Each ‘house’ had it’s own colours and rosettes that the ‘bigger’ campers wore everywhere!
The whole day us ’campers’ -little and big- were entertained for free by an army of beautifully handsome Redcoats, all smiles and tans, in their bright red blazers and white slacks, for the men and pleated white skirts and white high heels for the lady Redcoats.
They hosted beauty contests for the bouffant peroxide blondes, the grandmothers or the knobbliest knees, improvised slapstick rollicks around the swimming pool that always ended-up with a Redcoat being chucked in the water, quizzes and ballroom dancing, where my sisters and I watched for hours the whirling couples, until we finally dared to join in. I can still dance, to this day, the ‘Gay Gordons’!
The whole camp was safe, secure and supervised. We kids could be left the whole day to our own devices. Not seeing Mum and Dad from one ‘sin- bin’ meal time to the next, to roam around the camp swimming in the huge blue pool with it’s spouting fountain, roller skating at the skating rink, trying to row on the boating lake, riding the bikes and trikes parked around everywhere, travelling on the minature railway, dancing in the ballrooms, playing the pin- ball and one armed bandits machines in the games rooms, watching a show or a joining in a sing-a-long in the theatre and having the time of our little camper lives!
In the evening, when Mum and Dad were having cocktails in the South Sea bar looking through the glass walls into the indoor swimming pool, waltzing in the Viennese ballroom, or watching one of the many Redcoat musicals shows or cabarets in the Gaiety theatre, us kids lay worn out in our little wooden chalets, watched over by a patrol of nanny Redcoats, their torches flashing at intervals through the little wooden window, over the wooden ceiling, checking to make sure that their little kiddie campers were safe and sound asleep in their little wooden beds.
“Night- night campers!” wherever you are!