One of the good thing about Butlins is that when I take to the pool, compared to many of the other visitors, I have the finely chiseled body of a greek god. My tattoo count is very low (zero), even when compared to the female visitors, although I do enjoy looking out for spelling/grammar mistakes on some of the more wordy ones sported by many. In the main, I choose not to point out these fauxs pas, purely in the interests of self preservation.
To be fair, I was pleasantly surprised when I first went and the kids love it.
16 March 2014
BrumBiscuit
Spot the deliberate gammatical error to make my smugness evaporate.
16 March 2014
Dawlishian
gammatical ?
16 March 2014
Spindrifter
Upper class Pontins.
16 March 2014
warden hodges
Yellow Camp, Pwllheli, 1988…..oh yes! A very good holiday.
16 March 2014
John the shorts
Good Punk Rock weekends (but not up to Rebellion)
16 March 2014
Peter Gandy
@Brumbiscuit – Greek God obviously, although there is a grammatical error in the title of this section as Butlin’s correctly uses the apostrophe, as does Sainsbury’s which should come around in a few years.
Boot’s of course doesn’t; neither does Morrison’s, although the old photo of the Morrison’s shop on the news this week showed it used to.
16 March 2014
Third Rate Les
“Faux pas”, not “fauxs”. Is that it?
16 March 2014
Third Rate Les
Or it could be the lack of capital on “Greek”.
16 March 2014
Robvarmint
One of the good thing?
16 March 2014
No Legs Best
Self-preservation?
17 March 2014
Toastkid
Tie in with “Lark Descending”: “Yeah that was me, down at Camber Sands, Signing in to my chalet as, J Buckley”. Presumably a reference to the All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival, to which Pontins Camber Sands and Butlins Minehead have both played host.
17 March 2014
G100
I sometimes get the impresion that there would be a lot less chatter on here if the forum allowed us to edit our spelling and grammar after posting.
17 March 2014
Brumbiscuit
Well, aside from the items pointed out, it’s the first ‘thing’ that I noticed. I’ll allow a capital for ‘Greek’, but draw the line at ‘god’, personally. Seems that ‘fauxs pas’ is also the incorrect plural. That’ll learn me for trying to be clever.
Whilst an editing function would be useful, we are advised to use an external application to write our longer posts. I’ll readily put my hand up to admit to very lax proof reading though.
17 March 2014
Eugene C
Yeah but in that case there wouldn’t be the hilarious interchange of ideas. Well it made me laff anyway
17 March 2014
Third Rate Les
You’ve now got me wondering about the spelling of “chiselled” too.
If you ever get a tattoo, you know where we are….
17 March 2014
BrumBiscuit
You can’t really go wrong with A.C.A.B., can you?
18 March 2014
G100
I used to know a tattooist in Derby who used to laugh about a chap who came in and asked him to cover up one that said “Made in Irland”.
Other ‘hilarious’ Derby based tattooist jokes include the classic “Have you got a ram’s head?” – “No I’ve just got a tight perm”
Incidentally, being the closest seaside town to Derby, Butlins in Skeggy is normally awash with tattooed rams’ heads.
So, come on then, should ram’s have a capital R in the joke? Suppose it depends if you use the apostrophe or not.
18 March 2014
Huddersfield’s very own… Steve malkmus
Went to the Pwllheli Butlin’s (as a day visitor) while on a family holiday (our caravan site was in Borth, way down the coast near Aberystwyth). I was about 7, and I witnessed a redcoat get killed by a roller-coaster.
7 October 2015
Bobby SVARC
I can remember this tragic death, It was late eighties, I was on my first holiday with my girlfriend, we hadn’t a pot to pee in so we stayed in a tent in a field near Abersoch. It was big news, as you’d expect. We’d planned to go the Butlins for a day (like yourself) but we didn’t go, in fact I think it was shut to non-residents after that.
7 October 2015
Dr Desperate
Posters on the Butlins Memories Forum say the Pwllheli accident was in 1989, a member of the fairground staff jumping across the tracks too late to avoid the oncoming Vekoma Boomerang. We used to go to Butlins Pwllheli on family holidays in the 60s, when the most exciting feature was the 7mph chairlift, and also once to Ayr (which had its own fatal roller-coaster accident in similar circumstances in 1987, on a ‘Looping Star’ ride) .
7 October 2015
WARDEN HODGES
My mate worked the season in 1989 and aside from that, the freak storms which ruined the holidays for many. Bad year .
7 October 2015
Bobby SVARC
The Boomerang, that was it. Me and the ex-missus had a good run of deaths on Holiday, we had 3 people drown on the Broads, 2 at Potter Heigham about 50 yards from our bungalow and 1 at Stokesby who jumped in off a boat.
7 October 2015
peter mcornithologist
Bobby I request you avoid my weekend of relative joy in Alloa Athletic.
7 October 2015
bobby svarc
No need to worry Peter, I’m in Bridgend this coming weekend.
8 October 2015
EXXO
To make dog walks more interesting the last week or so, every day I find a new Commonwealth war Grave in the local cemetery (which has good views too), and when I come back I try to find something about the story. By the very nature of them being buried in Leeds, most of them are post-WW1 flu deaths and training accidents. So the search for further info is often in vain, but yesterday’s poor lad died in an RAF Tiger Moth collision over Herts in 1941, and today’s died at Butlin’s Pwllheli, the Butlin’s in this song. In 1941 it was called “HMS Glendower” and was basically just a vast field of tents for RN training, which took place at nearby holiday harbours and beaches.
In memory of Ordinary Seaman Stanley Minshull, aged 21.
24 April 2019
Gipton Teenager
@Exxo- recently I found myself with an hour to spare at St James hospital, so I took myself over to Beckett street cemetery. For the poor people there were ‘guinea ‘graves where, if you could afford a guinea, you could have your name inscribed on a communal headstone and be interred with up to twenty others. There’s row after row after row of them…
27 April 2019
EXXO
Yes, plenty of Guinea Graves here in Beeston too, Tony. Twenty names on every one, most of them leaning at between 45 and 85 degrees cos of subsidence. Subsidence that looks like vandalism, cos once they get past 45 degrees they’re so dangerous that they push them flat, and it just looks like vandalism cos there’s so much other vandalism.
The CWG’s are always kept dulce et decorum of course.
27 April 2019
Gipton Teenager
Is that the same graveyard which was the inspiration for the poem ‘V’ by my fellow Loiner, another Tony?
27 April 2019
Pirx the purist
The one which inspired and appeared in ‘v’ was Holbeck in Beeston.
28 April 2019
EXXO
Yes, Tony. I noticed that Harrison (82 on Monday – same age as my dad) has had the grave cleaned recently too, getting it ready no doubt – a total transformation of the stone from black to white in fact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPutBM7zfv8 (starts 4:30 )
Great poem but slightly flawed by the poetic licence, including misleading us that the vandalism would have been done by anyone who’d actually been to the match at Elland Road – there was, and is, no ‘short cut’ through the cemetery – anyone passing through the park would have to scale the walls. It will have been done by local idiot kids hanging round, like they do today. If I updated the poem I’d have to include the kids firing rockets from behind the cemetery wall at dog-walkers in the park. Or the way they tried to plant a dense wall of quick- growing thorns to block the best view of their own fine city, so that the young Eastern Europeans wouldn’t want to gather there on summer evenings. I’ve had to cut a my secret way through.
Another example of Harrison’s poetic licence is that as I’ve mentioned, WW1 CWG’s in the UK are of those who died in the UK, or well after the Armistice, in which case it was mainly Spanish flu’. There’s almost certainly nobody there from the Somme.
One Beestonite CWG I googled yesterday was an RAF instructor, a certain Beaumont Ineson, who was run over by a bus outside the gates of the RAF training school at Cranwell, as he returned from leave in 1941.
But I don’t know how young Stanley was “killed” (which is all the record tells us) at Butlin’s.
Can anyone link me to old news reports of the Boomerang accident in May 1989? I remember it well. Me and my friend were holidaying there and had not long got off the Boomerang (we always sat on the front seat). The staff member’s name was Paul. He must have only been around age 20
4 June 2023
Julie
I had just started working on funfair 1989. I was working on the ride opposite the umbrellas when Paul waved as he walked back from his chalet toilet break then within minutes a huge bang, I ran over he was lying on the side the ride had stopped on impact! It was devastating! He was lovely, should have been safety barriers but there wasn’t.
BrumBiscuit
One of the good thing about Butlins is that when I take to the pool, compared to many of the other visitors, I have the finely chiseled body of a greek god. My tattoo count is very low (zero), even when compared to the female visitors, although I do enjoy looking out for spelling/grammar mistakes on some of the more wordy ones sported by many. In the main, I choose not to point out these fauxs pas, purely in the interests of self preservation.
To be fair, I was pleasantly surprised when I first went and the kids love it.
16 March 2014
BrumBiscuit
Spot the deliberate gammatical error to make my smugness evaporate.
16 March 2014
Dawlishian
gammatical ?
16 March 2014
Spindrifter
Upper class Pontins.
16 March 2014
warden hodges
Yellow Camp, Pwllheli, 1988…..oh yes! A very good holiday.
16 March 2014
John the shorts
Good Punk Rock weekends (but not up to Rebellion)
16 March 2014
Peter Gandy
@Brumbiscuit – Greek God obviously, although there is a grammatical error in the title of this section as Butlin’s correctly uses the apostrophe, as does Sainsbury’s which should come around in a few years.
Boot’s of course doesn’t; neither does Morrison’s, although the old photo of the Morrison’s shop on the news this week showed it used to.
16 March 2014
Third Rate Les
“Faux pas”, not “fauxs”. Is that it?
16 March 2014
Third Rate Les
Or it could be the lack of capital on “Greek”.
16 March 2014
Robvarmint
One of the good thing?
16 March 2014
No Legs Best
Self-preservation?
17 March 2014
Toastkid
Tie in with “Lark Descending”: “Yeah that was me, down at Camber Sands, Signing in to my chalet as, J Buckley”. Presumably a reference to the All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival, to which Pontins Camber Sands and Butlins Minehead have both played host.
17 March 2014
G100
I sometimes get the impresion that there would be a lot less chatter on here if the forum allowed us to edit our spelling and grammar after posting.
17 March 2014
Brumbiscuit
Well, aside from the items pointed out, it’s the first ‘thing’ that I noticed. I’ll allow a capital for ‘Greek’, but draw the line at ‘god’, personally. Seems that ‘fauxs pas’ is also the incorrect plural. That’ll learn me for trying to be clever.
Whilst an editing function would be useful, we are advised to use an external application to write our longer posts. I’ll readily put my hand up to admit to very lax proof reading though.
17 March 2014
Eugene C
Yeah but in that case there wouldn’t be the hilarious interchange of ideas. Well it made me laff anyway
17 March 2014
Third Rate Les
You’ve now got me wondering about the spelling of “chiselled” too.
If you ever get a tattoo, you know where we are….
17 March 2014
BrumBiscuit
You can’t really go wrong with A.C.A.B., can you?
18 March 2014
G100
I used to know a tattooist in Derby who used to laugh about a chap who came in and asked him to cover up one that said “Made in Irland”.
Other ‘hilarious’ Derby based tattooist jokes include the classic “Have you got a ram’s head?” – “No I’ve just got a tight perm”
Incidentally, being the closest seaside town to Derby, Butlins in Skeggy is normally awash with tattooed rams’ heads.
So, come on then, should ram’s have a capital R in the joke? Suppose it depends if you use the apostrophe or not.
18 March 2014
Huddersfield’s very own… Steve malkmus
Went to the Pwllheli Butlin’s (as a day visitor) while on a family holiday (our caravan site was in Borth, way down the coast near Aberystwyth). I was about 7, and I witnessed a redcoat get killed by a roller-coaster.
7 October 2015
Bobby SVARC
I can remember this tragic death, It was late eighties, I was on my first holiday with my girlfriend, we hadn’t a pot to pee in so we stayed in a tent in a field near Abersoch. It was big news, as you’d expect. We’d planned to go the Butlins for a day (like yourself) but we didn’t go, in fact I think it was shut to non-residents after that.
7 October 2015
Dr Desperate
Posters on the Butlins Memories Forum say the Pwllheli accident was in 1989, a member of the fairground staff jumping across the tracks too late to avoid the oncoming Vekoma Boomerang.
We used to go to Butlins Pwllheli on family holidays in the 60s, when the most exciting feature was the 7mph chairlift, and also once to Ayr (which had its own fatal roller-coaster accident in similar circumstances in 1987, on a ‘Looping Star’ ride) .
7 October 2015
WARDEN HODGES
My mate worked the season in 1989 and aside from that, the freak storms which ruined the holidays for many. Bad year .
7 October 2015
Bobby SVARC
The Boomerang, that was it. Me and the ex-missus had a good run of deaths on Holiday, we had 3 people drown on the Broads, 2 at Potter Heigham about 50 yards from our bungalow and 1 at Stokesby who jumped in off a boat.
7 October 2015
peter mcornithologist
Bobby I request you avoid my weekend of relative joy in Alloa Athletic.
7 October 2015
bobby svarc
No need to worry Peter, I’m in Bridgend this coming weekend.
8 October 2015
EXXO
To make dog walks more interesting the last week or so, every day I find a new Commonwealth war Grave in the local cemetery (which has good views too), and when I come back I try to find something about the story. By the very nature of them being buried in Leeds, most of them are post-WW1 flu deaths and training accidents. So the search for further info is often in vain, but yesterday’s poor lad died in an RAF Tiger Moth collision over Herts in 1941, and today’s died at Butlin’s Pwllheli, the Butlin’s in this song. In 1941 it was called “HMS Glendower” and was basically just a vast field of tents for RN training, which took place at nearby holiday harbours and beaches.
In memory of Ordinary Seaman Stanley Minshull, aged 21.
24 April 2019
Gipton Teenager
@Exxo- recently I found myself with an hour to spare at St James hospital, so I took myself over to Beckett street cemetery. For the poor people there were ‘guinea ‘graves where, if you could afford a guinea, you could have your name inscribed on a communal headstone and be interred with up to twenty others.
There’s row after row after row of them…
27 April 2019
EXXO
Yes, plenty of Guinea Graves here in Beeston too, Tony. Twenty names on every one, most of them leaning at between 45 and 85 degrees cos of subsidence. Subsidence that looks like vandalism, cos once they get past 45 degrees they’re so dangerous that they push them flat, and it just looks like vandalism cos there’s so much other vandalism.
The CWG’s are always kept dulce et decorum of course.
27 April 2019
Gipton Teenager
Is that the same graveyard which was the inspiration for the poem ‘V’ by my fellow Loiner, another Tony?
27 April 2019
Pirx the purist
The one which inspired and appeared in ‘v’ was Holbeck in Beeston.
28 April 2019
EXXO
Yes, Tony. I noticed that Harrison (82 on Monday – same age as my dad) has had the grave cleaned recently too, getting it ready no doubt – a total transformation of the stone from black to white in fact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPutBM7zfv8 (starts 4:30 )
Great poem but slightly flawed by the poetic licence, including misleading us that the vandalism would have been done by anyone who’d actually been to the match at Elland Road – there was, and is, no ‘short cut’ through the cemetery – anyone passing through the park would have to scale the walls. It will have been done by local idiot kids hanging round, like they do today. If I updated the poem I’d have to include the kids firing rockets from behind the cemetery wall at dog-walkers in the park. Or the way they tried to plant a dense wall of quick- growing thorns to block the best view of their own fine city, so that the young Eastern Europeans wouldn’t want to gather there on summer evenings. I’ve had to cut a my secret way through.
Another example of Harrison’s poetic licence is that as I’ve mentioned, WW1 CWG’s in the UK are of those who died in the UK, or well after the Armistice, in which case it was mainly Spanish flu’. There’s almost certainly nobody there from the Somme.
One Beestonite CWG I googled yesterday was an RAF instructor, a certain Beaumont Ineson, who was run over by a bus outside the gates of the RAF training school at Cranwell, as he returned from leave in 1941.
But I don’t know how young Stanley was “killed” (which is all the record tells us) at Butlin’s.
28 April 2019
Chris The Siteowner
A big hello to the many hundreds of people each year who search Google for ‘butlins pwllheli roller coaster death’ and get sent to this page. You’ll find the references in comments 19–23 above.
7 September 2021
Bev
Can anyone link me to old news reports of the Boomerang accident in May 1989? I remember it well. Me and my friend were holidaying there and had not long got off the Boomerang (we always sat on the front seat). The staff member’s name was Paul. He must have only been around age 20
4 June 2023
Julie
I had just started working on funfair 1989. I was working on the ride opposite the umbrellas when Paul waved as he walked back from his chalet toilet break then within minutes a huge bang, I ran over he was lying on the side the ride had stopped on impact! It was devastating! He was lovely, should have been safety barriers but there wasn’t.
9 June 2023