Quick update on this which I'm now half way through - our hero Dick only has a year to live due to shrapnel in the brain from the Korean war so he can't ask auburn-haired beauty queen Sue to marry him. Butlin's itself is the perfection of a marketing man's dream...

Sheila, orphaned age 16, has been conned by an older man who made out he socialised with Dukes and peers of the realm but only does so because he is a toastmaster! Her dreams shattered she has agreed to marry Dennis the camp doctor and move with him to the Isle of Man..

The plans of Sylvia, the gold digger, and Leonard, the Russian spy, have yet to become clear but there is still a week to go before everyone leaves Clacton...