ianlouisiana Review of Holiday Camp

Holiday Camp (1947)

The way we were rather than the way we are portrayed...............

[9/10 · 23 August 2008]

A portmanteau movie centred round the Huggett family deeply rooted in working - class culture,decent,God - fearing,patriotic,proud of their place in society and secure and optimistic about the future for both themselves and their country.60 years later their descendants,hedonistic alcohol - fuelled,violent,stain their country's reputation in countries their great grandfathers helped to free from the very sort of nihilism they display.Thanks to six decades of Social Progress, the Huggetts and their beliefs have become the stuff of satire.Those terribly clever Monty Python chappies started it with their "funny" knotted handkerchief and sleeveless pully wearing drones and now everything the Huggetts would have held dear is held to ridicule. "Holiday Camp" gives you a chance to redress the balance.It features the wonderful Mr Jack Warner as the paterfamilias,sports jacket,open - necked shirt,pens in his top pocket,he is 1940 - 50s man made carnate.Miss K.Harrison displays all the strength she would have needed in the absence of a husband to have kept the family together during the recently - ended war. The Holiday Camp was many a British teenager's first taste of relative freedom and I have fond memories of my first visit in 1952 when my parents would go off the shows and leave me to my own devices.Magic days indeed. Watching "Holiday Camp" may be a bit like looking through your grandparents' snap album,but as time passes inexorably and history is re -written,like your grandparents' snap album it will become a true record of the way we were rather than the way the social engineers wish to portray us.