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Orton on 16 June, before four expressive entries:
     
    17 June.
Well!
    18 June.
Well!!
    19 June.
Well!!!
    20 June.
The rest is silence.
     
    It was also in June that an almost equally young Jeffery Bernard, four months after he had gone AWOL from National Service in Catterick, gave himself up, ringing the police from the Gargoyle Club in Soho at two in the morning. There ensued two brutal days and nights at a military detention centre near Scotland Yard, with Bernard being kicked every few hours by a Scots Guards sergeant, before he was sent back to Yorkshire. His biographer records how ‘when he was being hauled across the concourse at King’s Cross, handcuffed to a Military Policeman, strangers came up and gave him cigarettes, money, sandwiches and a magazine and shouted “good luck, mate” and “don’t let the bastards get you down”.’10
    Summertime, naturally, was also holiday time. ‘It’s been a perfect summer’s day,’ noted Nella Last in Barrow on the last Monday in July, after she and her husband had gone in the afternoon to a nearby beach:
    I watched with real concern at chalk white bodies & limbs in bathing suits – both sex & every age – lying and playing in the strong sea air, many already looking ‘burned’, knowing the
agony
many would be in tonight. I was sorry for the hapless children, some already beginning to squirm & scratch their sunburned flesh, and I didn’t see
one
tube of ‘cream’ or oil being used. Long queues constantly stood at a big ice cream stall, fresh supplies were brought twice, but till after 8 o’clock they sold as quickly as they could make sandwiches.
    Over and above day trips, or the traditional lodging house at a popular resort, there was also the recent, increasingly popular phenomenon of the holiday camp. At about the same time as Last was tut-tutting, the writer C. H. Rolph visited one on Canvey Island, run by the local landowner, councillor and magistrate Colonel Horace Fielder. Rolph asked why he charged £5 (double the usual rate) for a chalet in August. ‘Keep out the rough stuff,’ replied the Colonel. ‘I don’t need the money – this place makes thousands. But it’d be a nightmare here at £2 in August.’
    The research organisation Mass-Observation was also intrigued, and in September sent two investigators to Butlin’s at Clacton. There, like previous M-O investigators at Butlin’s in Filey, they found a world all of its own. In the dining hall, where Kent House and Gloucester House had separate sittings, the House Captain (a Redcoat called Len) addressed the company through a microphone: ‘He invariably started off with: “Good morning, you smashing campers of Gloucester House, and good morning, staff – HI-DE-HI!” to which we answered: “HO-DE-HO”.’ Len himself was born to his role: ‘Tall, swarthy and spivvy, he appeared to be tireless. He was always cracking jokes, pretending to chase the girls and generally clowning. He was enormously popular.’ Most evenings there were Redcoat-compèred ‘sing-songs’ in the Jolly Roger bar, with ‘its olde worlde oak-beam decor’. ‘As well as community singing, individual campers were invited to perform. There was one young man who performed regularly and excruciatingly. He was regarded by the audience as a great “card” and received a tumultuous welcome.’ There was also the already time-honoured ‘Personality Girl’ contest, won by Greta: ‘She was chosen by outside judges and the choice was unpopular with the campers. Her forwardness and general brashness were disliked – disapproved of by the elderly and resented by the young. Contestants were judged not only on their appearance, but also on their talent. (Greta’s talent consisted of singing “Too Young”.) When asked her ambition, one girl said she had already achieved it in marriage, and we were interested to note the loud applause.’ The week ended, as usual, with the Campers’ Concert. ‘For an amateur show the