IT’S ENGLAND, SIR, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT

MY WIFE REGULARLY TAKES AFTERNOON TEA with her friend Jocelyn, an American society lady who is taking advantage of her university professor husband’s placement in Lisbon teaching Portuguese people how to run an economy by making this city her base for jolly trips throughout Europe gaining knowledge and cultural experience about its quaint buildings, faded paintings, chipped statues, collapsing churches, stodgy food, dirty toilets, tiny beds and sometimes curious behaviour. My wife recently told her that we (the Pleasants) would be taking a brief Holy Week break on the south coast of England, stopping at Brighton and then at Bognor Regis, and possibly spending some time at Butlins, a holiday company unknown in the USA. Upon their parting after their latest session of tea and English muffins, Jocelyn wished, “I hope you and David enjoy Butt-land.”

IN SPEECH, IT IS DIFFICULT TO SEPARATE the buts from the butts, yet I would imagine that demure Jocelyn, who has a sense of humour that should not be sneezed at (“I have a friend who is French, but she doesn’t smell”), was taking a little swipe at holiday camps for children in general. If she wasn’t, then she should have been.

“BUTTLAND” IS INDEED an intriguing concept. As soon as I heard the expression I set about imagining the places to which the title might be effectively applied. Coming immediately to mind, although I am not sure why, was a nightclub in San Francisco, California. Or perhaps a muddy camping site on a hillside reserved only for serious smokers. Then again, one could be cruel and imagine it to be some kind of health resort for those who have eaten nothing but hamburgers for most of their lives.

THUS WHEN WE ARRIVED IN BRIGHTON, for the first leg of our little break, I was determined to see where the “butt” (or indeed “but”) might lie. Only someone as radically perverse as myself could divide a week’s holiday between the Metropole Hotel in Brighton, once considered the best and most exclusive in Europe, with Butlins in Bognor, the butt of more jokes by stand-up comedians than Blackpool, Skegness, Barry Island, Margate and the Isle of Wight put together. The contrast should have been enormous; but, whether it is a credit to our governments over the last thirty years or something for which they should be ashamed, I saw little difference between the two.

OUR STAY IN THE METROPOLE was grim. I did not expect an orchestra in the lobby, as used to be the case, nor dinner without a written menu; but I did expect a family room with curtains that closed, a toilet system that did not sound like someone was being strangled every time it was flushed, a TV that worked, air conditioning that did not try to turn the room into a vacuum, a kettle in which one could see steel inside rather than stalagmites of calcium, and 100-watt light bulbs (so we could see our way around). The suspicious brown liquid seeping out of the mini-bar during the night and the hole that had been kicked out of the bottom-left corner of the door to the corridor were bonuses we only noticed later – the latter when I was trying to kick my way out of the room when the lock had jammed, causing mild panic attacks in my better half. The staff members were all very pleasant, but I still may cancel my Hilton Honors card, depending on how they deal with my complaints.

FOREMOST AMONG MY ADMITTEDLY SNOBBISH complaints is the fact that I was probably the only male person in the whole hotel – other than staff – who was wearing shoes, a jacket (with buttons) and a shirt (with a collar, with buttons). Almost all the other men looked like they were about to indulge in the evil, vile habit of jogging, or had been jogging, or were in fact jogging now. And were advertising sportswear. Even at dinner.

ON THE OTHER HAND, the butt of all humour, Butlins, was exceptional. Admittedly we had taken the risk of this endeavour because it would have been difficult to find a funfair open at this time of year and because Pleasant the Youngest needs the occasional thrill, which are more than difficult to find in Portugal. The apartments are exceptional, and are probably better than the “flats” owned by many people who come to Butlins. The entertainment for children is beyond criticism, and, as in the Metropole, all the staff members were excellent, and their control of the English language was perhaps better.

THE UPSHOT OF ALL THIS is that if we took someone from another planet and brought them to these two places they would be hard put to decide which of these two places was supposedly for “toffs” and which was the comedian’s delight. Indeed, I am doubly impressed by Butlins in the sense that I did not see the haggard, anorak-wearing, cigarette-smoking, lager-swilling characters for which it was once reputedly famous. The Metropole, however, seems to be doing its best to attract the “Kiss-me-Quick” population. While this is obviously excellent in the sense of highlighting social equality, it seems to me that British society since Margaret Thatcher got started out on ruining it could have set the median bar at something higher than making us all fit into the lower twenty percent on the scale. The nicest moment of the entire rain swept, icy blizzard-ridden week was a sign on a pub door on the seafront in Bognor Regis, which I would have photographed if I hadn’t had chilblains and chapped fingers: “If you want to come in you wear: SHIRTS, SHOES AND SHORTS. NO BUTS.”