Leonie Orton 'I Had It In Me' Book Launch

Leonie Orton Barnett's memoir, I Had It In Me promises to be the autobiography of the year.

Recently published by Quirky Press, extracts from the book have been read at public appearances by Ms Orton over the past two years at Joe Orton anniversary events in his hometown of Leicester. 

I finally got to buy a copy last night at one of Leonie's book launches. As I entered Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham I was greeted by the smiling author who recounted our previous meeting a few years ago. It was in 2013 at a village fete far from the East Midlands and Leonie was one of the organisers. We had been chatting for a while without my realising who she was but it gradually dawned on me that I had heard her distinct Leicester accent before on a TV documentary about Joe Orton.

In Nottingham Leonie recalled "He said I know who you are! I think you're Joe Orton's sister... Well I nearly fell through the floor!" 

At the fete we spoke about Leicester's Little Theatre - apparently Joe wasn't keen on the place because they never gave him any leading parts. 

After telling me about the plans for the Entertaining Mr Sloane anniversary at University of Leicester (in 2014) we posed for a photo together. 

Back to the Nottingham book launch in 2016, and Leonie explains to the audience how she felt compelled to share her memories of brother John (Joe) after John Lahr's Prick Up Your Ears was published in 1978.

Her turning point came however, when she ripped off her rubber gloves and fled from her pot-washing job. A moment anyone who has ever worked in dead-end employment will identify with. That move led to college and the Open University...

Leonie Orton has a sense of the absurd which most of her readers will agree is genetic. It also seems to be something that working class East Midlanders (like myself) can strongly relate to.

The way she reads aloud the appallingly insensitive and pompous letter from Peggy Ramsay - which was written prior to Joe's funeral - turns it into a masterpiece of black comedy. Sickening and hilarious in equal measures.

Incidentally, Leonie Orton reads the Edna Welthorpe letters better than anyone else does too - except, perhaps Kenneth Williams.

If you get the chance to attend one of Ms Orton's book launches, don't miss it. And if you can't see her in person, you simply must buy the book. 

I Had It In Me is available from the publishers here:

QUIRKY PRESS

Skegness

What images are conjured up by the name of ‘Skegness’?

A queue of traffic stretching towards Lincolnshire’s most popular seaside resort?… More fish and chip shops than you can count on 6 hands?… the numerous caravan parks?… or Butlin’s holiday camp?

The railways made Skegness, just as they did so many other British seaside resorts. The familiar picture of a fisherman bounding along with the slogan ‘Skegness is so bracing!’ was originally a railway poster by John Hassall (1908) and has become an enduring emblem of the town.

Billy Butlin was the next individual that should take credit for Skegness’s tourism industry. After making his fortune by opening a chain of seaside amusement parks in resorts such as Mablethorpe, Hayling Island and Bognor, Butlin opened his first holiday camp at Skegness in Easter 1936, with admissions rising from 500 per week to 1,000 per week by June of that year (Butlin, 1982: 107). This holiday camp still survives whereas other Butlin camps at Filey and Clacton have folded.

The other most popular way to holiday in Skegness is in a caravan. As Walton argues, Skegness saw a decrease in ‘serviced bedspaces’ between 1950 and 1998, but ‘gained more than 15,000 caravans over the same period’, and saw a boom due to second holidays, and self-catering at the turn of the 80s and 90s. (Walton, 2000: 69).

Like Blackpool, Skegness appears to be a resort that acknowledges the working-class tastes of its consumers. The visitors guide usually has the resort’s nickname ‘Skeggy’ unpretentiously emblazoned across its front cover. Comic T-shirts refer to the town as 'Skeg Vegas'.

In summer 2016 I returned to Skegness after an interval of many years. I found that very little had changed since childhood. The sands were still reassuringly crowded with families, there were still plenty of places to buy fish and chips, and the delicious egg custards that aunty enjoyed were still bigger in the Skeggy bakeries than anywhere else on earth.

A Hillbilly shooting gallery that I’d last played in the 1990s was still here, firing water back at those sure-shots who managed to hit a target. One thing which did stand out as being new were the stalls openly selling alcoholic slush! This is a beverage which will cool you off and send you tipsy after sunbathing on the sands all day. 

Slush, fish and chips, donuts and the midday sun will force you to retire to your caravan for a much needed late afternoon nap... 

Further reading:

Butlin, Billy, 1982, The Billy Butlin Story, A Showman to the End, London: Robson Books.

Kerry, Matthew, 2012, The Holiday and British Film, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan

Walton, John K., 2000, The British Seaside, Holidays and Resorts in the Twentieth Century, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

A Hop-Picking Holiday

I went on a day trip to pick some hops. Lovibonds' brewery in Henley-on-Thames have an annual hop-picking day in which customers are welcome to help with the harvest for a beer that will be available in a few months time.

It was great fun, and we sampled some fantastic beer on the day too. I was reminded of the Kent hop-picking holidays that existed in Britain before this process became mechanised. People from the east end of London, for example, took annual hop-picking holidays in Kent for many generations. 

A British-Pathé newsreel from September 1931 depicts (what it refers to in its title as) a ‘profit and pleasure’ holiday. The farm shown in the film employs about 2000 pickers. Whole families make the pilgrimage including mothers and young children, who in turn chaperone the babies. 

These families treat the work like ‘their annual holiday’, with one young woman commenting on the health benefits, rather than the drudgery of the job, exclaiming, “Oh what a difference to London – I’ve come down here to try and get that schoolgirl complexion”.

Watch the hop-picking video here

Further info:

Kerry, Matthew, 2012, The Holiday and British Film, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan

http://www.lovibonds.com

www.britishpathe.com

Snapshots from Bridlington

Scarborough may have been the first seaside resort in the UK, but Bridlington tourist board will have you know that the first record of surfing in Britain occurred in Brid in 1890. According to local legend, Brothers HRH Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana’ole and HRH Prince David Kawananakoa were studying in the UK and ‘probably made their own surfboards with timber bought from a Bridlington boat-builder’.

Bridlington is on the East Yorkshire coast, south of Scarborough and Filey, and divided from those coastal bays by the magnificent Flamborough Head.

If you arrive here by train you will discover what is possibly the best station refreshment room in England. The Station Buffet is packed with all sorts of interesting paraphernalia and Brief Encounter (1945) springs to mind…

On my previous visit to Brid I called in at the Beside the Seaside museum. In 2016, alas, I found that it had closed, but I have a photo of an exhibit that was housed there in 2009.

Reconstruction of a seaside guest house at Beside the Seaside, 2009

A short walk up the promenade to Sewerby will take you to a Model Village and Tea Gardens. It’s just the kind of attraction that make seaside resorts so special, as if time has stood still, and yet it is still appealing to all generations of customers. I noted that the miniature art shop here is run by an ‘iPad artist’ – a nod to local resident David Hockney.

There are some great examples of seaside architecture in Bridlington, from a building that is deliberately constructed to resemble a boat (complete with mast outside), to the beautifully curved Belvedere Café at the end of the south beach. It has steps wrapped around it’s left side that take you onto a viewing platform on the roof.

Some rather grand houses overlook the sands on the south beach.

And there are some fine examples of beach huts.

If you are looking for a retro treat, Topham’s Ice Cream Parlour (set 1947) is worth a visit. Hot drinks are served in glass mugs here just as they should be, and there are banoffee sundaes and knickerbocker glories on the menu. 

When I was in there, an elderly gentleman wearing a suit, and pinned with an enormous badge reading ‘Sweet Sixteen’ came in. A member of staff exclaimed, “You look very dapper today”, and the gentleman started singing. I didn’t bother going to see the show at the Spa; I had my entertainment for the price of an ice cream...