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Preview
  • Wish You Were Here!

  • The Lives, Loves and Friendships of the Butlin's Girls
  • By: Lynn Russell, Neil Hanson
  • Narrated by: Maggie Mash
  • Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (7 ratings)

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Wish You Were Here!

By: Lynn Russell, Neil Hanson
Narrated by: Maggie Mash
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Summary

Touching true stories from the heyday of the Butlin’s holiday camps.

‘When I got to the camp I felt as if I’d suddenly walked into Utopia – it was so colourful, so warm, so friendly. There were lights across the roads, there were banners fluttering in the breeze… There seemed to be laughter coming from every building.’

With grey post-WWII skies hanging low over Britain, factories lining the streets and smoke stacks dotting the horizon, there was one way that ordinary families could escape: the ever-cheerful holiday camps of Butlin’s.

When Billy Butlin founded his holiday camps in 1936, they were bastions of community spirit and havens of luxury. Here, for one week, wives and mothers were freed from the toil and drudgery of housework, children ran free through the grounds, fathers and husbands hung up their work clothes. Ever-helpful redcoats were on hand all hours of the day, dinner halls ready with plentiful food for old and young alike, bars stocked to quench any level of thirst, ballrooms waiting to be flooded with shiny shoes, rustling dresses and peals of laughter. And, as the sun went down on another exhausting, happy day, a chorus line was ready to sing holidaymakers back to their beds.

Rich in period detail and highly evocative, Wish You Were Here! follows the lives of seven of the camps’ key figures through the highs and lows of the holiday season: from redcoats searching for stardom to young families who returned year after year, to pensioners who rediscovered an inner youth.

The laughter and tears, the loves and losses, and the fun and friendships that have lasted a lifetime – it's all here.

Funny, moving and heartwarming, they are tales of swimming pools and sing-a-longs, Glamorous Grannies and bicycle rides, and of a community spirit that burned brightly in a much-loved British institution.

©2014 Neil Hanson (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
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What listeners say about Wish You Were Here!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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totally fantastic.

really loved hearing about everyone's stories. I use to work at Butlins at Skegness and the Hotel in Scarborough. I now love spending time there on Holiday. Great to remember all of the old memories.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Oh dear me.

Would you consider the audio edition of Wish You Were Here! to be better than the print version?

Definitely NOT!

How could the performance have been better?

Stop using dreadful accents

Any additional comments?

I am Valda, and I do not, nor have ever, spoken like the narrator portrays. The accents are just dreadful and there was no need to use them.

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