It was with real sadness that I heard yesterday that Ted
Bovis had died. Well, not Ted Bovis exactly but Paul Shane who played Ted in
that classic TV sitcom that was Hi-Di-Hi! It must be yet another sign that I am
getting old because I look back on the show with real warmth and affection.
Maplin’s holiday camp was such a shambolic, ideas above its
station, kind of place. A place for working folk to go to experience a few of
the good things in life; ballroom dancing lessons and a competition to see who
could stuff the most cooked spaghetti into their trousers. It sounds ridiculous
I know, but it wasn’t so very far from the truth; there was a Maplin’s holiday
camp every few miles of coastline when I was growing up.
“Morning campers!”
As a child we went to Corton Caravans just up the road from Lowestoft . Corton Caravans had all the usual holiday camp
paraphernalia: ‘morning camper’ tannoys, swimming galas, ballroom dancing, knobbly
knees competitions, donkey derbies, fancy dress competitions, beauty pageants,
bonny baby competitions and of course Topsy-Turve night. A fun family evening where
women dressed as men and men dressed as women.
The place was run by the camp compeer who went by the name
of Uncle Ron. There is no doubt that Uncle Ronny was of a very theatrical
persuasion. I think it likely that he put the camp into camping and he enjoyed
nothing better than slipping into a slinky satin dress and donning a huge
beehive wig with full panto-dame make-up. He was one of those men that were all
smiles on the outside but the minute he was off-camera (so to speak)
immediately fell into a deep and desperate gloom; the sort of man who must have
hated national service but had enjoyed the comeraderie.
Once, much to my ten-year old boy discomfort, I was left
alone in his office with him for twenty minutes or so. He just sat watching as
I arranged some flowers, a job my father had volunteered me for some reason
best known to his own conscience. Uncle Ron sat watching me, smoking a Benson
and sipping from a glass which contained some deep amber liquid. He asked me if
I liked art and told me that I was doing a good job arranging the flowers with
my nice hands. I was actually just shoving the flowers into something
resembling a bouquet as quickly as possible so that I could get away.
The room was windowless, a tiny office behind the stage.
Uncle Ron looked bedraggled, the thick make-up from last night’s drag
performance not completely wiped away. For all the world he looked like a
broken ventriloquist’s dummy as he sat there smoking cigarette after cigarette,
shaking as he rambled on about nothing in particular. I’m not exaggerating when
I tell you I was ready to run at any moment. There was something too friendly,
yet at the same time completely cold, about Ronny. In retrospect I don’t
think he was the type of person that should have been entertaining children on
rainy afternoons.
I watched a few minutes of Hi-di-hi on YouTube this morning.
The story was great, the acting comically superb, and it was complexly layered
in a way I hadn’t noticed before - snobbery, rivalry, pathos and slightly
surreal - a blending into of a picture of hearty normality; a veneer just
managing to cover the tatty reality hiding beneath the surface.
Hi-Di-Hi campers and Ho-Di-Ho Paul!
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