the Candlelight Casino whilst Hairy belts out a stream of tuneless dirges that all sound the same and contain more groaning and sobbing than you’ve heard since Johnny Ray hung his handkerchief in the airing cupboard. Rosie gazes at him like his mush is the tele screen back home and it is obvious that she isn’t thinking about what to buy little Jason as a going home present.

  The rest of Volare’s group are also settling in nicely and I have noticed that Carmen has not been hanging around so much since they got here. I should be pleased but of course I am not. Bloody wops! I mutter to myself, what can she see in that bunch of dagos? Whatever it is, Nan and Nat see it too, because they are also never far away from the Candlelight Casino when Ricci is delivering the goods. All very nice for the staff but what about the paying customers? A few of them gamble a bit, but their number does not include Dad.

  “Blackjack and Craps,” he says. “They’re bleeding nice names, aren’t they? Very refined. You won’t catch me getting mixed up with that lot.” And so he joins the silent majority who just sit around and peel the skin off their sunburn. Of course Dad does not go so far as to take his clothes off. He rolls his trousers up to the knee, unbuttons his shirt to the level of the top of his vest and plonks a knotted handkerchief over his bonce. Very trendy. He makes Norman Wisdom look like Cecil Beaton. Mum isn’t much better. She sticks a piece of newspaper under her sunglasses to protect her nose and keeps slapping suntan cream all over her mush until she looks like a greasy penguin. Anyhow, she is definitely enjoying the holiday which is more than can be said for Dad. She even likes the food.

  “I thought those little hoops of gristle were delicious,” she says practically ecstatic.

  “Give over, Ethel,” says Dad. “That was bleeding octopus cooked in the fat of the last five meals we’ve had. Jesus wept, if you think that’s good, no wonder we eat the way we do at home.”

  There is no doubt that Dad’s reaction is more common than Mum’s in every sense of the word and most of the guests are soon either complaining about the food, suffering from it, or both. It is a great disappointment to find that as they become more acclimatised, most of the customers’ energies are devoted to grumbling about conditions rather than getting on the job with each other as they are supposed to be doing.

  “I’m not surprised this place is such a bleeding dump, what with Sidney in charge and all those dagos touching the food. They only wash their hands before they go to the toilet, you know,” says Dad.

  “They want to get it all done by English people if they want to make it a success,” agrees Mum.

  By the second week two more in-takes have arrived, one of the urinals has become blocked and flowed back downhill through the door of the Passion Fooderama in time to greet those sitting down for breakfast, and “Franco’s Revenge” is rife throughout the camp. Romance is nonexistent and morale amongst the camp staff lower than a toad’s testicles. It is not surprising in the circumstances that Sid decides to hold a Francis type meeting which is attended by all members of the staff, with the chief cook translating for the benefit of the Spaniards. This geezer is a real grease ball and, when first seen, appears to be blowing his nose on a dead mole. Closer inspection reveals that it is in fact a handkerchief.

  “Right,” says Sid. “I’ve brought you all together because we have problems and I think it best if they are aired in public. Every new enterprise has its teething troubles and ours is proving no exception.”

  “Here, here,” says Ted loyally. Sid glares at him and continues.

  “Of course, there are special areas such as the lousy foo—,” Sid remembers who is translating, “—Such as the difficulty some of our guests have of adjusting to the rich fare provided by maestro Miguel here, and we are attending to this. In future our menu, which as you know attempts to embrace the best of English and Continental cuisine, will cater entirely for British tastes. But, this is incidental to the main thing I wanted to say to you. Please – you two – do you mind not doing that?” He is referring to Nat and one of the Angelos de Sole who are beginning to slide down towards the floor together. “That illustrates exactly what I am on about. This place is supposed to be run for the benefit of the customers – not you bleeders. You—” He rounds on Ricci Volare, who, in the absence of Rosie, is beginning to nibble one of the chalet maid’s shoulders. “You and your lot should be lashing out all that Latin lover rubbish on the daft sods who paid ninety quid to come out here. Not on my—,” Sid checks himself.

  “Nelly?” says Ted helpfully.

  “Not on the management’s families. You two! Get out there and start making like Fiesta Bunnies. Why do you think your uncle sent you out here? You’ve driven one man mad and laid most of the staff. Now try arousing some of the poor bastards who’ve paid for it. And you waiters. Why do you think you were selected? Get cracking. They won’t bite you – not very hard, most of them, anyway. All of you. Let’s put the love back into Love Island. We want a lot more amor. And you! for Christ sake put that candle down.”

  “I was just scratching myself,” says Nat reproachfully.

  “Well get out there and start scratching someone else,” shouts Sid. “That’s what you’re paid for.”

  It is easy to detect that Sid has the needle with Ricci but this is obviously not his sole inspiration for the address. It is very true that we have not been getting amongst the customers in the same way that we did at Melody Bay, but this is because the two places are run so differently. There, everything was planned from dawn till dusk. Here, nobody chases you to do anything. Maybe that is the trouble. If there was a bit more organisation, it would be easier to jolly people along. But, as usual, this thought only occurs to me as we are bundling out into the sunshine so I don’t say anything about it.

  Next to me Marcia is looking slim as a whippet and just a shade faster.

  “Fancy a swim?” I say.

  She flutters her eyelashes and for a moment I think I am in with a chance.

  “You heard what the man said,” she says. “Ask one of the customers. Anyway, you only live a fantasy once.”

  And so saying, she trips off to Sid’s bungalow to take dictation or, more likely, her knickers down. Bloody unfair, isn’t it? I will never understand that bloke who said “’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” I reckon that once you have had it you know what you are missing and it is ten times worse than never having been there in the first place. Anyway I swallow my disappointment and toddle off to see if they have finished spraying the huts with bug-killer.

  It is mid-morning and so the whole of the living area is pretty much deserted. Carefully avoiding the hut in which I know Dad is staked out with a mixture of Torremolinos tummy and the sulks, I make my way to where the smell of disinfectant is strongest. There is no one about which I assume means that the bloke d
oing the job is having his elevenses. Since these can last till about four o’clock, I am about to go away when I notice a shapely bird hanging out washing on a line strung between two huts. She is wearing a pair of hot pants and a see-thru blouse with only the bottom couple of buttons done up. You therefore have two chances to see that she is not wearing a bra. Her hair is fastened in a loose bun and she has a mouth full of clothes pegs.

  “Hello,” I say, “a woman’s work is never done, eh?”

  Marvellous with the chat, aren’t I? I can almost hear you taking notes. She does not answer because of the pegs but nods agreeably.

  “Can I do anything to help?”

  “No thanks,” she says removing the last clothes peg. “It’s all done now.”

  “Where’s the rest of the family?”

  “My husband has gone down to the beach with his friends.”

  “You look as if you’re about to join them.”

  “I think I might stay here and read a book. It gets awfully crowded down there.”

  “Do you read a lot?”

  “I read a bit on holiday.”

  I am now following her unasked into her hut.

  “I’m reading this at the moment.”

  “‘Kiss Off’. Oh, Christopher Wood. I read one of his: ‘Terrible Hard says Alice’. It’s very good. Have you read it? It’s all about the army in Cyprus.”

  “Is it sexy like this one?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t read that one – it’s pretty sexy, I suppose.”

  “You need something a bit sexy around here.”

  Oh yes? I think to myself.

  “Not living up to expectations, is it?” I say innocently.

  “The first thing my husband did when he got here was unpack his paternoster.”

  “Religious, is he?”

  “His fishing tackle. That’s all he’s interested in. I thought coming here might bring him out of himself. Inject a little excitement into our lives.” I wouldn’t mind injecting a little excitement into your life, darling, I think. Those lovely curvy tits peeping round the curtains of her blouse.