Humberston Fitties

the story of a Lincolnshire Plotland

ALAN DOWLING

Taken in September 2007, on the Civic Trust Stand at the Fitties Heritage Weekend.

Please note headline on newspaper article (behind Alan), ‘Very Nearly Heaven’. in 2007, the Civic Trust Stand at the Weekend. Please note headline on newspaper article (behind Alan), ‘Very Nearly Heaven’.

HUMBERSTON FITTIES

the story of a Lincolnshire Plotland

by ALAN DOWLING

Dedicated to Alan Dowling (15th September 1932 to 27th August 2018) and all those past and present who made the original book and this 2022 edition possible.

This reprint was made possible by his loving wife and daughter, Dorothy Dowling and Ann Smyth.

‘The sea pinks and the sea lavender covered the marshy areas with masses of colour and later, when the Autumn tides caused the drain to overflow, the marsh turned to a lake and the dune area became a virtual island.

What a paradise Humberston was then!’

Cleethorpes 2001

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system of transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without the prior permission of the author.

First printed in 2001

Reprinted in 2022 and 2023

Printed by Waltons Publications

46 Heneage Road, Grimsby waltonspublications.com

Publisher: Independent Publishing Network

Publication Date: Monday 15th May 2023

ISBN: 978-1-80352-732-1

Author: Alan Dowling

Email: annie.smyth@ntlworld.com

Please direct all enquiries to the above.

3 CONTENTS Foreword 5 Acknowledgements 6 List of Maps 8 Abbreviations 9 1. Introduction: Plotlands 10 2. Tents and Troops: 1900-1918 17 Under Canvas on the Fitties 17 The First World War 22 3. The Simple Life: 1919-1939 25 Bungalow Beginnings 26 Humberston Fitties and Fitties Field 32 Relaxation and Play 33 Food and Drink 37 Services 39 Privies and the Dilly Cart 40 Transport 42 Health 43 Growth and Public Health 44 A New Owner 45 4. War and Peace: 1939-1949 47 Land Reclamation 48 Post-War Recovery 48 Potential Purchasers 52 The Fitties in 1949 54 5. Holidays for All: 1950-1974 55 New Campers, New Bungalows 57 Planning and Development 59 Caravans 62 Management 64 Removal of Anthony’s Bank Bungalows 65 Condition of Bungalows 66 Private Facilities and Public Services 69

4 CONTENTS Daily Life 72 More Facilities 77 The End of an Era 78 6. Controversy and Conservation: 1986-1996 82 First Leisure Corporation, 1986-1987 82 Cleethorpes Borough Council Proposals, 1987-1989 85 Whitegate Leisure, 1989-1990 92 Bourne Leisure, 1991-1995 93 Becoming a Conservation Area, 1995-1996 100 Postscript 103 Appendix A: First Camp and Second Camp 107 Appendix B: Other Camping at Humberston 108 Appendix C: Defending the Fitties Against the Sea 111 Bibliography 117 References 119 Index 126

Superlatives are the order of the day when people talk about their life on the Humberston Fitties bungalow or chalet camp on the Lincolnshire coast: ‘paradise’, ‘magical’, ‘the best years of my youth’, ‘idyllic’, ‘blissful freedom’, ‘very happy days’, ‘lovely and relaxed’, ‘we didn’t want to go abroad’, ‘years full of sun and happiness’, ‘the beach was like lying on the Riviera’, and so on.

This affection for ‘the Fitties’ is widespread and many people have happy memories of family holidays on the camp, whilst others still enjoy its relaxed lifestyle.

Apart from its personal importance to its many supporters, the particular significance of the Fitties camp is that it is a surviving example of the many ‘plotland’ developments which were once to be found distributed throughout the country. These informal developments of holiday and residential chalets, bungalows, huts, converted buses, railway carriages, etc., grew in a haphazard manner on coasts and in the countryside, mainly in the period between the two world wars.

This book sets out to tell the story of one of these plotland camps, the Humberston Fitties. It recounts how the Humberston coastal sand dunes accommodated the tents of summer campers in Victorian and Edwardian times and how the bungalow camp began in the dunes in the years immediately following the First World War. It then blossomed in the 1920s and 1930s as part of the general spread of holiday chalet provision along the Lincolnshire coast. During the Second World War it was used for military purposes and returned to holiday use with the restoration of peace and the post-war expansion of the holiday industry. It was subsequently overshadowed locally by the rapid increase in the provision of static holiday caravans. More recently it experienced a troubled period during which its character and existence were threatened. It survived and was created a conservation area in 1996 on the grounds of its historical significance.

A couple of points should be made about the use of certain words. The first point is, should the buildings on the Fitties be called bungalows or chalets? Regardless of the dictionary definitions, both words are used on the camp for the same type of building and I have used both terms indiscriminately with no implied difference in meaning. Early campers tended to use ‘bungalow’ and many still do so. In recent years, ‘chalet’ has been favoured in official documents and, consequently, features more in later chapters. The second point is that because of its origins and lifestyle I frequently refer to the Fitties as a ‘camp’ and the bungalow owners or tenants as ‘campers’. It is now officially termed a ‘park’, so this term also figures in the book’s later chapters.

FOREWORD

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Although I have never owned or rented a Fitties bungalow, for many years I have been a fan of this unusual and varied conglomeration of buildings devoted to the carefree life.

I frequently thought about looking into the history of the camp and in 1996 I was spurred into action when I saw an appeal in the Grimsby Evening Telegraph from Alfreda Ellidge asking for help in compiling a history of the Fitties. Alfreda and her husband Robert had been in the forefront of the campaign to protect the camp’s future by gaining conservation area status in 1996, and were also keen to record the history of the Fitties. I contacted Alfreda and we decided to start working together on the project. Other very important commitments soon arose for Alfreda which made it difficult for her to continue with the joint venture. However, I still regard the book as the product of a joint enterprise because it would probably never have been written without the enthusiasm of Alfreda and Robert for the Fitties and their continued help, support, and encouragement. They in turn wish to make their own acknowledgement, as follows: ‘We simply could not have got this far without the dedication and energy of Marlene and Dennis Weltman. Dennis died just before the dreams for which he and Marlene had worked so hard (particularly the electrification of the Fitties) the last great project of his life here, came true. We all owe Dennis and Marlene an unrepayable debt of gratitude - Alfreda and Robert Ellidge’.

My initial research was amongst documentary records relating to the Fitties. Subsequently, I made numerous appeals for further information at every opportunity, including appeals through local newspapers, local radio and the internet. I am particularly grateful to those people who responded with accounts of their life and holidays on the Fitties. They gladly gave of their time and memories and trustingly lent family photographs and other documents for copying. Accordingly, this publication is an amalgamation of my researches amongst documents and my interviews with these people. As a consequence, those aspects of Fitties life for which records survive, or upon which people have contacted me, will have been dealt with more fully than other aspects. Further information to help fill gaps in the story of the Fitties will be welcome.

Those who have helped me and to whom I am indebted include Bob Arkley, Sybil Bacon (nee Goodhand), Hadyn Baker, BBC Radio Humberside, Mrs. Butts, Betty Card and Eileen, Norman and Pat Carter, Wilton Cobley, John Conolly, Mrs. Coulbeck and Sue, Alan Coxall, Rex Critchlow, ‘Roly’ Curtiss, Edward Drury, Eric Drysdale, Bruce and Peter Edge, Dave and Kath Edwards, Alfreda and Robert

Wyatt Ellidge, Eileen Emptage, Rachel Fazey, Major Clixby Fitzwilliams, Mrs. Gaunt, Cyril Gloyn, Dennis Goodhand, Peter N. Gough, Grimsby Telegraph, Derek Hallam, Carole Harman, Margaret Hart, Frank Hill, Steve Hipkins and Grimsby Central Library staff, Anne Howe, Dot Huckin, Roger Hunter, Anne Jackson (nee Gordon), Lincolnshire Archives, Horace McDonald, Rod Marchant, Roger Martin, Patricia May (nee Grantham), Stan Meakings, Ken Moriarty, Beryl Morriss (nee Goodhand), Colin Newton, North East Lincolnshire Archives Office (John Wilson and Carol Moss), Mrs. Pitson, Frank Priest, Mrs. M. Roberts, David N Robinson, Elsie Robson (nee Drewry), The Sheffield Star, Mr. and Mrs. Sissons, Annie, John and Roannah Smyth, Cllr. (Mrs.) Margaret Solomon, John Storey, Tameside Local Studies Library, Mariette Thorpe, Edward Trevitt, Ken Turner, Geoff Wagstaff, Jean Wales, Welholme Galleries (Andrew Tulloch), Janet Wilmott, Colin Wright, and the Yorston family. I am also grateful to Gary Cooper and the staff of Waltons Publications in Grimsby, who have been most helpful, good-natured and professional in seeing to the printing of the book.

The photographs which illustrate the book have been provided as follows: Alan Coxall, p.53 (both photographs); Peter Edge, pp.29 (both) and 38 (below); Dave Edwards, p.63 (above); Rachel Fazey, p.60 (both); Cyril Gloyn, pp.31 (both) and 45 (above); Grimsby Telegraph, pp.67 and 70; Anne Howe, pp.76 (above) and 91 (above); Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway, p.63 (below); Horace McDonald, p.17; Rod Marchant, p.50 (both); Patricia May, p.38 (above); Colin Newton, pp.34 (below) and 80 (below); Tameside Local Studies Library, p.23; Welholme Galleries, p.34 (above); Yorston family, p.73 (both), p.81 (2022) relatives of the Butler Family, p.46. (2022). danwhitbyphotography, p.41 (below) and p.80 (2022). All other photographs are by the author. My final thanks are to my wife Dorothy, who has given practical help and has also cheerfully accepted the years I have spent researching the subject and crouching over a word processor keyboard. Fortunately, we share a liking for ‘noseying’ around the Fitties and have had many enjoyable walks there together at all times of the year.

Additional Acknowledgements Reprint 2022

Adrian Wilkinson from North East Lincolnshire Archives Office, for his unwavering support enabling this book to be reprinted.

Stuart Turnbull at Waltons Publications for his professionalism in overcoming obstacles encountered and always being available to us.

Lisa Cutting and Julie Connell for their interest, encouragement and support towards reprinting this book.

Grateful thanks to our daughter Ann Smyth for taking on such an onerous yet rewarding task with me, Dorothy.

LIST OF MAPS

1. Location of the Humberston Fitties.

© Crown copyright 2022 OS 100065902. You are permitted to use this data solely to enable you to respond to, or interact with, the organisation that provided you with the data. You are not permitted to copy, sub-license, distribute or sell any of this data to third parties in any form.

Humberston Fitties, 1907.

(Extract from: Lincolnshire (Parts of Lindsey) Sheet XXXI NW. Ordnance Survey, 1907. Scale of original map: six inches to the mile).

3. Humberston Fitties, 1932.

(Extract from: Lincolnshire (Parts of Lindsey) Sheet XXXI NW. Ordnance Survey, 1932. Scale of original map: six inches to the mile).

56 LINCOLN

Humberston Fitties, 1955.

BOSTON

GRIMSBY

HULL CLEETHORPES SCUNTHORPE

HUMBERSTON FITTIES

ABBREVIATIONS

BC Borough Council

FC Grimsby Rural District Council Fitties Committee

FORA Fitties Owners Residents’ Association

FORAB Fitties Owners Residents’ Association (Bungalows)

GDT Grimsby Daily Telegraph

GET Grimsby Evening Telegraph

GDT Grimsby Daily Telegraph GET Grimsby Evening Telegraph

GN Grimsby News

GN News

GT Grimsby Telegraph

HFCA Humberston Fitties Campers’ Association

NELA North East Lincolnshire Archives

RDC Grimsby Rural District Council

1. INTRODUCTION Plotlands

‘Humberston Fitties’, or simply ‘the Fitties’, are the customary local ways of referring to what is currently officially termed the Humberston Fitties Chalet Park. The park, or camp, contains about 300 chalets or bungalows and lies on the Lincolnshire coast in the parish of Humberston immediately to the south of the resort of Cleethorpes.

The land upon which it lies was once salt marsh and ‘Fitties’ is a Lincolnshire term signifying salt marsh, hence its name.1 The expressions ‘Humberston Fitties’ and ‘the Fitties’ are used to describe both the camp (and its later caravan extensions) and the general area of reclaimed salt marsh in which it lies. The interpretation is usually clear from the context within which the expressions are used.

In 1707 there were reckoned to be 391 acres of ‘outmarsh or Fitties’ in the Manor of Humberston.2 In 1795 part of the marsh was enclosed within a sea bank known as Anthony’s Bank* as a preliminary to turning it over to agricultural use. The present Anthony’s Bank Road which leads to the seafront follows the line of the bank, which then turns in a southerly direction near the camp entrance and runs through the camp. Sand dunes built up in front of the bank and eventually these became the location of the first bungalows on the Fitties.3 Subsequently, the area to the landward side of the bank was also used for bungalows. This type of bungalow development came to be called ‘plotlands’ and the rest of this chapter will outline briefly the growth of plotlands in this country.

The authors of a well-known book on plotlands provide us with the following introduction to the subject:

In the first half of the twentieth century a unique landscape emerged along the coast, on the riverside and in the countryside ... It was a makeshift world of shacks and shanties, scattered unevenly in plots of varying size and shape,

*Some people refers to this as Saint Anthony’s Bank. The author is not aware of any evidence of the historical use of a saintly prefix but would be pleased to hear of any relevant evidence. All historical records which have been refer simply to Anthony’s Bank. The portion of marsh at the southern end of the Fitties between Anthony’s Bank and the sea was known as Anthony Water. There was an Anthony Farm in Humberston which was known later as Cottagers Yard Farm. The question yet to be answered is, who was Anthony?

with unmade roads and little in the way of services ... To the local authorities (who dubbed this type of landscape the ‘plotlands’) it was something of a nightmare ... But to the plotlanders themselves, Arcadia was born ... ordinary city-dwellers discovered not only fresh air and tranquillity but, most prized of all, a sense of freedom.4

The growth of such plotlands was concentrated within a fifty-year period from the 1890s to the end of the 1930s, with a peak during 1919-1939.5 The Humberston Fitties is a surviving example, even though any ‘shacks and shanties’ which it may have had, have now evolved into, or been replaced by, chalets and bungalows. The Fitties has its own distinctive appearance and history, which have been shaped by local factors. But how did plotlands arise and become a countrywide phenomenon? What were the circumstances which led to the creation of numerous similar ‘camps’?

It is certainly a common human characteristic to wish at times to ‘get away from it all’ and retreat to that day-dream country cottage with a thatched roof and roses round the door. For many centuries, wealthy people could achieve this, on a grander scale, by virtue of having a country house and a town house, not to mention a hunting lodge, and spending an appropriate part of the year in each establishment. With growing industrialisation and the rapid growth of towns, the idea of having access to a bolt-hole or a place for fresh air and relaxation started to have a wide appeal.

In the 1720s Daniel Defoe commented on merchants of the City of London who had summer houses in the surrounding countryside ‘whither they retire from the hurries of business, and from getting money, to draw their breath in a clear air, and to divert themselves and families in the hot weather’, before returning ‘to smoke and dirt, sin and seacoal’ in the winter. Epsom was the City businessmen’s spa where they could relax with their families, but some had to ride daily into the City to attend to business matters.6

In his novel Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens extolled the virtues of a temporary change of residence and at the same time painted an idealised picture of a country retreat:

After another fortnight, when the fine warm weather had fairly begun ... they departed to a cottage at some distance in the country ... Oliver, whose days had been spent among squalid crowds, and in the midst of noise and brawling, seemed to enter on a new existence there. The rose and honeysuckle clung to the cottage walls; the ivy crept round the trunks of the trees; and the garden-flowers perfumed the air with delicious odours ... It was a happy time. The days were peaceful and serene.7

One forerunner of plotlands may be seen in the collections of ‘gardens’ which were frequently found on the outskirts of early nineteenth century towns. Although they can be likened to our current system of garden allotments they had a much wider use than growing produce and had a greater affinity with continental ‘leisure gardens’. Many town dwellers acquired outlying gardens as places for evening or weekend relaxation. On the outskirts of Nottingham in the 1830s such gardens accommodated a wide variety of summerhouses, owned by all classes from workpeople to substantial tradesmen.8 Grimsby had similar gardens in the East Marsh area, which were leased or purchased from the Grimsby Corporation. In 1834, one which was put up for sale included:

A Brick Summer-House covered with slate containing two rooms, the one above commanding extensive Views of the River Humber and the Country around Grimsby. The garden, etc., was formerly in the occupation of Mr. John Richmond, Surgeon, deceased; [and] will be found a very desirable acquisition for any Gentleman, Merchant, Gardener, or other resident inhabitant of Grimsby.9

The nineteenth century also saw a growing interest in a form of dwelling which would become particularly associated with plotlands, the bungalow. This had been introduced into the country from India, and came to be regarded largely as a place for leisure and relaxation. In 1819, Sir Walter Scott had one of his characters, Guy Mannering, talk of his ‘bungalow, with all convenience for being separate and sulky when I please’.10 Towards the end of the century there was a growing interest amongst the middle classes in having a countryside or seaside vacation bungalow. At the same time, the concept of ‘the weekend’ as a time of recreation at a cottage or bungalow became popular.11

Something which may be said to have helped form a plotland ‘ideology’ was the ‘return to the land’ movement which developed towards the end of the nineteenth century. When some contemporaries considered the squalor and disease of Victorian towns, they thought that possibly it was the industrial system itself that was at fault and that a solution might be a return to the rural economy and village life and crafts. Cities and towns were seen, by some, as physically and morally corrupting and, consequently, health and happiness could only be found in the countryside. They also argued that the elaborate social conventions of town life, the formal clothing, the houses and their heavy furniture and furnishings needed to be replaced by a plainer, simpler style of life. They believed that this was more possible in the country than in the town, and, consequently, a ‘return to the land’ was necessary.12 There is little doubt that the growth of plotlands was bound up with the idea of ‘the simple life’ - the idea of escaping and abandoning town life for a simpler, freer, rural life.

The ‘return to the land’ enthusiasts found vindication of their beliefs in the ‘garden city’ movement of the late nineteenth century.13 Some philanthropic manufacturers had become disturbed at the unhealthy working class living conditions in towns and, consequently, started building their own estate villages. Later examples, such as Bournville and Port Sunlight, had spacious layouts, with wide roads, green spaces, and gardens. These were contemporary with the emerging ‘garden city’ movement, which came to be popularly understood as meaning new towns or suburbs with informal low-density layouts, tree-lined roads, gardens and various designs of houses. The first garden city, Letchworth, was inaugurated in 1903 and a major plotland development, Peacehaven, later advertised itself as ‘a garden city by the sea’.14

Because of motivations such as these, there had been a steady increase in the development of plotlands around the country since the 1890s. However, the great surge occured after the First World War. There was a post-war decline in farming and farm incomes, and a surplus of land. Consequently, farmers and others were able to take advantage of a new source of income and land use by renting out plots for chalets. There was also a major housing shortage and an absence of effective controls on the use of land. To these factors were added the expansion of road transport and the increasing use of the motor car in providing a means of easy access to the countryside and seaside. A widespread increase in leisure time and annual paid holidays was also relevant. In the early 1920s only one and a half million people had paid holidays; by 1939 this had risen to over eleven million. Seaside holiday resorts in particular boomed during the inter-war period. Camping by the sea had had devotees for many years but became increasingly popular. The coast saw an increasing number of camp-sites, including organised holiday camps. By 1939, one and a half million holiday-makers took some sort of camping holiday. This appeared to register a need for informal family holidays, for which plotland sites were well suited. Consequently, ideal conditions were created for the formation, or expansion, of plotlands for holiday or permanent occupation.15

Plotlands appealed to a wide range of society. Because they were frequently on marginal land, or on wind-swept sand dunes, plots were available cheaply or possibly at no cost at all. Accordingly, they could suit the poor who wanted a permanent home or a weekend hut. If need be, building materials could be carried out a plank at a time by bicycle. The sense of freedom for which they stood also attracted ‘Bohemians’ such as artists, writers, musicians, actors and entertainers, and also professional and business people. Buildings ranged from small huts to large bungalows and incorporated a wide range of materials, particularly timber, corrugated iron and sheet asbestos. Conversions were widespread, including railway carriages, bus bodies, trams, garden sheds and surplus army huts.16 There would normally be a haphazard distribution of buildings, frequently in an irregular

and scattered development, with little overall planning or provision of services. Around the country ‘within reach of major towns, a proletarian colonisation of the land was taking place’.17 Some of these ‘colonies’ went on to become large-scale permanent settlements, such as Peacehaven in Sussex, and Jaywick and Canvey Island in Essex. During the years 1921-26, Peacehaven grew from having a handful of inhabitants to housing a population of 3,000.18

The expansion of plotlands went in tandem with a boom in the building of bungalows. Although the latter were being built increasingly for permanent occupation they had retained their wide appeal as places for relaxation or holidays. ‘Simplicity’ was the recurrent theme of bungalow living, with a belief in sunshine, fresh air and the merits of the open-air life.19 Such ideas became increasingly popular and in 1923 it was commented that:

Young married people of the middle class flock to bungalow towns. There they can live a sort of aboriginal existence for a time. There is always a great attraction in a primitive existence, and it is here that the bungalow craze comes in. The demand is increasing very rapidly [and] there are very large developments in bungalow buildings - for instance, at Shoreham. The enormous demand for tents and bungalows is far ahead of the supply, and a bungalow city, where a sort of ‘Swiss Family Robinson’ existence can be lived for a few weeks in the year, is a demand which town planners must direct their attention to very seriously.20

This mention of town planners highlights the fact that the delight of a generation enjoying its newly-found access to coast and countryside was not shared by all. Bungalows, weekend shacks and converted coaches created Arcadia for some, yet threatened to destroy it for others. For many contemporary commentators, the coastal plotlands amounted to a string of ‘seaside slums’, which presented major sanitary problems and damaged the natural scenery: ‘No part of England seemed immune from this new invasion ... among the worst is Flamborough Head where a whole town of hutments has completely ruined the scenery of that fine chalk headland ... [and] miles of the Lincolnshire and Norfolk coasts are disfigured’.21 Winifred Holtby’s fictional representation in the 1930s of a coastal plotland illustrates vividly this body of opinion:

Two miles south of Kiplington between the cliffs and the road to Maythorpe stood a group of dwellings known locally as The Shacks. They consisted of two railway coaches, three caravans, one converted omnibus, and five huts of varying sizes and designs. Around these human habitations leaned, drooped and squatted other minor structures, pig-sties, hen-runs, a goathouse, and, near the hedge, half a dozen tall narrow cupboards like upended coffins, cause of unending indignation to the sanitary inspectors.

A war raged between Kiplington Urban District Council and the South Riding County Council over the tolerated existence of The Shacks.22

In 1937, George Orwell described a caravan plotland in Wigan and criticised the way in which poorer people were being obliged to live in squalid conditions because of the shortage of working class housing:

The majority are old single-decker buses (the rather smaller buses of ten years ago) which have been taken off their wheels and propped up with struts of wood. Some are simply wagons with semi-circular slats on top, over which canvas is stretched. Water is got from a hydrant common to the whole colony, some of the caravan-dwellers having to walk 150 or 200 yards for every bucket of water. There are no sanitary arrangements at all. Most of the people construct a little hut to serve as a lavatory on the tiny patch of ground surrounding their caravan, and once a week dig a deep hole in which to bury the refuse.23

Others feared that England would become one vast built-up suburbia:

When England’s multitudes observed with frowns That those who came before had spoiled the towns, ‘This can no longer be endured’ they cried, And set to work to spoil the countryside.24

In view of such observations and arguments, conservationists and others called for greater governmental control over the use of land.25 Since the nineteenth century, local authorities had had powers to approve or reject plans for streets and buildings. However, a growing appreciation of the need to control the type of building development which showed little concern for the provision of amenities and a healthy environment led to the passing of several acts of parliament in the twentieth century which were concerned with the control of land use and the prevention of unsuitable development.

Several reports during the Second World War emphasised the need for comprehensive planning, including the necessity of maintaining good agricultural land and preserving natural amenities. The result was the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 which introduced an overall planning framework for the entire country.

All land and its development were brought under a unified system of planning and changes in the use of land had to be approved by local planning authorities. Possibly the contemporary comment of The Times best summed up the need for the act:

The people of Britain are too numerous, their cultures too complex, their wants too diverse, for them to be able to live, work, move about and enjoy themselves satisfactorily without some regulation of the nature and distribution of their settlement and workplaces, and of the uses to which they put the limited land in their small island.26

Local authorities had opposed plotlands partly on account of costs, i.e. for the provision of services and roads in the future, and also on grounds of public health. The 1947 act now provided effective means of controlling the development and creation of plotlands.27 We shall see that the workings of the act and the concerns of local authorities were reflected in the development of the Humberston Fitties.

From the foregoing survey it is evident that there were many types of plotland, from the idyllic to the squalid, and their creation led to the evolution of two fundamental and opposing views. On the one hand they were seen as arcadian retreats to nature, the simple life and freedom. This was balanced by the opinion that, even discounting those that were dangers to public health, they spoilt those very natural surroundings which had attracted the plotlanders in the first place.

Whatever the strengths may have been of the opposing arguments, the latter half of the twentieth century certainly saw a fall in the number of plotlands. In addition to the effects of new legislation, some plotlands on the coast suffered clearance as part of military defence schemes during the Second World War. Others were subject to flooding by the sea, particularly during the devastating floods along the east coast of England in 1953. Others developed into permanent settlements and were ‘improved’ as temporary buildings were replaced by permanent bungalows. Those that have survived, such as the Humberston Fitties, have acquired a new status as part of the nation’s social history and ‘heritage’.

Regardless of what the planners and public health officials may have thought, there is no doubt that those who were fortunate enough to be inhabiting plotlands by choice were confident that they had discovered a sort of heaven on earth. Accordingly, the last word in this introduction should be left to plotlanders themselves, such as the early pioneers of Jaywick who said ‘They thought they had found a kind of Robinson Crusoe island, where they could be quiet and peaceful’.28 Or one of the early ‘colonisers’ of Humberston who wrote:

The sea pinks and the sea lavender covered the marshy areas with masses of colour and later, when the Autumn tides caused the drain to overflow,

the marsh turned to a lake and the dune area became a virtual island. What a paradise Humberston was then!29

Len Reaney and Horace McDonald on the Fitties Beach, 1930s. Len Reaney and Horace McDonald on the Fitties Beach, 1930s.

2. TENTS & TROOPS 1900-1918

The first known reference to a bungalow on the Humberston Fitties is in 1920 but long before then the foreshore sand dunes were being used for summer camping in tents. This came to an end with the First World War when the foreshore was taken over by the military.

The troops had huts there for shelter and it appears that some of them were used as summer camping bungalows after the war.

Under Canvas on the Fitties

We can trace the antecedents of the Humberston Fitties bungalow camp back to the year 1900. As the Victorian period drew to a close, tent camping was a popular activity on the Humberston coast and the area that would later become ‘the Fitties’ was a regular location for camping under canvas. We are indebted to a local newspaper for reports of camping on the Humberston Fitties at the beginning of the new century. The first report describes the camp site in August 1900:

The camping ground at Humberston presented a scene of unwonted animation on Thursday evening. There are in all about thirty tents there, and they accommodate about forty people. Of course there are married as well as bachelor quarters but we are assured that the camp is a highly civilised community, and that there is a very respectful distance between the different quarters. Camp life in itself is full of attractive incident. The married ladies of the camp invited the other occupants of the camp and their friends to a social evening. They were assisted by the gentlemen of the little community who accumulated a mass of driftwood and placed it in a convenient position in the sandhills, where it was lit and a camp fire made that gave to the encampment a truly Bohemian aspect. The party first engaged in the game of forfeits after which there were vocal selections and recitations. The next item on the programme was a very bountiful repast which had been provided by the married ladies. The site of the al fresco nocturnal fete was illuminated by Chinese lanterns, the acetylene light, hurricane lamps and candles. After supper the festivities were resumed and a most enjoyable evening concluded with the rendering of ‘The ladies are jolly good fellows’.1

A reporter returned a year later. Much of his report anticipates the lifestyle which would be described by bungalow owners later in the century:

The pleasures of camping out appeal to a considerable number of people in this locality and they eagerly look forward to the change summer by summer. At the present time the Humberston foreshore presents quite a gay appearance with its tents dotted here and there ... at the time of visiting there were between twenty and thirty of these portable residences there. There are married quarters and also a plot reserved for the bachelors. Everything is conducted within the precincts of the camp in that free and easy style and with that freedom from restraint that appeals so much to the hearts of some English people.

The delights of the informal open-air existence are then praised, and we have possibly the first mention of a holiday building (a portable wooden shed) on the Fitties:

On the camping ground the meals may be al fresco whenever the weather permits. Of course, considerable difficulty occasionally attends the commissariat arrangements, and it is perhaps this matter that prevents a much larger number betaking themselves of the Humberston foreshore during the summer months. If one has his own trap it is much more convenient than having to bring victuals by hand or through the carrier. Then, when the raw food gets there it must be cooked before it is fit to be eaten. Wood must be found with which to light the fire, and water must also be procured for the kettle. Plenty of wood is obtainable from the shore, etc., whilst there is an excellent supply of water in a spring adjoining the camping ground. There are some who bring their food already cooked and for those who like to lay in a small stock of tasty trifles a portable wooden shed fitted up with shelves admirably suits their purpose.

The writer anticipates again the later Fitties family lifestyle as he emphasises that families are camping there:

Besides the young men who go for the ‘fun of the thing’ there are families who avail themselves of the opportunity afforded them purely for health’s sake, and sometimes people go there with their children during the school holidays ... For the most part the male inhabitants of the camp follow their respective vocations during the day and return to the bosoms of their families at night.

And he illustrates how the families pass the day:

While the men are away there are many ways in which the ladies can employ their time. Besides reading and walking, and enjoying pleasant chats with their neighbours, it is also necessary for them to prepare for

the homecoming of their husbands and occasionally a game at croquet or tennis serves to while away a pleasant hour. As to the children, they have glorious times at their games, wading, and gathering cockles, etc. By the time the husband arrives at his tent he often finds that his dutiful wife has been to the Shepherd’s Hut, which is close by, and has procured him some fresh milk - condensed milk is kept in reserve - new laid eggs and farm house butter, whilst the other members of the family bring their freshly gathered shell fish, with their possibly hidden typhoid germs, to add to his creature comforts.

Further mention is made of temporary wooden structures:

Readers will doubtless be interested about the sleeping arrangements. Some of the very hardy gentlemen content themselves with rugs alone in the shelter of their tents, whilst others have the ordinary bedstead. In one instance a summer-house has been transformed into a snug little bedroom, and in another case a small wooden erection serves as a dormitory and also as the family wardrobe. The experience certainly possesses many attractions. There is a novelty about it that is something out of the run of everyday life.

And finally, the reporter emphasises the communal nature of the camp:

There have been occasions in the past when a minister [of religion] has happened to make one of the community and then he has conducted divine service on a Sunday. The Union Jack proudly floats from one of the tents in token of the loyalty of the little community who, judging by their happy and healthy looking countenances, are enjoying to the full the benefits of the outdoor life.2

The seashore camp was vulnerable to action by the sea, as was demonstrated in January 1905, when fierce storms affected the area:

The high tide not only dashed over the lower parts of the sand hills near the camping ground, but effected a breach in the sea wall, opposite the shepherd’s house. There was formerly a clough through that place, which once broken into soon caused a large gap. At 10.30 [a.m.] the water was still pouring through into the Fitties, but soon after that time carts began to arrive with sand bags, etc., and

*The Shepherd’s Hut was the term used by campers for the shepherd’s house which used to lie near the seaward end of the South Sea Lane. The name was still being used by some bungalow families in the 1920s and 1930s. One Fitties family was even using the term in the 1960s to refer generally to the camp shop.

by working hard under the direction of Mr. Marshall some 18 men with horses and carts managed, before the darkness fell, to make the place secure against another tide.3

The camp must have continued to be patronised because in 1907, the local Medical Officer expressed concern at the sanitary arrangements and advised the Grimsby Rural District Council that they ‘should notify the party letting the plots that formed the camp that before next season he should submit a scheme of sanitation and water supply’. In 1910, an organisation tersely referred to as the ‘Camping Club’ was renting land for camping on the Fitties. Another user of land was the Grimsby Rifle Club which rented land for a rifle range along the very southern edge of the Fitties.4

The First World War

Civilian camping at Humberston was disrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. By 8 August 1914, the 3rd Battalion of the Manchester Regiment were on their way to Cleethorpes. The battalion had two main functions. Firstly, to train recruits for active military service and get wounded men fit again for action. Secondly, to guard the coastline between Cleethorpes and Tetney Lock. The headquarters was in Cleethorpes and troops were billeted ‘all over the district’. The battalion history carries several references to troops being stationed on the foreshore at Humberston. In 1914, H Company were on ‘outpost duty’ there in huts. In 1915, a picket at Humberston was situated ‘on the sandy strip of land occupied by the Holiday Camp’. The picket consisted of fourteen men by night and seven by day, although as all fit and trained men were rapidly drafted to the battle front it was difficult to maintain the pickets at full strength. Men were ‘billeted’ on the foreshore in 1916. 1917 saw H Company ‘in camp in the Sand Hills’ and in 1918 the company was still ‘at Foreshore Camp’.5

During the winter of 1914, trenches were dug on a line from the foreshore to Holton-le-Clay and training included bayonet fighting and musketry practice. In contrast, the battalion band gave sacred concerts on the Cleethorpes Pier on Sunday evenings. Relaxation included football, hockey, gymnastics and crosscountry running. The battalion’s hygiene must have been of concern to the military authorities because during 1915:

An attempt was made to have a bathing parade in the Humber once a week

*In default of evidence to the contrary, the expression ‘holiday camp’ in context presumably refers to the tent camp site, and not what would be implied by the words’ modern usage.

but it was discontinued, as when, after a lengthy march across the sands, one did reach the sea, the water was so full of foreign and decaying matter from Grimsby and Hull that the cleanliness of the men was not increased by the performance.6

Despite such difficulties, the men presumably managed to keep clean and healthy and the battalion comprised 4,000 men in 1916. In the same year there occurred the battalion’s tragic loss of life in Cleethorpes when a bomb which was dropped by a Zeppelin hit the Baptist Chapel where a batch of incoming recruits were temporarily billeted; thirty-one soldiers were killed in the incident.7

When the war was over, the battalion commander noted that:

The chief work of the Battalion consisted now of dismantling our fortifications, and as the Battalion had nearly seven miles of front, even allowing that the trenches were not continuous, it was not a job that could be done in a few days. All the barbed wire entanglements had to be taken, trenches, redoubts and strong points filled in again and made level. 8

When the war was over, the battalion commander noted that: The chief work of the Battalion consisted now of dismantling our fortifications, and as the Battalion had nearly seven miles of front, even allowing that the trenches were not continuous, it was not a job that could be done in a few days. All the barbed wire entanglements had to be taken, trenches, redoubts and strong points filled in again and made level. 8

It was some time before this work was completed and several campers remember playing amongst trenches and dug-outs in post-war years.

Members of the 3rd Battalion Manchester Regiment at Humberston ca. 1915 (above) and 1918 (below). The battalion guarded the local coastline during the First World War. This included stationing men on the Humberston sand dunes in huts - some of which were thought to have been used by campers after war.

3. THE SIMPLE LIFE 1919-1939

The two decades following the war saw the Humberston dunes and adjacent land transformed into the Fitties camp with a wide variety of ‘bungalows’ from the custombuilt holiday home to shacks and superannuated commercial vehicles, such as old buses and railway carriages or old gypsy caravans. Campers’ recollections of the early days of the camp reinforce the distant view from the beginning of the twenty-first century that the 1920s and 1930s were halcyon days for the Fitties, even if we discount the rosy hue of nostalgia.

Located well away from populated areas and having no mains services, it was possible to live ‘the simple life’ and enjoy the open air, beach, marshes, flowers and wildlife.

Even as the Great War had been drawing to a close, events were taking place further down the Lincolnshire coast which would encourage the growth of holiday plotlands such as the Fitties. Owners of land adjacent to the coastline had claimed that they also automatically owned the sandhills and beach above high water mark and, accordingly, could place bungalows and huts thereon. A legal judgement in 1918 regarding sandhills at Mablethorpe ruled that whilst such ownership was not automatic, it could be acquired if ownership had been exercised over a period of at least twelve years. The effect of the judgement was to enable long-standing landowners along the coast to enclose and build on the dunes. Consequently, ‘Bungalows, shacks, caravans and old bus bodies and railway carriages appeared wherever a track gave access to the sandhills and seashore’.1

The Humberston land which was to become involved in this Lincolnshire coastal plotland development formed part of the estate of the Marquess of Lincolnshire. In 1920, the Marquess sold his Humberston estate.

At some point, the land upon which the camp would grow came into the ownership estate agents and auctioneers (Maslin). Others included Arthur Drewery, trawler owner; Stanley Robson, organist and choirmaster at Grimsby’s St. James’ Church; of the Humberston Fitties Company Limited.* This land lay within the Grimsby

*Little is known about this company. It was engaged in sand and gravel extraction from what is now the private nature reserve near the end of the South Sea Lane. It was possibly formed for this purpose and later went into the leasing out of bungalow plots. Any information on it would be welcome by the author.

Rural District, whose local authority, the Grimsby Rural District Council (RDC), were to play an increasingly important role in the history of the Fitties.2

Bungalow Beginnings

The post-war re-birth of civilian camping on the Fitties took place in 1919. Mrs. E. E. Scully has given an account of how this led to the beginning of the bungalow camp in the dunes. She and her brother and their parents were at a low ebb after the effects of the 1919 influenza epidemic and other illnesses, when:

During a long walk, to blow away some of the weariness and despair, Mrs. Bunker fell in love with a stretch of sandhills and dunes, in what was then the remains of Humberston army camp. The solitude (not a house or human being in sight) and the restfulness of it all was just the tonic she needed. Her husband decided to move his frail and weary family from Dudley Street [in Grimsby] to ‘The Fitties’ for the summer to see if the air would bring back their lost health. Thus what was the first summer-living family set up home at Humberston, making the journey on a horse and cart, complete with chest of drawers, a tent and the essentials of daily living, pots, pans, bedding, etc. ... However, though the Bunker family enjoyed their solitude and their tent, the next summer father bought a small bungalow, and no doubt unwittingly, began the organised colonisation of Humberston that we are familiar with today. After the bungalow was installed, others had the same idea. Soon there was quite a community, and lots of children, for whom the whole area was a paradise of wood-fires, free donkey rides and ‘dabbing’ - catching dabs at low tide with a pronged stick and cooking them over the open fire for supper.3

Mr. Bunker had been a keen camper before marriage so presumably needed little prompting to resort to the Fitties. He was also a banker and the 1920s and 1930s saw the evolution in the sand dunes of a microcosm of local business and professional life. In addition to banking, bungalow owners were representative of the fishing industry (Edge), building and contracting (Goodhand), household furnishers (Gordon), hairdressers (Cripsey), butchers (Hibbit), joiners and furniture makers (Cobley), general practitioners (Drs. McKerchar and Burnett), shoe shop proprietors (Powell), fruiterers and florists (Drewry), photographers (Burton) and estate agents and auctioneers (Maslin). Others include Arthur Drewery, trawler owner; Stanley Robson, organist and choirmaster at Grimsby’s St. James’ Church; Lionel Chatterton, manager of boat builders and fitters W. H. Thickett; and Hadyn Taylor, dentist and swimmer of the English Channel. 4

Early pioneers Mr. and Mrs. Tom Edge lived in Cleethorpes and in 1923 took possession of their new holiday bungalow, Lingalonga. Mr. Edge was a director

of Atlas Steam Fishing, a partner in Letten Bros. and a well-known fish auctioneer. The bungalow had been built in sections at the premises of W. H. Thickett and then assembled on site. Like several other bungalows it was raised on old trawler ‘bobbins’.* Thus began many happy years on the Fitties for Mr. and Mrs. Edge and their grandsons Peter and Bruce Edge, and maid Doris. The boys had most of the comforts of home, including a hot bath every night, in a tin bath in front of the stove. Initially, out of choice, the bungalow had no bedrooms. An extremely large tent accommodated grandparents in a ‘bedroom’ compartment at one end and children in their ‘bedroom’ at the other end. The maid had a separate large bell tent. Later on the bungalow was extended and had three bedrooms - one for the grandparents, one for the maid and one for the two boys. Tents were then kept for visitors who would come at the weekends or for longer periods.

Other pioneers included Mr. Hibbit, a Cleethorpes butcher, and his family. The Hibbit’s converted horse-drawn furniture removal van was one of the first ‘bungalows’ you saw as you turned into the camp. Wilton Cobley describes it as ‘huge’. It had four bunks at the back, whilst the front part was the living room and kitchen; it was all one big living and sleeping area. Windows had been fitted and its wheels had been removed but it was still recognisable as a furniture removal van. It was high up and the tailgate was lowered to make a slope which gave access into the van.

Joseph Drewry, local fruiterer and florist, had a bungalow in the dunes in the 1920s. His daughter recalls that it was near the present camp entrance with only five other bungalows in the vicinity, including Dr. McKerchar’s which was as far out in the dunes as he could get it. The Gordon family bungalow was also in the dunes. Daughter Anne remembers that the bungalow was ‘the second one on the dunes’ near to the present Anthony’s Bank car park. It bore the name It’ll Do, on the basis that anything not required at home would ‘do’ for the bungalow. It was raised on bricks, leading to sleep being disturbed by rabbits thumping about under the floorboards, a problem solved by the installation of wire netting to prevent access under the bungalow. Many bungalows had garden rollers in an attempt to flatten the rough ground, presumably for the playing of games.

Mr. and Mrs. Carl Cobley and sons Wilton and Frank lived in Heneage Road, Grimsby, and had their holiday home on the edge of the dunes by the early 1920s. Mr. Cobley was a joiner, furniture maker and retailer and built the bungalow himself. It was made of horizontal weatherboard and was creosoted, except for the window frames. It was called Sunglow and had two double bedrooms, two

*These are large round thick slices of wood which were used by several owners to raise their bungalows above ground and, hopefully, above the flood level.

or three single bedrooms, a large living room, a kitchen and verandah. Raised on trawler bobbins, it stood twelve or eighteen inches above the sand.

It was in 1930 when the Goodhand family settled into their new holiday bungalow. The family’s permanent home was in Dudley Street in Grimsby and Mr. Harold Goodhand was joint managing director of the builders and contractors Hewins and Goodhand. He had a bungalow built on the dunes by employees of the firm. His children, Dennis, Sybil and Beryl, have happy memories of their time on the Fitties during the 1930s. It was a large bungalow with three, later converted to four, bedrooms, to accommodate mother and father, five children, a maid and, initially, a nanny. There was also a large sitting room, a kitchen, front and rear verandahs, a shed and, near the boundary of the plot, the privy. A bell tent or two on the plot served to accommodate visitors.

The bungalow was made of timber with a felt roof. It was raised on blocks; this made a hideaway for those children who needed privacy for a quiet, and illicit, cigarette. The space was also used by wild rabbits. A council employee would come round at times and put out snares, which the children would then pull up. The bungalow was on a large plot with a post and wire fence to indicate the boundary. A flagpole marked the southern extent of the pitch. Neither the Goodhands nor their neighbours attempted to turn their plots into gardens. They were looked upon as camping pitches and the Goodhands always called their plot a ‘pitch’, with all that term’s redolence of camping. The bungalow was named The Limit because of its location as the ‘last ‘ bungalow at the limit or southern boundary of the camp (on land which is now part of the Humber Mouth Yacht Club site). Family members also reckon that the name summed up the fact that there were so many children at the bungalow at times.

In 1932, another bungalow, named The Olde Log Cabin, was built by employees of W. H. Thickett for the firm’s manager, Lionel Chatterton. It was built on the sand dunes and raised on trawler bobbins, many of which are still in perfect condition. The bungalow was extended during its early years; part of the verandah at the front was incorporated into the house to enlarge a bedroom; the back bedrooms were extended and sunroom, balcony and kitchen were added.5

Edward Drury recalls that in the 1930s his employer, who was engaged in the port’s coal trade, took a liking to the dunes:

Mr. Ernest William Nickerson the father of the late Sir Joseph Nickerson had a bungalow on the Fitties. It was called Waving Marram and used simply as a holiday residence. When Ernest Nickerson purchased the bungalow during the 1930s ... the area was full of similar buildings all privately owned, and used during the summer holiday season only.6

The Edge family bungalow, Lingalonga, ca. 1930. The large tent on the right was used for sleeping by Grandpa and Grandma Edge and grandsons Peter and Bruce Edge. Doris the maid slept in the bell tent on the left. Dunes can be seen in the distance on the right.

Edge bungalow, Lingalonga 1930. was sleeping by Grandpa and Grandma Edge and grandsons Bruce Edge. the maid slept in the bell tent on the left. Dunes can be in the distance on the right.

Grandpa Tom Edge, Alec, Uncle Ernest Noble and Peter Edge relaxing on the Fitties at Lingalonga, ca. 1930.

Grandpa Tom Edge, Alec, Uncle Ernest Noble and Peter Edge relaxing on the Fitties at Lingalonga, ca. 1930. Edge, Uncle Ernest Noble Edge on the Lingalonga 1930.

The colonisation by the better-off is illustrated by Mrs. Scully:

Servants were brought along if anyone had them. My mother allowed ours to do without her cap when camping. I was never allowed to present anyone with a cup of tea unless it was on a small tray. A regular trouble was clocks stopping due to the sand. If a maid was sent to ask the neighbour the time she had to say ‘Mrs. X sends her compliments and could you please tell her the time?’ When silver teapots appeared my father thought it was the beginning of the end. Silver was not a particularly expensive item in those days but he considered it unsuitable for camping.7

All the bungalows referred to so far were built in or near to the dunes. Other bungalows were built along the landward side of Anthony’s Bank and also along the track running from the North Sea Lane end of the bank in the direction of the present Tertia Trust camp at the seaward end of South Sea Lane. As with the dunes bungalows, most of the families were from the immediate locality and included representatives of local businesses and trades. In 1929, Charles Henry McDonald, a master joiner and undertaker living on Alexandra Road in Grimsby’s West Marsh, built a small bungalow on Anthony’s Bank. His son, Horace, describes it as like a little one-roomed shed with a couple of bunks and a stove. For foundations, Mr. McDonald used a dozen old trawler bobbins. A few years later, the RDC required bungalows to have separate sleeping quarters so he added a bedroom and at the same time made the bungalow roof higher. It was named Mac’s Rest. The annual ground rent is believed to have been about 11s.0d. (55p.)

The bungalow was about the sixth one from the North Sea Lane end of the bank. At that time there were still vacant plots nearby but neighbours included an artesian well borer (Smith), a baker (Hockney), a clothing outfitter who had a big bungalow built (Norris), two well-known dancing teachers and shopkeepers (the Hawley sisters) and retired fish and chip shop proprietors (Mr. and Mrs. Cox of the popular Pea Bung in Freeman Street, Grimsby; their bungalow was No.1 on the bank). The proprietor of the Sheffield Arms public house in Grimsby had a bungalow and would hire a taxi and send his barmaids down for two or three hours during the afternoon for a break before their evening shift.

The McDonald bungalow was quite distinctive in the way it was used. Although Mr. and Mrs. McDonald had eight sons and one daughter, it was two of the sons, Horace and Cyril, who made most use of it. The parents spent time at the bungalow but never slept in it. Horace and Cyril were given parental permission to sleep in it and it became a home-from-home from 1929 to 1937 for the two brothers and their close friends. Other friends who were camping in tents on a nearby camp site ribbed them for not sleeping under canvas and not being ‘proper outdoor lads’. Accordingly, two army surplus bell tents were purchased for 7s.6d. (37.5p.)

Winter on the Fitties, ca. 1932/33. The notice on the van below reads ‘To let. Apply... Brereton Avenue, Cleethorpes.’

each and erected on the bungalow plot. From then on, Horace and two friends slept in one and Cyril and a friend in the other.

One of Horace’s friends, Len Reaney, subsequently bought his own bungalow, which is still on the camp. He was living in Granville Street in Grimsby when he bought the bungalow for £45 in 1938, two years before he got married. It had been built in 1933 on plot number forty-two Anthony’s Bank by local joiner C. H. Thompson. It had a living room, two bedrooms and an open verandah which served as a kitchen. A third bedroom was added later. At one time it was given the name That’ll Do. This arose from the frequent remark ‘That’ll do for the bungalow’.

Some bungalow owners would rent them out for holidays. Edward Trevitt recalled:

I was living in lodgings in Grimsby in the 30s, and my landlady had one of the huts on this site. It had cost about £40 to build and the accommodation consisted of a living room, three small bedrooms and a kitchen, with a small detached toilet hut. It was let for a couple of weeks in the summer to cover the annual maintenance cost, but we spent many happy weekends there.8

The Grantham family rented a bungalow in the mid-1930s. As we shall see below, the family were advised to take young Pat Grantham to the Fitties in order to recuperate from illness. They rented a bungalow on Anthony’s Bank called Homefield and enjoyed their stay so much that they had an annual fortnight’s holiday there until the outbreak of war in 1939. Mr. Grantham was a post office clerk and the rent for Homefield, as far as daughter Pat can recall, was thirty shillings (£1.50) per week. This rent would be saved up week by week ‘for that fortnight of simple delights’. The bungalow had three bedrooms and a cupboardsized ‘cookhouse’. On the verandah there was a let-down table for the preparation of food, washing up, and so on.9

Humberston Fitties and Fitties Field

During the 1920s and 1930s, the bungalows in or near the dunes and those along Anthony’s Bank came to be regarded as two distinct camps. Those in or near the dunes were referred to as the ‘Humberston Fitties’ bungalows.* Those which stretched along Anthony’s Bank were known as the ‘Fitties Field’ bungalows; this was because their plots were located on the edge of the large field of that name which lay behind Anthony’s Bank. With the exception of those bungalows which

*This area was also known as Second Camp. See Appendix A regarding the use of the name.

still lie on Anthony’s Bank Road, this field is now part of Thorpe Park. Several campers have confirmed that they were effectively two separate camps and the RDC distinguished between the two areas, possibly for administrative convenience.

The dunes bungalows were frequently built for the more well-off local business and professional people, some of whom had servants in residence. Possibly because the Fitties camp began in the dunes, the bungalows there had plots which were generally much larger than most of those along Anthony’s Bank. This difference is demonstrated by respective rateable values. An average rateable value for a dunes bungalow in 1939 was £7, whereas an average for one on Anthony’s Bank was £4.10 One camper recalls that when he first went to the camp in the 1920s there were no bungalows on the bank but it quickly filled up over a couple of years.

The two camps were separated geographically and the dunes bungalows were more secluded and off the main track. Some dunes campers from the inter-war years have said that they simply never saw the people from the other camp, whilst a camper from an Anthony’s Bank bungalow remembers that they hardly ever went amongst the dunes bungalows because they were out of their way. They had no reason to go there. Their main interest was in getting to the beach as quickly as possible.

This lack of contact between the two camping areas may have been merely a reflection of the small-scale ‘grouping’ which occurred on each camp. It will be seen that bungalow families frequently formed close relationships with families from a few neighbouring bungalows. They would socialise mainly within this group and their children would tend to play together. Beyond that ‘group’, there could be another ‘group’, and so on. Whether in the dunes or on Anthony’s Bank, regular socialising might be with only a few neighbouring families. Although a campers’ association, the Humberston Fitties Campers’ Association, was formed in the 1920s, there is no evidence that the campers of this period felt a need to come together as a large-scale social or recreational community. Such an idea may have been contrary to what they were there for, personal freedom and individuality.

Relaxation and Play

Between the wars, most of the families on the Fitties were from the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area and it was quite usual to spend the entire summer on the camp with father travelling to work daily from the bungalow. The Edge boys joined their grandparents annually for the whole period of the school summer holidays and grandfather Edge travelled to work from the bungalow. Mrs. Edge and the maid stayed at the bungalow with Peter and Bruce. The Goodhand family would go down to the bungalow after the Easter weekend and come back at the beginning of September. Mr. Goodhand used to sleep there at night and travel to work each

Views of Anthony’s Bank looking towards North Sea Lane.

ABOVE: ca. 1930. The path to the right is on the Cleethorpes side of the bank.

ABOVE: ca. 1930. The path to the right is on the Cleethorpes the bank.

ABOVE: ca. 1930. The path to the right is on the Cleethorpes side of the bank.

BELOW: Bungalows Anthony’s bank Road and, in the left distance, along the path leading to the Tertia Trust camp, mid-1950s. All these bungalows removed at the behest of the local planning authority in the late 1950s

BELOW: Bungalows along Anthony’s bank Road and, in the left distance, along the path leading to the Tertia Trust camp, mid-1950s. All these bungalows were removed at the behest of the local planning authority in the late 1950s

BELOW: Bungalows along Anthony’s bank Road and, in the left distance, along the path leading to the Tertia camp, these were removed at the behest the local planning in the 1950s

day. He had a car and used to take the children to school each morning until the start of the summer school holiday. The Gordon family also spent the summer at the bungalow, with Mr. Gordon leaving the bungalow for work in the morning and returning in the evening.

Mr. and Mrs. Cobley were both engaged in the family business in Freeman Street, Grimsby, and stayed in town during the week. After closing the shop about 9.00 p.m. on Saturday they would drive to the bungalow to relax for the rest of the weekend; this was probably their main reason for having a place on the Fitties. Their sons Wilton and Frank spent the whole of the summer at the bungalow and were looked after during the week by maid Vera. Horace McDonald and his friends stayed at the bungalow, sleeping in a tent, from Whitsuntide to the third week in September and cycled to work daily. During the winter, when overnight stays were not permitted, they would go down just for the day.

For children in particular the Fitties was an outdoor delight, with a degree of freedom to play and roam which was not available to their peers who were confined to the towns. Those who were children on the camp in those days remember playing in groups with children from neighbouring bungalows, with whom they passed blissful summers, playing and exploring the camp, beach and fields in all weathers. Neighbouring families in the northern area of the camp included the Hibbits, Cobleys, Edges, Maslins, Powells, Robinsons, Burnetts, Drewerys, and Harrisons. Beach games, swimming, tennis, football and cricket were popular.

Starting from the tideline, ‘golf’ was played out to the Haile Sand Fort, counting the number of strokes to hit the fort and the number to come back.* This was an activity also looked forward to by visitors, both adults and children. Peter Edge was a member of the Cleethorpes Golf Club from the age of eight and every day on the Fitties he would ‘drive’ a fish basket full of golf balls. His grandfather would stand by and correct his swing. Their ‘course’ stretched south over the rough ground from their chalet to the southern end of the camp. After bank holidays or weekends the children would go ‘bottling’, which entailed searching for bottles left by the trippers. The camp shop would give a penny for every bottle which was returned.

The Goodhand bungalow was at the other, southern, end of the camp but the children have similar happy memories of leisure activities. A favourite game was

*This fort is situated in the Humber about a mile from the Humberston shore. It is a well-known local sight and features prominently in people’s memories of the fitties. It and its partner, the Bull Fort, which lies about a mile from Spurn Point, were constructed during the First World War.

trap, bat and ball, using a rounders-type bat. Games were played with members of several neighbouring families, and included rounders, cricket and tenniquoits (a fast game played over a net). A putting green was laid out between neighbouring bungalows. The Goodhand family had what is recalled as ‘a complete friendship’ with the three neighbouring families of the Chattertons, the Robsons and the Abbotts. The adult members of the families sometimes joined with the children for group activities. These took place on an irregular basis, according to the weather. A suitable time was on long hot summer evenings, after the men had returned from work. Games competitions were held between the ‘old folks’ and the youngsters. Lionel Chatterton even had a presentation cup made and a special cricket match was held at the end of the summer.

The beach and sea were obvious attractions. It was normal to walk out to the Haile Sand Fort. This could be dangerous but the children on the camp were brought up to know the tides. ‘Dabbing’ was a popular pastime. The Goodhands used a piece of wood like a broom handle with a cross bar at the bottom which had sixinch nails in it with the ends made into barbs. They would then walk along a creek plunging the nails into the sand. Dabs are small flat fish which they recall as being not very enjoyable to eat. ‘Cockling’ produced buckets of cockles. These were washed and put into a bucket with some flour (to make them less sandy) before being cooked.

Swimming was popular but only when the tide and other conditions were suitable. There was a strong current in a creek which ran along the foreshore. So strong, that if it was chest high it was difficult to stand up in it. Beryl and Sybil Goodhand recall the occasion when they were swimming once at night and were suddenly surprised at being fully illuminated by a searchlight which was being shone on them by the ‘boys’ who were manning the Haile Sand Fort. The estuary could be dangerous for boats and the Goodhands recall that in the 1930s hardly anyone went sailing. The Burton family had a canoe but used it only in the dikes on the marsh.

Indoor games included playing cards and a new game, Monopoly. The wireless provided poor reception but the Goodhand’s wind-up gramophone accompanied dancing on the verandah or in the sitting room. Unfortunately, the sitting-room linoleum had to be polished afterwards. The Goodhand ladies and friends used to do embroidery; a favourite place for this was on Chatterton’s bungalow ‘jetty’ - a verandah that faced the sea.

The Fitties bungalows received many visits from family and friends. Peter Edge recollects that at weekends and other holidays there could be as many as four or five Rolls Royces, etc., parked by their bungalow, with perhaps twenty people there altogether. Some family members would travel from Fleetwood, complete

with chauffeur. One uncle would bring not just a bunch of bananas but a whole ‘stick’ - and was very popular with the children! The Goodhands also had many visitors. Mrs. Goodhand’s only stipulation was that they must bring an egg for their breakfast. A lot of children used to visit them and people of various nationalities such as French, Danish and German. It was the novelty and simplicity of camp life which seemed to attract friends and relations.

Several groups of families combined to have bonfires to mark the end of the season in September; collecting the wood on the beach was a regular summer occupation. This was another opportunity for visitors to come and perhaps sleep overnight in a tent. The Cobleys found that the bungalow attracted many visitors, who would generally bring their own food. A bell tent would be erected to provide extra accommodation. Mrs. Cobley’s sister had a draper’s shop in Scunthorpe and would bring all her ‘girls’ from the shop for a week’s summer holiday, whereupon the two boys would be ‘bunged outside’ to sleep in a tent.

Horace McDonald and his friends were young men in the 1930s and their means of passing the time included Sunday morning parades along the foreshore showing off their tan. ‘In our white shorts with blue stripe down the sides, ankle socks with blue tops and white sand shoes we thought we were the Charles Atlases* of those days’. They kept up with current fashions, including plus-fours and widelegged Oxford ‘bags’. The latter were soon discarded because when they went dancing and swung their partners round, the trousers wrapped round their legs and tripped them up. They would walk from the Fitties to the Cleethorpes Pier and Cafe Dansant for dances. After dancing on a Saturday night, they might have a midnight swim at Humberston, at times under a full harvest moon. Sometimes they were joined by perhaps a dozen friends who were camping nearby in tents. In the winter they might be on the beach playing football, including at least one match which took place on Boxing Day.

Food and Drink

Cooking for the pioneering Bunkers in their first year on the Fitties was an outdoor event:

Although we had a primus stove, mother was rather nervous of it at first, so everything was cooked on an open fire outside. This included steaming a pudding, and I remember her struggling to keep the fire going, but she did. We were always gathering driftwood.11

*Charles Atlas was an internationally-famous body builder whose correspondence courses were supposed to transform seven-stone weaklings into real ‘he-men’.

ABOVE: Grantham family and friends, and the dog ‘Peter the frog eater’. at Homefield on Anthony’s Bank, August 1939. Money was saved throughout the year for the family’s annual ‘fortnight of simple delights’ at the rented bungalow.

BELOW: Lingalonga ca. 1930. Front: Grandpa Tom Edge, Alec. Middle: Grandma Edge with brush and dustpan, Aunt Mabel Noble with bottle, Doris the Maid with bottles, Uncle Ernest Noble with water buckets. Back: Uncle Ernest’s chauffeur, Wilson.

Mrs. Edge and the maid cooked on a paraffin stove and Mrs. Edge would run a flag up their tall flagpole to let the boys know that it was lunchtime. The flag could be seen for a great distance and a lot of the bungalows had flag poles. Mrs. Goodhand and the maid also did the cooking. Their coal/coke-burning stove had to be black-leaded. Cooking was also done on a primus stove. Mrs. Goodhand would go into Grimsby weekly and do the shopping for the forthcoming week. A lorry would then deliver these supplies to the bungalow every Friday. It would also bring a large block of ice, which used to go in the top of the ice-box. The Cobley’s maid Vera did the cooking during the week and the boys were expected to fetch water and occasionally peel potatoes. Another job they had was to collect wood from the beach for the wood-burning stove.

At the McDonald bungalow, perishable food such as milk and fish was kept in an outside food safe. As far as cooking was concerned, the primus stove became the maid of all work. Horace McDonald was the breakfast cook and recalls ‘Breakfast on a Sunday morning; bacon, eggs, fried bread, and tomatoes, all cooked on the old trusty primus stove’. He also remembers the trifles that never set, which they finished up by drinking.

All campers speak very highly of the quality of the ice-cold water which flowed continuously through standpipes from several springs around the camp. In the Cobley, Edge and Goodhand families, water was carried in two buckets suspended from a ‘milkmaid’s yoke’ which rested across the shoulders. Wilton Cobley recalls that the yoke was too large for his young shoulders. Bruce Edge remembers that his family obtained water from two springs. One tasted of iron and was on the seaward side of Anthony’s Bank. The other had no particular flavour and was on the landward side of the bank. Others also mention at least one spring that tasted of iron.* This water left a red ring around the inside of an enamel bucket if left standing overnight. Some reckoned that the Fitties spring water had medicinal qualities.

Services

Initially there was no shop on the camp. The Edge children looked upon it as a great adventure to go over the field to get sweets and chocolate at the ‘Shepherd’s Hut’ (which is what they called the cottage at the seaward of South Sea Lane).

*Enquiries made in 2001 with the local water company (Anglian Water) produced the response that the water from the freshwater springs on the Fitties had probably originated in the Wolds and had passed, by quite separate routes, through various bands of sand, etc., which have varying degrees of iron content. This could account for springs in close proximity to each other having different tastes.

Wilton Cobley remembers a man in the 1920s who started trading in ice-cream and biscuits at weekends and bank holidays. He used to stand by the wooden bridge over the creek which ran near the present camp entrance. Later on he had a shop on Anthony’s Bank which also sold teas and sandwiches. Another shop became sited on the seaward side of the present camp entrance. This was known as Addison’s, after its proprietors, whose main shop was in Humberston village. The Goodhand children remember walking in bare feet to Addison’s shop along the cinder track which ran the length of the camp, in order to buy sweets with their pocket money. A shop was also run by Mrs. Palmer near the North Sea Lane end of Anthony’s Bank.

Visiting tradesmen started to come to the camp, including the milkman with his horse and milk float. The Goodhand children used to ride with him and his milk churns. Every Sunday morning, the McDonald bungalow on Anthony’s Bank would get fresh milk from Charlie Seaton who used to come along with two churns of fresh milk suspended from his bicycle handlebars. Coal was delivered by a local coal merchant. The postman came by cycle and would blow a whistle when he arrived. Mrs. Scully recounts how the postal service started:

One day the postman arrived out of the blue and announced that we must have a postal service. He said that our address was to be ‘Five Mile Camp, Foreshore, Humberston’. He would deliver to bungalows only and no farther than ours. If we got letters etc. for these other places we must display them in our window and the rest must make enquiries. He would provide stamps and had a delightful set of light scales to weigh letters and small packets. He would take a large parcel back to the Cleethorpes Post Office, have it weighed and sent out and then would tell us next day how much it was. The postmen seemed to enjoy this trip and sometimes I would see one having a nice rest on the sandhills while my mother wrote a reply to some letter he had just delivered to her.12

Another visitor was a police constable from Cleethorpes whose cycle beat included going along Anthony’s Bank down to the sea front and then through the dunes camp. He would call at the McDonald’s bungalow in the evening about ten o’clock and have a cup of tea.

Privies and the Dilly Cart

The use of privies was one aspect of Fitties life which was tolerated rather than looked forward to. Privy sheds were usually at a discreet distance from the bungalows and Mrs. Scully describes this essential part of camp life:

You might delicately ask how we managed without so many ‘mod cons’.

Then and Now: two views of the camp entrance. ABOVE: Winter ca. 1932/33. The track along Anthony’s Bank stretches to the south with tea/ice cream kiosk on the seaward side.

To the left is the location of the present camp entrance. BELOW: taken from the same viewpoint, 2022. Image courtesy of danwhitbyphotography

The loo was known as ‘the sentry box’ and father did some weird painting over it which he called camouflage. It had the effect of looking more conspicuous than necessary. The next year he kept it to a dark brown colour. At discreet intervals the man of the house would be seen carrying the loo bucket a long way out on the sand when the tide was out. He then dug a large hole and deposited the contents therein.13

By the 1930s the RDC was collecting and disposing of refuse and nightsoil from the chalets during the holiday season, June-September:

A man was employed as a refuse collector. You would see him miles off, coming on a horse and cart which supported three very tall drums (no covers). He would then call at each site and collect refuse and empty the loo. One camper always declared that he came close to this gentleman on a windy day and the three drums were in danger of tipping over and falling on to his car.14

Several campers remember this being called the ‘dilly cart’. An anecdote, possibly apocryphal, refers to two ‘characters’ who at one time in the 1930s used to carry out this task. Apparently, the jacket of one of them fell into the ‘cargo’. He then proceeded to try and fish it out. When his partner remarked on the inadvisability of doing this, he replied that he had to because his lunch sandwiches were in the pocket!

Horace McDonald recalls that their privy was in a corrugated iron hut at the back of the plot and, as they had a lot of visitors, its capacity would frequently not be sufficient to last until the next visit of the ‘dilly cart’. Accordingly, he and his friends would often make their way at night into the field at the back of the bungalow, dressed in pyjamas and dressing gowns. They would be carrying a spade and had the ‘bucket’ suspended on a pole between two of them. The contents would be buried in a hole. Neighbours who were aware of these nocturnal forays would frequently surprise the boys by unexpectedly illuminating the proceedings with their torches, to everyone’s great amusement.

Transport

One of the features of the Fitties between the wars was its comparative inaccessibility. Buses went only as far as Humberston village and the tram only as far as the Cleethorpes terminus near to the Brighton Street slipway. Either way, it was still a good walk to the Fitties. As an alternative, a popular form of transport amongst early bungalow owners was the bicycle, some fathers cycling from the camp to work each morning during the summer. Tom Edge cycled daily to the early morning fish auction on the fish docks. He mistrusted cars and remained

faithful to his cycle. Over the years some campers graduated to motorcycles. Mr. Bunker acquired a motorcycle and sidecar.

Few cars were seen on the Fitties in the early days. The Cobleys had a car but there were no proper roads and drivers were wary of the rough track surfaces. Initially, Mr. Goodhand could get his car only half way along the track to his bungalow but the road was gradually improved during the 1930s. A narrow track ran along the top of Anthony’s Bank and cars would meet going in opposite directions. Local people would tend to give way to the one who was furthest along, and back out. However, drivers were sometimes reluctant to give way and the increasing use of motor vehicles by campers and visitors led to altercations between drivers.15 There was also a track which ran on the edge of the marsh along the Cleethorpes side of Anthony’s Bank; that is, the side opposite to where the bungalow plots were. People who had bungalows along the bank would park vehicles there.

Health

The camp acquired a reputation as a healthy place. We have seen that the Bunker family initially went there to recuperate from illness. Several doctors had bungalows and Dr. McKerchar is reported to have said that the Fitties air was ‘as pure as in Switzerland’. Another doctor had similar thoughts in the mid-1930s when eight-year-old Pat Grantham, of Grimsby, was recovering from a serious illness and had been reduced to ‘a mere skeleton’:

Dear Doctor Edgar Felton advised my parents to take me on holiday to a bungalow at Humberston Fitties, it being his opinion the air there was worth one pound a breath. Bless him! How right he was. The wonderful atmosphere whipped up my appetite in no time flat, and soon, slowly, but surely, the lost weight began to return. 16

Almost as if to emphasise its health-giving properties, at least one surgical operation was carried out on the camp. In the late 1920s the fourteen-year-old daughter of the Bunker family needed an operation for tonsillitis. Because of various delays caused by doctors, it was finally carried out in the family holiday bungalow in September. Her younger brother was ‘done’ at the same time. The operations were successful:

It was almost the social event of the year. Neighbours lent us anything we required - a beautiful jug and basin for the doctor’s scrubbing up, extra primus stove, the lot. On the day appointed father met the nurse from the bus on North Sea Lane. And the campers looked out from their bungalows.17

Both patients recovered quickly. In fact when the doctor returned in a day or so for a post-operative check-up, the little boy was found on the beach covered from head to foot in mud, standing in a pool of water and enjoying life with his friends.

Growth and Public Health

Despite such testimonials to the health-giving properties of life on the Fitties, the RDC had real concern about the increasing number of temporary dwellings in the area, including sheds and vans. These created problems regarding sanitation, drainage and water supply. The First World War had been followed by a grievous local housing shortage. Families with children found it particularly difficult to find houses, as did returning members of the armed forces. Such was the housing shortage, that in 1919 the Grimsby RDC agreed to the temporary residential occupancy of old railway carriages. Ex-army huts were converted into temporary housing. Many wooden bungalows for either temporary or permanent occupation were built in the neighbourhood during the early 1920s. It appears that some of the Fitties bungalows were used during this period as permanent accommodation. The proliferation of temporary dwellings was country-wide and the RDC was only one of the many local authorities who wrote to their local members of parliament and the Ministry of Health asking for powers to deal with the problem. In 1931 the RDC were granted extra powers to control the erection of temporary buildings.18

The 1920s had seen rapid growth on the Fitties and by 1929 the camp consisted of 153 bungalows. Even these holiday buildings were expected to give an acceptable and healthy living environment and building plans were subject to local authority approval. The RDC tried to ensure that new bungalows were built to reasonable standards. In 1931, their Surveyor’s report on a bungalow under construction noted that its ceiling heights were insufficient, its foundations unsatisfactory, its window area inadequate and its appearance unsatisfactory.19

In 1935, the RDC’s Building Plans Committee decided that they would pass no more plans for bungalows on the Fitties. The reasons they gave were that there was no proper layout, there was insufficient land allowed for the plots in the Fitties Field, there were no proper or satisfactory roads which would enable the Council to collect refuse from the dwellings easily and cheaply, there was gross overcrowding in some of the existing huts, and two of them had been let as residences during the winter months.20

In the following year the RDC turned down several applications to enlarge existing bungalows, stating that ‘The Council have resolved not to approve additions to this class of property’. However, by 1937, additions were being allowed subject to the owner signing a temporary building agreement. Such actions by the RDC could prevent or inhibit further building and the rate of growth did slow dramatically in the 1930s.

During the decade, the camp increased overall by only 21 bungalows to a new total of 174 in 1939.21

The greatest area of growth during the two decades was along Anthony’s Bank. Of the 174 bungalows in 1939, only 57 were in the dunes compared with 117 along the bank. Whether this was the result of a deliberate policy by the Humberston Fitties Company is unknown but, from the bungalow owner’s point of view, the smaller plots and buildings along the bank paid lower rates and presumably a lower annual ground rent.22

Whilst the RDC were increasing their control over the Fitties, concern was being felt over temporary building development further down the Lincolnshire coast. The Lindsey County Council, supported by the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, maintained that the dunes along the coast, especially south of Donna Nook, formed an important nature reserve and public facility and should be protected. A development on the Lindsey coast at Rimac highlighted the problem. In 1928, a firm of estate agents started to lay out 188 plots for huts and chalets. Within three years forty huts had been erected which were referred to at the time as ‘of varying degrees of ugliness’. Squatters also started enclosing the sandhills and erecting what were called ‘eyesores and abominations’. The owners of the huts would hardly have been impressed by such unflattering descriptions of their ‘simple life’ coastal getaways. Another complaint was that the huts impeded public access to the beach.

As a result of such developments, the Lindsey County Council obtained a private act of parliament, the 1932 Lindsey County Council (Sandhills) Act. This gave the Council powers to preserve all the sandhills and beaches between Donna Nook and Gibraltar Point as open spaces, and to regulate future development.23 The geographical coverage of the act did not include the coast and dunes as far north as the Humberston Fitties. However, it showed the general concern of the County Council for the well-being of the coastline. This influenced members’ deliberations when they were involved in the Fitties as the local planning authority after the Second World War.

A New Owner

For the time being the Fitties was the concern of the Grimsby RDC, who showed interest when, in 1937, the Humberston Fitties Company offered to sell the three hundred or so acres which included the Fitties camp. The RDC were uncertain how they might deal with their potential acquisition. Accordingly, their clerk wrote for advice to local authorities who might have relevant experience, i.e. ‘My Council are considering the question of purchasing some land on the seashore in their district. This land is at present leased in plots (subject to one year’s notice) to persons who

have erected summer bungalows on them’. His subsequent letter of thanks for advice stated that ‘Having regard to the fact that there are bungalows on plots on the land [that] my Council have in view, my Council would probably feel they have a moral obligation to continue the tenancy some time, especially as some of them are quite good structures’. The RDC completed the transaction in 1938 plus the purchase of an additional sixteen and a half acres of the Tetney Fitties which lay next to the southern boundary of the Humberston Fitties. They were still uncertain how to run this new acquisition and tried to obtain copies of other authorities’ rental agreements; Mablethorpe and Sutton-on-Sea UDC obliged.24

So as the 1930s drew to a close, the Fitties passed from private to public ownership and the RDC now had a dual interest in the camp, as its owner and as the responsible local authority. In both of these capacities the RDC members had an important accountability. The inter-war years had seen the Fitties become a significant part of local holiday provision, providing simple recreational facilities for those who could afford to own or rent a bungalow. It was now largely up to the RDC to shape its future development. We shall see in the next chapter that other events in 1939 held up any plans which it may have had.

*The Tetney Fitties is an area of undeveloped saltmarsh to the south of the Humber Mouth Yacht Club. Fitties pioneers: Mrs. Bunker and her two children, 1920 - ‘Mother, Ken and me with our belongings on the horse and dray leaving our hut on the Fitties after the summer holiday in 1920.’

4. WAR & PEACE 1939-1949

With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the local coastline once more became of strategic importance and soon acquired an extensive military presence. A local historian has written that in Humberston:

The 154th Battery R.A. [Royal Artillery] had light artillery in two gun posts in Church Lane, and another A.A. [Anti-Aircraft] Battery was sited at the seaward end of North Sea Lane. The beaches were out of bounds after the fall of France. Barbed wire entanglements were strung out, trenches dug, pill boxes and gun emplacements constructed in and behind the sand dunes, and mines laid. Regular army personnel manned all these defences, as well as the Haile Sand Fort, which was equipped with guns and radar. As a defence against light sea craft, a steel boom connected this fort with the coastal dunes. The Fitties and village fields were obstructed by poles and trenches against airborne landings. Other sections of the air defence were the Observer Corps, the Radar Station at the seaward end of South Sea Lane, and the Admiralty Post at the seaward end of North Sea Lane, from which was controlled a system of decoy lights round Tetney Haven. These lights were designed to draw aircraft from attacking the port of Grimsby.1

Initially, people were able to visit their bungalows on the Fitties, even taking pies to the soldiers and helping with their washing, but soon the site was out of bounds to civilians and was put on a war footing. Bungalows were requisitioned for military purposes. The Gordon family bungalow was one of these and is believed to have burnt down during the war. The Edge bungalow was used as an officers’ mess. The Cobley bungalow was used as a headquarters and the bedrooms turned into offices. The Nickerson bungalow was used to store military equipment. The McDonald and Reaney bungalows were used by the military; the former is believed to have housed some of the soldiers who had returned from Dunkirk.

Rifle and Bren gun practice was carried out on the old rifle range at the southern end of the Fitties. The radar station at the end of South Lane was designed to protect the Humber estuary from low flying ‘mine-seeders’ and other enemy aircraft. At full strength, the station accommodated over seventy RAF and WAAF [later WRAF] personnel. After the war the station became a YMCA camp, now the Tertia Trust camp.2 A minefield was laid in the Tetney Fitties, south of the present yacht club site. A local resident recalls a dog running into the minefield, whereupon it disappeared with a bang and a puff of smoke.

Land Reclamation

Up to the time of the war, the fields on the Fitties had been used as rough grazing land. However, the wartime need to grow as much food as possible meant that special attention was given to draining marsh land in the local area in order that it might be used for arable cultivation. Therefore, the RDC began the drainage and reclamation of 210 acres of the Fitties, along with much other land in the coastal marshes.3

The work on the Fitties was in full swing by the autumn of 1941. Under the headline Food from the Land: Humberston Fitties to Yield a Harvest, a local newspaper described the work on the Fitties:

A caterpillar excavator is cutting huge drains. Some part of this land is swampy, but some is already under cultivation, and this year has grown good crops of flax and peas. A tractor drawing a three-furrow plough was busy on the cultivated part - an 80 acre field - and the quality of the soil would have delighted the heart of any farmer. It is of the same character as that of the Spalding district, all of it silt without a trace of clay, so rich that it needs little fertiliser. There is no record of this land having ever been cultivated.4

The work included the reclamation of forty acres which had been regularly flooded and which lay behind the dunes where they extended southwards to the Tetney Fitties. This was achieved by building an eastward extension of Anthony’s Bank (which explains the sweeping ‘dog-leg’ curve in the present bank) down to the Dutch Wall. The ‘wall’ is a bank which runs parallel to the salt water lagoon (the old boating lake) at the south end of the Fitties; it then runs through the yacht club site. The area protected by these new banks was developed largely as a caravan site in the 1950s and most of it is now in Thorpe Park.5

Post-War Recovery

As wars generally do, the Second World War came to an end. After the minefield had been cleared in July 1945, most of the requisitioned land and bungalows were released by the War Department. In the same year, a Council official made a note to claim for the removal of barbed wire, a brick surface shelter and an ammunition store and the making good of sea banks damaged by defence works such as trenches. But he also noted that two brick ablution blocks, two cookhouses and ‘the gun emplacement’ should remain in position. Presumably the RDC thought that these might be of some future use.6

Because of the rigours of war and the ensuing peacetime shortages in building

materials, skilled labour and services, it is not surprising that the early post-war period saw little in the way of change on the Fitties. Many of the bungalows had deteriorated because of military use and the lack of opportunity for regular maintenance. The RDC’s Sanitary Inspector reported that some of the chalets which were being let to holiday makers were ‘quite unsuitable’ for that purpose. This was emphasised by a holiday-maker from Mexborough who complained to the police about the condition of a chalet which she had rented from its Grimsby owner. The owner had described it in glowing terms and had said it was close to the Golf Course. But the holiday maker said she had been ‘duped’, stating that ‘the bungalow is two miles distant from the Golf Course, and is off the beaten track. It is in a very dirty condition, the beds not fully sized, are filthy, there are no cooking utensils, and the lavatory accommodation is hopeless’.7

The condition of the sand dunes, which acted as a natural sea defence, was also causing concern. The RDC’s Engineer reported in 1945 that the presence of bungalows was leading to serious scouring of the sand around them, thereby weakening the dunes. He advised re-siting them behind the dunes. This would also give better access to the dunes for persons owning bungalows along Anthony’s Bank. The seriousness of the situation was brought home towards the end of the year when there was a danger of the sea breaking through the dunes and the RDC decided to get estimates of the cost of strengthening them.8

Not surprisingly, complaints were received from the owners of those buildings which were likely to be moved from the dunes. One owner complained that he had only recently spent £300 on his bungalow. It was not made in sections and moving it would entail pulling down the entire structure board by board. He said that it would be a great injustice to people who had spent considerable sums ‘on their places on the hills’ to be asked to shift them to another site. The Humberston Fitties Campers’ Association (HFCA) argued that it was not necessary to move all the bungalows on the sandhills, especially those at the south end where the area was quite wide and was not affected by the tides. Many of the buildings in such areas, they said, were in good repair and had sound foundations and no doubt the proposed removal to another site would be a trying and costly affair to owners. In the event, the RDC compromised and agreed that certain bungalows would have to be removed but that others could remain for a limited period subject to being in good condition.9

The RDC were conscious of the need to consider the possibilities of the Fitties for future development. They agreed that, having regard to the ‘enforced abandonments’ during the war, the bungalows were generally in fair condition and that the tenants were getting them into good order as quickly as possible. Accordingly, they decided that they would continue to let sites for the erection of new bungalows. It is significant that both the RDC and the HFCA agreed that the

ABOVE: Richard Hopps on the steps of a rented holiday bungalow, ca. 1948. On the right is what appears to be a surplus wartime Anderson air-raid shelter.

BELOW: High jinks on the Fitties. Members of the Hopps and Marchant families and Tuffy the dog, ca. 1948.

camp should retain its informal atmosphere. Councillors felt that there should be no ‘regimentation’ in the foreshore layout, which should have a ‘camp’ tone with varying types of bungalows and sites. The HFCA emphasised that ‘the campers did not seek modern amenities; they preferred to have the camp in its more natural surroundings’. However, it was never intended by either the RDC or the campers that there should be a ‘free for all’. Indeed, one owner on the foreshore complained of ‘five or six more bungalows being erected within a stone’s throw’ of his plot.10 The RDC issued a standard specification for building bungalows, covering building materials, room sizes, ventilation, sanitation, water supply, building line, fencing, garages and painting. Although bungalows could be built in various styles, they had to be built to the RDC’s specifications, on standard sized plots.11

Other control and supervision was requested by the campers in 1947. There had been a spate of burglaries and damage to bungalows, including one bungalow being burnt down to the ground. Suggestions were made that someone should be employed to watch over the site and carry out repairs. There soon followed the appointment of a Warden, from May 1947, who would be paid £4.15s.0d. [£4.75] per week during summer months and £4.3s.0d. [£4.15] during winter months. An attempt was also made to get byelaws for the better control of the Fitties but the Home Office refused on the grounds that byelaws were not possible for a holiday camp, only any part that was used as a public pleasure ground.12

There was a serious housing shortage in the area, just as there had been after the First World War. The RDC discussed the possibility of the year-round occupation of seasonal dwellings. They agreed that each applicant should state their special circumstances and any requests that were granted would only be allowed on temporary licences. In August 1946, the housing shortage led to the RDC converting RAF huts at Waltham into dwellings; forty-three families already being housed in thirty-six huts. The housing shortage continued and in 1947 forty-eight families were living on camp sites in the district.13

The 1940s saw little change in the sanitary facilities at the camp. Nightsoil and other refuse was still being collected by a local contractor, at a cost of 9d. [3.75p.] per bungalow. He also undertook the weekly nightsoil collection from council houses in Humberston. In August 1947 the owner of a bungalow on the Fitties complained that his lavatory had not been emptied since September 1946. It was, not surprisingly, now overflowing. In 1948 the contractor asked for an increase to 10½d. [4.38p.] per week per chalet because of increased costs and the fact that he was having to go further afield to tip the Fitties nightsoil. He had received new instructions from the RDC to tip all material collected a fair distance from any dwelling or road.14

The camp continued to become more popular, especially for weekend use.

In 1948 the RDC noted that there had been 157 bungalows* on the Fitties prior to 1947 but during the past year seventeen new dwellings had been erected and it was anticipated that a further thirty dwellings would be erected during the current year.15 Despite this success, the RDC still had to put up with complaints such as the one received from a lady in Doncaster in June 1948:

I feel that I have every right to make this complaint. We have been at Humberston this last week at plot 254 Anthony Bank, while I do not think you could alter the weather but at least I know that you could alter the road up to the backs of the bungalows. When we wanted the car out to come home yesterday, we found we were bogged down and had to be towed out, I have ruined two pairs of shoes and stockings (and these are on coupons) it is over the ankles in mud. I think that the least you can do is to take some dry cinders up there, as a Rural Council this should not be difficult or expensive and you expect your rates and ground rent prompt and as rate payers the least you can do is to give this complaint your prompt attention, At least go and look at this at once and you will see the terrible state it is in.16

Potential Purchasers

Under such circumstances, the RDC may have looked with interest at a letter in September 1948 from F. A. Would asking if they would be prepared to sell the Fitties, so that he might develop it as a ‘Camping and Bungalow Site with all the necessary requirements such as properly laid out roads, sewers and other amenities, essential for the enjoyment of holiday makers’. Mr. Would was a local builder and the proprietor of the Beacholme Holiday Camp in North Sea Lane. The RDC turned down his request because they said they were themselves considering a scheme for developing the Fitties. In October, the RDC’s General Purposes Committee had a site meeting on the Fitties ‘for the purpose of making a general inspection with a view to the formulating of schemes for the future development of the Fitties’. Mr. Would made another unsuccessful attempt to buy the Fitties in 1954.17

April 1949 saw another party interested in purchasing or leasing the Fitties. This time it was the Cleethorpes Borough Council who wrote that they would like to put in an offer to buy or lease it if the RDC decide to dispose of it. By this time the Fitties bungalow owners were becoming perturbed by constant rumours of a possible change of ownership. The HFCA voiced this concern and emphasised that the tenants had every confidence in the RDC’s ownership and administration and

*This is less then the 174 bungalows in 1939. We have seen that one was probably burnt down during the war. Perhaps offers suffered from wartime use or became derelict.

ABOVE: The Coxall family at their bungalow, Cijma, backing onto the dunes, ca. 1948. Note the privy in the background -’nightsoil’ was collected by a local contractor. A main sewerage system was laid on the Fitties during 1963.

BELOW: Alan Charles Coxall on the Fitties, ca. 1948. Dunes in the background.

hoped that, whatever happened regarding ownership, the current arrangements and conditions would not be changed.18 The likelihood of selling or leasing the Fitties must have given the RDC much food for financial thought. The year 1939 had shown the Fitties operating at a considerable loss, with an income £831 in the year compared with an expenditure of £1,194. This unhappy position continued in the first years after the return of peace but 1948 saw the situation reversed and the final year of the decade showed an estimated income of £1,391 compared with expenditure of only £522.19 Needless to say, the Fitties stayed in RDC ownership.

The Fitties in 1949

As the 1940s came to an end, an RDC report gave a useful outline of the state of the Fitties at that time. The report stated that the Council had acquired 300 acres of the Fitties in 1938 plus 16 acres of the Tetney Fitties and at present there were about 200 huts there in two ribbons, one behind Anthony’s Bank and the other on the foreshore.* They were held on three-year ground l eases subject to standard tenancy agreements. There was a standard RDC specification in force for the erection of new huts. Plots were generally fifty feet by sixty feet and let at £7 10s. 0d. [£7.50] per annum on the foreshore and £4 on the field behind Anthony’s Bank [Fitties Field]. Occupation was limited to 20 March - 14 October each year and sub-letting was limited to a maximum period of twenty-eight days a year. It also noted that the RDC were gradually ending the ground tenancies of bungalows which had become derelict on the foreshore and getting them re-built in accordance with a layout prepared by their Surveyor. Water was available from seven bore holes with pumps. Each hut had an earth or chemical closet.20

*Thus the RDC were maintaining the pre-war distinction between bungalows in the dunes area (‘the foreshore’) and the ‘Fitties Field’ bungalows on Anthony’s Bank.

5. HOLIDAYS FOR ALL 1950-1974

If the early post-war years were a period of marking time and making do, there could not be a greater contrast with the ensuing decades with which this chapter deals. As the 1940s drew to a close, the Fitties bungalow camp consisted of a haphazard collection of chalets with few facilities and regulations and sited between dunes and farmland.

The following decades saw its layout ‘tidied-up’ and formalised and the camp being subjected to powerful planning controls. What had been farmland accommodated over a thousand caravans by the 1970s and the bungalow camp was part of an area of large-scale holiday provision with many services and facilities to cater for the vastly increased holiday population.

Changes on the camp started to take place at a time when the population of the country were generally fed up with the shortages and privations of the 1940s and wanted to build a ‘new Elizabethan’ world which looked forward rather than back. Local authorities had no alternative but to try in their own sphere to fulfil such public aspirations. The holiday-maker started to expect better holiday provision, especially with Billy Butlin down the coast at Skegness, and other camp promoters, setting new standards in holiday camp provision. Later on there was strong competition from the growth of cheap package holidays overseas. In their dual role as owner and local authority, the RDC wanted an attractive, healthy and profitable holiday site.

There was also a change in the composition of the Fitties population. We have seen that before the war the overwhelming majority of campers were from the local area. An indication of this is that between 1933-37, of the fifty owners who applied for planning permission for work on their bungalows, forty-seven were from the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area.1 After the war, the camp continued to have a strong core of ‘locals’ but there was an increasing new colonisation of the Fitties by residents of South Yorkshire and the Midlands. Cleethorpes had been a popular holiday destination for these areas since the coming of the railways in the previous century.

Although it is not readily apparent why this new influx happened when it did, reasons put forward have included: memories of happy pre-war or childhood holidays in the area; more convenient and affordable transportation, including the spread of car ownership; increasing affluence, making the possession of a modest holiday bungalow a possibility for a wider sector of the population; and the wish to get away from the smoke and grime of areas of heavy industry. Mention has

56 Humberston Fitties, 1955. 56

also been made of the fact that many working men’s clubs in Sheffield ran family day trips to Cleethorpes. These day visitors found out that it was possible to site small holiday chalets on sites at Humberston and spend longer periods at the resort. Consequently, portable buildings, including ‘prefabs’ and garages, were transported to the coast and erected on a plot.

New Campers, New Bungalows

Some of the pre-war campers did not return to the camp. The Edge bungalow had been sold in 1937 as the two boys grew up and developed other interests and the world of work beckoned. The war caused an obvious disruption in the lives of the Goodhand family and although their bungalow was used initially by the army during the war, it was later sold and transported to Grantham. The Cobley family were compensated for damage done to their bungalow by the military but disposed of it after a few post-war years because the camp was getting too crowded for their liking. The McDonald brothers had moved on to other interests in the late 1930s and the bungalow was sold for £90 after the war. Arthur Drewery’s bungalow was sold in 1947. Even the pioneering Bunkers sold their bungalow after the war. But not all of the pre-war campers left the Fitties. The Chattertons were one of the families that retained their bungalow and continuity was maintained when the bungalow was later taken on by the Chatterton’s daughter and her husband.

New families appeared on the scene, such as builder’s clerk Tom Storey living on the Nunsthorpe estate in Grimsby. In 1948 he got planning permission and proceeded to build a bungalow on what is now Main Road on the camp. The RDC laid down three conditions: that the external walls should be faced in asbestos sheets, external painting should be in approved colours and an Elsan toilet should be provided. The bungalow had a bedroom, living room, scullery and verandah. A second bedroom was added in 1956. When it came to naming the bungalow, Mr. Storey asked the advice of his elder son, John, who happened to be studying Latin at school at the time. Consequently, it was given the Latin name Fabula, being a play on the family name of Storey; possibly one of the few occasions when the Fitties benefited from a classical education. In a repetition of what might have been expected in pre-war days, their neighbours were also local residents, including an uncle who built a bungalow on the next plot but one.

Other local incomers included the Shaw family of Cleethorpes. Their bungalow was on Anthony’s Bank and had wooden cladding, although it had asbestos cladding added at a later date. It had three bedrooms, a living room and a verandah cum washing area. Their immediate neighbours were also local, including a trawler skipper. Another new family were the Coxalls. Charles Coxall was a fisherman and trawler skipper and built the family bungalow near the southern end of the

camp close to the sand dunes. The bungalow’s name of Cijma may have puzzled passers-by, being the initial letters of the family’s Christian names - Charles, Ivy, Joyce, Mavis and Alan. Some campers found that ex-military buildings made good chalets and several were imported on to the Fitties. At least three chalets began life as portable folding army huts on the United States Air Force base at Goxhill. Another was made from two of the barrack huts from the same base.

Some new families purchased existing bungalows. It was about 1948 when Sheffield couple Mr. and Mrs. Johnson purchased from its Rotherham-based owners a bungalow at the southern end of the camp. It had seen service as an officers’ mess during the war and the army cooking range still stretched the length of the kitchen, with a serving hatch through to the living room. The bungalow’s name was, and still is, Belle Isle. The name arose from the fact that the bungalow was effectively on an island because of the marsh drains surrounding it. At that time, the camp retained much of its pre-war atmosphere. The bungalows in the dunes area were still widely spaced with rough ground between. The Johnsons at Belle Isle could see rabbits, hares, hedgehogs and waterfowl from their island bungalow, with its own bridge over the marsh drain. Naturalists visited the marshes with butterfly nets and to see the wild flowers. Beach donkeys from Cleethorpes were tethered on nearby grazing land and would bray all night. On their rest days the donkeys would walk over the bridge to Belle Isle and Mrs. Johnson would give them buckets of water.

Local residents were continuing to take advantage of the delights of Fitties life. The Yorston family of mother, father, daughter and seven sons took over their new holiday bungalow in 1953. Initially it consisted of two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. According to the RDC’s building conditions, the bungalow had to be painted green and cream or creosoted. It was a wooden sectional bungalow which was erected and fitted out by members of the family, some of whom had occupations connected with the building trade. They later extended it to provide a large verandah, another bedroom, a washroom and a toilet. The bungalow was distinctive in that it was co-operatively financed and owned by several of the brothers. It was named Zetland after the family home in Legsby Avenue, Grimsby. Neighbours were generally from the local area plus a driving instructor from Scunthorpe.

Further along the road, a bungalow was being built in the summer of 1953 by joiner Mr. Beardshaw. Holidays had given Mr. and Mrs. Beardshaw a liking for Cleethorpes and they moved from Sheffield to Glebe Road in the resort after the Second World War. The bungalow had two bedrooms, a sitting room and kitchen area and was clad in asbestos. It was, and still is, named Riverdale. Prefabricated houses (‘prefabs’) also appeared on the Fitties. A local resident bought four prefabs from Andover for £100 each in the 1950s and had them erected on the

camp by a local builder. He sold three and kept the fourth one for his own family use. During the 1960s, enterprising individuals bought up prefabs which were due for demolition in Sheffield. They toured the camp for buyers; the price being £170 unerected. Some of these were put on newly created plots and others replaced existing wooden bungalows.

Some families moved to the Fitties from other local camp sites. One of these was the Sissons family of Sheffield. They moved their bungalow from the Beacholme camp to plot number seventy-two on Second Avenue in about 1950. The bungalow was called Seahaven and had two bedrooms. Someone else who moved was Dick Thompson, ex-miner and market gardener, who built his Fitties bungalow in 1963. He and his wife Pat had been coming to the area since the 1940s. They first built a small hut on the Beacholme camp and after fourteen years took a plot on the Fitties. Mr. Thompson constructed the bungalow on his allotment in Thurnscoe, South Yorkshire, and brought it in stages to the Fitties. All the timber was treated against rot before erection. The roof was made from three layers of different kinds of felt (asbestos felt, underfelt, and mineral felt) interspersed with layers of boiling bitumen. Wife Pat was the ‘chief bitumen boiler’. Since the bungalow was built, the roof has never leaked and none of the timber has had to be repaired.

Planning and Development

A crucial event in the post-war period regarding the future of the camp was the enactment of the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act. Under the act, all land and its development was brought under a unified system of planning, administered in general by county councils and county borough councils. Although some planning functions were still to be carried out by district councils such as the Grimsby RDC, the act gave the Lindsey County Council and their County Planning Committee important planning powers in relation to the RDC district, including the Fitties camp.

The County Planning Committee were obliged under the act to prepare a series of planning documents, including a County Development Plan, part of which would define specific areas where large scale holiday camping could be provided along the coast. At that time, the Committee were experiencing increasing demand for planning permission for coastal camping sites. When they came to consider the Fitties, they referred to what they saw as ‘the problem of camping and shack development in this area’ but in June 1949 agreed that:

The continued use of the Humberston Fitties, excluding the actual sandhills, [author’s italics] for properly controlled holiday chalet and camping purposes be approved in principle and that the County Planning Officer be instructed to report further on the measures he recommends should

ABOVE: Mrs. Beardshaw and son Gordon at Riverdale soon after it was built in 1953.

BELOW: Dry run on the new raft: Rachel Fazey (nee Beardshaw), brother Gordon and Richard Bradley at Riverdale, mid 1950s.

be taken by the Grimsby RDC as owners, and the County Council as local planning authority, to ensure that proper control is exercised and that the fullest use is made of the exceptional possibilities of the area in full conformity with sound planning principles and with proper safeguards in the interests of health and amenity.2

This was a far cry from the largely unregulated way in which the pre-war Fitties had evolved but the statement summed up what would be the Lindsey County Council’s guiding principles for the future development of the camp. The phrase in the statement which excluded the sandhills from chalet or camping use echoed the concern which was expressed in 1945 over the erosion of the dunes. This concern was justified in 1953 when the dunes and sea bank were broken and the Fitties were flooded, with extensive damage to bungalows. (See Appendix C)

The new planning system caused aggravating delays for the RDC and disagreements with the County Council. An example occured in February 1952. There were thirty-two applicants waiting for bungalow sites but, as the RDC and the County Planning Committee had a difference of opinion over the provision of a public open space on the camp, the latter thought that for the time being ‘it would be undesirable for the RDC to lease any further sites or permit the erection of chalets’. In April, the County Planning Officer agreed to prepare a proposed layout and plan of the Fitties showing what further areas could be made available for letting. In October, the plan had not been produced and the waiting list for bungalow sites had increased to fifty applicants. This was annoying to the applicants and also represented lost revenue to the RDC but it was not until December that the County Planning Officer finally provided a draft layout for the evolution of the Fitties.3 He foresaw a two-stage development. The first stage would take place on the seaward side of Anthony’s Bank. This was, of course, the area in the vicinity of the dunes where the early camp had evolved. It was proposed that this ‘first stage’ would provide further bungalow sites, land for open space and recreation, a new road, car park and access to the foreshore over a properly constructed pullover.*

The RDC decided to go ahead in finding sites for new bungalows in this ‘first stage’ development. Their staff carried out a survey and prepared a detailed plan of the camp. The results of the exercise were that the camp started to acquire its presentday appearance. Older very large plots were reduced in size and smaller plots laid out for new bungalows. The rough gravel track which ran through the camp was re-laid as a tarmac road and the ‘oval’ section of the track which had evolved over the years was smoothed out and regularised and is now the one-way section of

*The word ‘pullover’ is used along the Lincolnshire coast to signify a track or road which passes over a sea bank or dunes and gives access to the foreshore.

the camp’s main road. By April 1957 the main road had been completed to the Dutch Wall at the southern end of the camp and the plots were re-numbered to accommodate the new plots which had been formed. One outcome of the ‘new order’ which would help visitors, postmen and others was the decision to name the camp roads. Although the holiday homes had individual plot numbers, the increasing number of bungalows made it increasingly difficult to find a particular one. Accordingly, in 1959, the camp roads were given the names First Avenue, Second Avenue and so on.4

Caravans

The ‘second stage’ of the County Planning Officer’s draft layout illustrated a major change which was taking place on the Fitties. It was concerned with laying out land for static holiday caravans. The post-war period saw the growing popularity of holidays in static caravans. This affected most of the Lindsey coast, and the number of static caravans between Cleethorpes and Skegness rose from 4,200 in 1950, to 11,000 in 1959, and 21,000 in 1974.5 In so far as the Fitties was concerned, it led to a rapid expansion in caravan provision.

The RDC had opened a small-scale caravan site on the Fitties in the early 1950s, the Humberston Fitties Caravan Centre, but in 1957 work began on a major expansion of caravan accommodation. This took place on the inland side of Anthony’s Bank, an area which is now part of Thorpe Park. The capital cost of the scheme was estimated at £20,917. However, when the full scheme was completed and all sites were occupied, it should produce an annual income for the RDC of £6,863 against their annual expenditure of £4,331, which would gave a healthy return on the large capital outlay. Demand for sites was good and by September 1959 only five plots were unoccupied. Work proceeded on making more sites available. The RDC continued to take advantage of the buoyant demand for caravan holidays and the late 1960s and early 1970s saw efforts to expand the area for caravan sites. In 1971 a total of 1,383 sites were occupied by static caravans.6

The caravan company Lincolnshire Caravans had a local sales outlet. Although some of its customers were local residents, most came from South Yorkshire. They frequently came to purchase caravans in family groups. There was much camaraderie amongst caravanners, possibly encouraged by the use of communal facilities. Kath Edwards recalls walking through the caravan camp one morning, amidst an aroma of frying bacon, and passing a woman who was getting water from a communal tap. The woman was dressed in hair rollers, dressing gown and slippers and summed up her view of the Fitties by remarking to Kath ‘This is the best place on earth’.

ABOVE: Lincolnshire Caravans Ltd. display and sales site, by the Fitties entrance. March 1964. The tall central figure is the Manager, Dave Edwards.

ABOVE: Lincolnshire Caravans Ltd. display sales site, by the entrance. The tall central figure is the Manager, Dave Edwards.

BELOW: The Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway which ran on the Fitties from 1960 to 1985, during which time it carried one and quarter million passengers.

BELOW: Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway which ran on the Fitties from 1960 to 1985, during which time it carried one and quarter million passengers.

BELOW: The Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway which ran on the Fitties from 1960 to 1985, during which time it carried one and quarter million passengers.

Management

The local holiday industry was of growing significance to the RDC. In about 1960, the district’s official guide drew attention to Humberston as a camping holiday venue:

Behind the beach, the sandhill area known as Humberston Fitties has been developed by the Rural District Council into an ideal centre for the ‘informal’ kind of holiday. Sites are let by the Rural Council and small beach bungalows or chalets have been provided by individual owners ... many of these can usually be rented from their owners for part of the summer at a reasonable figure. Facilities such as shops, telephones and sanitation have been attended to by the district council without spoiling the quiet retired charm of the area ... also on the Fitties, the council have developed a caravan camp for those who like to ‘bring their hotel with them’.7

The financial importance of the Fitties was emphasised by the chairman of the RDC in 1963, who remarked that ‘The development at Humberston Fitties had been most satisfying and he was sure that this would prove a good investment to ratepayers of the area’. The growth of the camp, particularly in the number of caravans, led to an increased need for supervision and management. Stan Meakings had joined the RDC in 1953 as an Administrative Assistant and part of his duties was to look after matters to do with the Fitties camp. By 1958 it was felt that the camp needed a full-time manager and Mr. Meakings was appointed the first Fitties Manager. Initially, he had his office in the warden’s bungalow at the entrance to the camp but in 1964 a tender of £7,228 was accepted for the construction of an administration block.8

The Fitties Manager administered the bungalow and caravan camps as one unit. They all comprised the Fitties and he found no difference or animosity between bungalow and caravan owners. Some had started out with tents and had moved on to the other types of accommodation over the years. By the late 1960s, the camp had grown to over 1,000 caravans and about 300 chalets. Many members of the RDC felt that it had grown to the point where it was not feasible for unpaid councillors to run ‘a big business like this’. It also needed a large capital injection. One estimate was that £250,000 was needed to make the camp ‘go’. In 1967 the RDC’s Fitties Committee were in favour of leasing out the camp to a private concern and this proposal was rejected by only one vote at a meeting of the full Council.9

The RDC were prepared to act as a booking agent for those bungalows and caravans which were sub-let for holidays. A lot of the caravans were sublet and some owners, including local residents, had more than one for subletting. By now,

there were no restrictions on the period allowed for sub-letting, they could be let for all of the season if the owner wished. The Council took a commission on bookings which it arranged. During 1971, the camp office dealt with 190 bookings for chalets and 580 for caravans, resulting in total commission for the RDC of £1,084.10

Others who took a financial return were local children. They would wait at the Cleethorpes railway station with barrows, prams, etc., and take holiday-makers’ luggage to the Fitties, for a fee. They then made the return trip as people finished their holidays. The enterprising Beardshaw family provided a full ‘package’ - the bungalow could be hired complete with bedding and the young son of the family would happily provide the luggage portering service, his goods transport being either a barrow or a trailer behind his bike.

Removal of Anthony’s Bank Bungalows

Dave Edwards recalls that as a child, the bungalows along Anthony’s Bank looked like fairyland to him. Unfortunately, there was no provision for fairyland in the County Development Plan. In January 1953 the Lindsey County Council’s Planning Committee wanted the bungalows moved into what is now the main area of the camp. The bungalows in question were those on the stretch of the bank between North Sea Lane and the present entrance to the camp. In addition, the County Council wanted bungalows removed which were on the ‘spur’ or track leading from the North Sea Lane end of the bank towards the present Tertia Trust camp. In total, these comprised 128 bungalows. There were also nine which had to be moved from a proposed public open space at the rear of the sandhills.11 The HFCA opposed the proposal. The RDC were reluctant to take action and in 1954 tried, unsuccessfully, to get the County Council to change their mind. However, the latter were adamant that the bungalows should be moved because, in their opinion, they destroyed a good deal of the amenity of the area. Despite their misgivings the RDC finally agreed that they should be moved.12

Even so, only eleven chalets had been moved by 1957 and matters came to a head in November of that year. A local newspaper reported that the proposal to move the remaining chalets had ‘raised a storm of protest from angry bungalow owners, many of whom have been weekend and holiday residents in the chalets for more than twenty years’. According to the paper, the RDC said they must be moved because they wanted to centralise the Fitties holiday settlement and lay water, sewerage and electricity. This would be too costly for a straggling settlement. They also said that they wanted to improve and develop the Anthony’s Bank area. The HFCA sent the RDC letters of protest signed by forty owners, some of whom threatened to pull down their chalets rather than move.13

Despite this, the RDC continued with their unwelcome task but received the even more disturbing news that if owners did not move to new sites, annual rental and rates income from the Fitties could fall by nearly £500. Even so, the policy of removal had been agreed with the County Council and had to be carried out. However, recent problems with the sea defences gave an excuse for delay. The RDC noted that most of the chalets were behind the second sea defence bank [Anthony’s Bank]. If they were moved it may be to a more dangerous position. It was also argued, desperately, that when the land became vacant it could be more of a nuisance than it was at present.14

A local newspaper reported the RDC’s efforts to re-open the whole question with the County Council. The paper said that the plan to move the bungalows at the owners’ expense, could cause considerable hardship to some owners. It also reiterated the RDC’s concern about the sea defences. The bungalows were quite safe where they were, but higher tides were expected in 1958. One councillor said: Until we know the future of the Fitties themselves it would be quite wrong to move the chalets. We would have to provide additional sea defences for their protection at considerable cost, when the bungalows are quite safe in the position they occupy at the moment. Under present economic conditions it would not be practicable.15

By 1958, the RDC were well and truly caught between the HFCA who were asking for an extension of time to remove the bungalows, and the County Council who were urging their early removal. Finally, the RDC bit the bullet and informed the owners that new plots were being made available for them, and insisted that their bungalows had to be removed. Bungalows were being cleared by April 1959 and a year later saw the effective end of the controversy when only four buildings were still awaiting removal.16

By this time the RDC surveyors had set out new vacant plots in the main area of the camp and some of these were taken by bungalows which were moved from Anthony’s Bank or the dunes. Stan Meakings recalls that one of his first jobs as Fitties Manager was to allocate the new plots. Not surprisingly, he met frequent hostility whilst doing this but diffused it by telling each owner that he had saved him the best plot on the camp - each owner got the best plot!

Condition of Bungalows

The condition of bungalows on the Fitties was always of concern to the authorities. Possibly some bungalow owners may have been content to ‘rough it’ in their own buildings but many bungalows were also rented out to holiday-makers who expected comfortable and clean accommodation in a healthy environment with attractive surroundings. There were recurring complaints from visitors

67 67

The Fitties, from the south, 1962. Chalet camp to right. Static caravans to left. Dutch Wall and old boating lake in foreground. Part of Beachcolme camp in top left corner. Cleethorpes boating lake in far distance.

about bungalows on the Fitties being dirty or lacking amenities. Even in the early 1960s, the RDC were receiving thirty to forty complaints a year about poor accommodation.17

Attempts were being made by the RDC and County Council to improve the appearance of the camp. For example, an old converted railway coach near to the camp entrance was condemned and removed off the site. Such was the concern over the types and standards of structures which were being built on the Fitties that in April 1952, the RDC proposed to erect a standard type of bungalow, to be used as a model for new ones. The County Planning Officer said that he hoped to see a standard set not only in design and colouring but in the sort of building materials in use. Possibly with a degree of impatience at what they thought to be this over-zealous approach, local councillors replied that there had to be ‘give and take’. They argued that new bungalows were expensive and, that provided they were built to a certain minimum in design, and the materials were reasonable, they should be approved. But they did suggest that a competition be held to encourage the improvement of bungalow structures and sites.18

Towards the end of the year, work started on building the model bungalow. The warden’s bungalow and at least one existing bungalow along Main Road were built to this model plan. At the same time, an RDC inspection of the Fitties took place during which forty-three bungalows were considered to be ‘undesirable’. Owners were told what was needed to bring them up to standard. On a brighter note, the winner of the first Fitties Bungalow Plot Site Competition for the bestkept site was Mrs. M. Johnson of Plot 5, Fitties Field. Mrs. Johnson continued to set a good example by winning again the following year.19

When planning permission was given to create more land for bungalows and caravans inland of Anthony’s Bank in 1957, the County Planning Officer hoped that a better class of bungalow to a standard design would be erected on the new area. It was agreed that several types of designs should be secured from leading makers for standards of bungalows to be erected. The planning officer also favoured brick buildings. A new departure in the appearance of the camp was the decision that, for a trial period, no fences were to be erected in the new area for bungalows which was adjacent to the new caravan site. Thus we have the current ‘open-plan’ area in the camp.20

In 1960, the County Council emphasised the value of ‘colour blending’ for improving the appearance of bungalows and urged the RDC to give a list of approved colours for the guidance of owners. The Fitties Committee agreed on such a list but Mr. Meakings recalls that, in practice, the RDC took little notice of County Council strictures regarding bungalow colours and materials. There was another show of impatience by the RDC’s Fitties Committee at the County Planning Committee’s

provision that only ‘proprietary’ bungalows should be erected on the Fitties.21 Even so, the RDC were still keen to improve the level of accommodation on the camp. In October 1961 after an inspection of the Fitties, notices to quit were served on the owners of 126 bungalows. Forty-two of the buildings were considered capable of improvement at reasonable expense but eighty-four were thought to be beyond economic renovation. Leases were extended to allow time for owners to bring bungalows up to standard but in December, it was decided that nineteen should be removed from the camp.22 Mr. Meakings does not recall any bungalows being removed from the camp. The owners usually brought them up to standard or pulled them down.

Private Facilities and Public Services

For some time after the Second World War, camp facilities were basic and differed little from those in pre-war days. Water still had to be carried in buckets. The ‘dilly cart’ still made its smelly rounds. Cooking was usually done on paraffin stoves. Lighting was by candles and paraffin lamps. Bottled gas came on the scene later for cooking and lighting.

The basic facility of which older Fitties campers have particularly fond memories is the natural spring water on the site, despite having to collect it in buckets. But this very act gave it an added value. As one camper said, a bucket of water is nothing - unless you have to fetch it - and then someone else uses it. Natural spring water was supplied through stand pipes. It is variously described as being ‘ice cold’, ‘absolutely delicious’, ‘brilliant’, ‘clear, sparkling, tasty’, and ‘it made better tea than tap water’. But all good things come to an end, and in 1958 the RDC were told that the Ministry of Housing and Local Government had consented to the laying of water mains to stand pipes. The water board gave an estimated cost of £4,350 for the provision of mains water, from which it would require an annual income of £543. April 1959 saw the mains being installed to stand pipes. Supply direct to bungalows would not be permitted by the Ministry until such time as mains sewerage was installed.23

The implementation of a mains sewerage scheme would have alleviated a problem being faced on the camp. At one time there was difficulty in replacing the camp’s Assistant Warden because ‘One of his duties was the emptying of nightsoil, which duty made it difficult to secure a replacement’. Some campers admit that the toilet facilities were ‘a minus’ and that ‘the toilet was situated as far as possible from the bungalow, at the bottom of the garden’. John Storey remembers that ‘toilet facilities were by courtesy of Elsan’. Ken Yorston still remembers the memorable aroma as the ‘dilly cart’ made its unwelcome but necessary rounds. Another camper recalls an unselfish sharing of facilities: ‘the loo was a noisome cabin round the side and was emptied weekly ... a bit of a trial to a large family like ours, but

The Fitties, 1964. Chalet camp in foreground, with Static caravans, tourers and tents, South Sea Lane and YMCA camp in left middle distance. South Beach Caravan Park in right foreground. Beacholme camp and North Sea Lane in right middle distance.

neighbours usually offered the necessary hospitality at the end of a bad week’ - surely the ultimate test of Fitties camaraderie.24 But for one family their Fitties privy still serves as a reminder of happy days at Humberston. When the Sissons family sold their bungalow in the 1980s, they took their new zinc privy bucket back to Sheffield where it has been painted and serves as a garden flower container with a difference. Does it perhaps produce a fine crop of sweet peas?

The County Planning Committee were concerned at the lack of mains sewerage on the Fitties. The RDC were more interested in providing a mains service to permanent dwellings in the district and only agreed to a sewerage scheme on condition that other schemes which were of greater priority were not affected. In December 1960, consulting engineers were appointed for the scheme. Its importance to the future of the camp was demonstrated when it was reported later that the County Council would not permit any further extension of the Fitties camp until the mains sewer was laid. In April 1961, the finalised scheme was accepted. At that time the total holiday camp area covered about 104 acres containing some 230 holiday chalets and 566 caravans.25

Connection to the water and sewerage mains entailed installation costs to the bungalow owners. The connection of each bungalow to the sewer would cost approximately £90, including £15 for a lean-to WC building. The RDC had agreed to make a maximum contribution of £15 towards the cost for each bungalow. In addition, there would be a £21 charge for connecting each bungalow to the water main. Possibly some bungalow owners felt this to be rather a high price to pay for a flush and would prefer to persevere with their non-flushing Elsans. Accordingly, in August 1963, the RDC wrote to one owner that the collection of nightsoil would cease once the sewerage scheme was operating. In November 1963, it was reported that the mains sewerage system and a mains electricity supply had been laid and bungalows would be connected to the sewerage and mains water systems. The electricity was essential to operate the sewerage pumping station on the camp and was also needed for the camp shops, ablutions blocks and street lighting.26 Some campers maintain that a lot of camaraderie was lost when water was eventually laid on to the bungalows. People used to meet at the stand pipes or pumps and have a chat and a laugh.

Mains electricity was not provided to the individual bungalows at this time. Those owners wanting an electricity supply used wind-driven dynamos or petrol/ oil-driven generators, although other campers sometimes complained about the annoyance caused by noisy generators. In response to proposals from the RDC that mains electricity should be supplied to each bungalow, the Yorkshire Electricity Board reported in June 1955 that, even if it was asked, it would not be able to carry out the scheme. This was because of the considerable amount of work it had to do in installing supplies to permanent dwellings in rural areas.27

In September 1960, HFCA members were against the provision of mains electricity and water to each bungalow. However, the possibility of supplying electricity was considered again in 1963. This time, the RDC sent a circular to all bungalow owners. Out of a total of 277 owners, 191 were in favour, 67 against and 19 either undecided or not interested. The RDC were preparing to go ahead with a pilot scheme, until informed that their overall capital outlay on a complete supply scheme would need to be nearly £30,000. This was much higher than they had been initially informed and, consequently, the scheme was dropped.28

Another service which was in demand was medical attendance. Over the years, first-aid facilities have been provided at several buildings on the camp. For example, what had once been dentist Hadyn Taylor’s bungalow was used at one time. It was near to the beach and was used by the Red Cross, with a red cross painted on the roof. Eventually, the RDC decided that a doctor’s attendance and surgery should be sought for the Fitties. In 1959, a local general practitioner stated he was willing to go to the Fitties daily during the holiday season, excluding Saturdays, to attend to patients.29 A surgery was held at the warden’s bungalow which housed the original camp office. Stan Meakings, the Fitties Manager, recalls that he had a flagpole by the bungalow and, based on his naval experience, hoisted a yellow flag when the doctor was in attendance. The flag became unnecessary when the surgery moved to the new administration block.

Daily Life

Despite all the changes that were being discussed, argued over, or actually implemented, Fitties folk got on with their daily life. Initially, shopping facilities were still supplied by Addison’s shop near to the camp entrance, selling ‘everything from eatables to buckets and spades’. Local traders also visited the camp. One camper remembers a butcher in the post-war years who used to come with a wheelbarrow three times a week. Later, the meat was delivered by horse and cart, and the horse used to know which bungalows to stop at. There was also ‘the crab man’ who used to visit the camp two or three times a week with fish and crabs; his transport was a ‘sit up and beg’ bicycle with a tray on it. Later on a baker’s van, a butcher’s van and an ice-cream van called and also a mobile fish and chip shop. A local dairy supplied milk daily.

With the opening up of more land for bungalows and caravans, the RDC built two shops on the caravan site in 1960. They were a grocery/general store and a cafe (including fish and chips off-sales). The question of having a public house on the camp was put forward in the same year. Opinions on the issue were divided and the question occupied the RDC for a couple of years. Eventually, in 1962, the RDC decided to give permission for a public house, which was named the Foreshore Inn.30

ABOVE: Waiting for the next high tide? The Yorston family ‘runabout’ ca. 1958/9 at Zetland.

BELOW: Cockling Party, late 1950s. Members of the Yorston family

BELOW: Cockling Party, late 1950s. Members of the Yorston family and a neighbour’s child.

Cooking facilities in the Shaw bungalow consisted of a coal/wood burning stove but a primus stove was more convenient in the warm summer months and ‘the chip shop was also convenient’. Cooking in the Storey bungalow was by Calor gas with a coal fire for heating. It was similar at the Yorston bungalow, where Mrs. Yorston made home-made bread and always a full roast dinner on Sundays. Mr. Yorston used to collect cockles for tea and would also fish for dabs. He was the only one of the family who ate the dabs, Roland Yorston describes them as tasting like a pincushion cooked in mud. All the family helped with household chores. Coal and wood were collected from the beach for the ‘Courtier’ stove which supplied heating. Household chores were also shared out in the Shaw bungalow, the grass was cut on rare occasions and there were few flower beds. Many campers continued to display a general lack of interest in treating their plots as gardens. This was in line with the Fitties tradition that people were on the camp to get away from the workaday world and not replicate their usual domestic lifestyle.

When it came to recreation, the post-war Fitties showed little essential difference to the pre-war days. The emphasis was still on simple pleasures, sitting in the sun relaxing, playing games on the camp or beach, bathing, cockling, dabbing, walking, exploring and so on. One camper from the period mentioned ‘courting’ as being an important recreational activity. Whatever may have been their prime motive for getting there, local people still got to the camp by walking, cycling or public transport. This changed over the period with the spread of private car ownership. Ken Yorston maintained the old plotland tradition of carrying items on bicycles when he cycled to the camp from Grimsby with a six-feet wide roll of linoleum balanced across his front carrier - and lived to tell the tale.

Families such as the Storeys went down to the Fitties nearly every weekend during the summer, being joined at different times by various aunts, uncles and cousins, usually just for the day. At weekends, the Shaw family could have up to fifteen visiting relatives and friends. Occasionally up to eight would be sleeping in the bungalow. The Sissons family travelled from Sheffield by car for weekends, Friday afternoon to Sunday evening. Mrs. Sissons and the children would spend the complete summer school holiday at the bungalow, during which time Mr. Sissons would visit them for weekends and for his annual fortnight’s holiday.

The Yorston family’s routine was to be at the bungalow at weekends after the Football Association Cup Final in May until the beginning of the school holidays in July. Then they would be there permanently for the six weeks into September. Seven lived at the bungalow on weekdays but at weekends up to ten people could be sleeping there, plus day visitors. Visitors were welcome but Mrs. Yorston stipulated that they had to bring milk and tea with them. Five of the brothers and daughter Mary cycled to work each day from the chalet. Mr. Yorston walked

to and from the docks until he retired from work. Mrs. Yorston stayed at the bungalow during the day.

The Yorston family were never short of games to play and could soon set up team games for rounders, football, cricket and all sorts of ball games. They played games with neighbours, mainly on the beach. There was a good community spirit. Neighbours were friendly and willing to get together. On the sands all sorts of people would join in with games. Swimming was a favourite pastime and fishing in the offshore creek and cockling. Dabbing, or ‘buck pricking’ as the Yorston family called it, was still popular. For this they used a pole with a nail on the end and would stab the sands in the hope of spearing a flatfish. Occasionally informal fishing competitions took place, catching sticklebacks with nets in the drain behind the bungalow. Sometimes they walked to Tetney Lock and out to the Haile Sand Fort. They built their first boat, a motor runabout with an outboard motor, and enjoyed giving rides to other holiday-makers, as far out as the fort. They subsequently built a sailing boat at the bungalow. Indoors, the family made their own entertainment. They played darts, and had a small billiard table, as well as the usual cards, dominoes, etc.

The Beardshaw’s daughter Rachel remembers cockling, playing games, swimming, walking out to the Haile Sand Fort, ‘messing around’ in the marsh drain at the back of the bungalow and making a raft out of oil cans for use on the salt-water lagoon by the yacht club. Mariette Thorpe recalls holidays as a youngster on the Fitties during the 1960s and up to 1976. She enjoyed roller skating; playing in the sand dunes at hide and seek and cowboys and indians; fishing with a net for sticklebacks; three-wheeler bikes seating three people; flapjacks and buns at night-time and sand in the bunk bed. She also made friends with lots of Yorkshire people.

Some bungalows acquired a function which transcended the usual family use. In 1952, the young John Storey started work at the Grimsby Public Library and on the library half-day closing, the family bungalow became a recreational centre for junior members of library staff. John recalls that their amusements were simple: ‘a picnic type meal, a spot of paddling on the beach for some hardy souls, and if the weather was kind and the tide was in, swimming; and we also built some quite elaborate sandcastles’. In the later 1950s John became heavily involved in the fledgling South Bank Jazz Club and the bungalow became part of the social life of the committee members. John recalls that:

We spent time there on occasional weekends, but, more importantly, for a few years, we lived there for a week at a time; on at least one holiday we all commuted to work in Grimsby. During the proper holidays we occupied ourselves with making plastic models, building gliders and painting in oils ...

ABOVE: Anne Howe (nee Chatterton) and Ben Webster with water buckets, 1953. Background includes a privy and the tower of the wartime radar station (now the Tertia Trust camp). BELOW: Shaw/Grant family group soaking up the sun, with their smart new portable radio, mid-1950s.

We also had a fiercely fought darts ladder competition.

Other pastimes on the camp were more unconventional. The comparative isolation of the bungalow Belle Isle in earlier days at the southern end of the camp could explain its colourful history. Some time before the Johnson family acquired it, it is reputed to have once been a gambling den and had two small ‘lookout’ windows facing down the main track in order to watch out for the police. The nearby site of what would later be the yacht club was once the scene of a witches’ coven. A popular attraction in the area was the young woman who used to dance naked on a table in a bungalow with the lights on and the curtains open. Not surprisingly, about fifty or so cars turned up, presumably filled with men. Her other speciality was wallpapering with no clothes on. There was no need to be bored on the Fitties...

More Facilities

As the camp grew, other less-esoteric facilities became available. In July 1954, the Air Ministry decided to de-requisition the six-acre wartime radar station site. The following year saw the RDC buying the buildings on the station from the Air Ministry and leasing the site to the Grimsby and District YMCA; who took over the facilities in July 1955.31 The site now accommodates the Tertia Trust charity.

In June 1959 a request was received from railway enthusiasts who comprised the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway for permission to construct and operate a narrow-gauge railway in the Fitties Field behind Anthony’s Bank. The railway was formally opened on 27 August 1960 and ran from near the Beachholme Holiday Camp to the Fitties camp entrance. It carried 8,242 passengers during the ensuing three weeks and over 60,000 in the year 1964. During 1966 the line was moved thirty yards to the south and extended nearly to the Foreshore Inn. 70,000 passengers were carried in 1968. Although usually thought of as a visitor attraction, the majority of the passengers used it as a convenient way of travelling to the Fitties camp. At the height of the holiday season, trains operated every twenty minutes from 9.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. Improved local bus services led to a fall in passenger numbers and it closed in August 1985, by which time it had carried one and a quarter million passengers. The railway equipment was removed in 1990 to Skegness.32

In contrast to pre-war days, more families on the Fitties owned boats and in 1960 enquiries were made about the possibility of acquiring sailing club facilities on the camp. The RDC agreed that a sailing club would be an additional attraction and in 1962 the sailing club was granted a lease of the Second World War military emplacement site at south end of the Fitties for a club house, car park and dinghy

park.33 The clearing of the site and the construction of the club house was very much a co-operative effort in which founder members of the Humber Mouth Yacht Club took part.

We have seen that campers in pre-war days were very aware of the need to be careful when sea bathing or walking out to the Haile Sand Fort. Holiday-makers who were unfamiliar with the beach, currents, and tides would occasionally need to be rescued from the sandbanks. Local boat-owners, such as the Yorston brothers, rescued people who were stranded on sandbanks. An RNLI inshore lifeboat, manned by volunteers, was based at Humberston for some years before being transferred to its present site on the Cleethorpes Central Promenade. Because of several bathing fatalities, local volunteers also formed the Humberston Lifeguards. In order that a watch could be kept at danger periods, a look-out was built on top of the camp administration block, from which a good view of the beach was obtained.

One camp amenity which had a difficult and brief life was the boating lake, the remains of which may be seen in the form of the salt-water lagoon south of the Humber Mouth Yacht Club premises and parallel to the Dutch Wall. The lagoon was one of the many ‘borrow pits’ along the Lincolnshire coast which have been excavated during the building and reinforcement of sea walls. The RDC thought of making it into a boating lake in 1957. Moves were made in 1960 and 1961 to get the facility up and running. In 1964, 4,660 cubic yards were excavated from the lagoon for back-filling the sea wall and in 1965 a tender of £1,350 was accepted for the provision of a boating lake. However, the lake did not prove to be a success; problems included insufficient depth of water. In 1970 the RDC’s surveyor suggested that it could be used as a refuse tip and a year later the Fitties Manager recommended that its use should be discontinued. There had been extensive vandalism and damage to boats. Five boats were badly damaged, three had to be recovered from the bottom of the lake and two were recovered from the Tetney marshes.34

The End of an Era

Despite the above picture of persistent, if not always successful, efforts by the RDC to develop and ‘improve’ the Fitties, their position as owner and local government overseer of the Fitties came to an end in 1974 with the re-organisation of local government. The rural district councils ceased to exist and the Grimsby Rural District was included in the area of the enlarged Cleethorpes Borough. Accordingly, the RDC’s property and functions were taken over by the new Cleethorpes Borough Council. The final set of annual financial estimates before the take-over showed the significant part played by the Fitties in the RDC’s finances. But they also demonstrated how the Fitties had changed over the years. In the year April

Rear of Humber Mouth Yacht Club (2022)

1973 to March 1974, the bulk of the income from the Fitties, £53,000, came from the caravans and only £10,000 from the bungalows.35

The changes on the camp since the early 1950s were illustrated in an article in a local newspaper which gives us a description of the Fitties in the 1970s. The article stated that the camp contained 1,380 caravans and 320 bungalows, all of which were in private ownership. Facilities included a site office, launderette, supermarket, clothes shop, newsagent, hire shop, hardware shop, fish and chip shop, and a doctor’s surgery. A bus service linked the camp to Cleethorpes and nearly every bus was packed to overflowing. The paper reported that most holiday-makers came from Yorkshire, especially from Sheffield and Barnsley. Some people, mostly senior citizens, spent the whole summer on the camp from when the gates opened in April until they closed in October.36

So this period in the life of the Fitties ended, in 1974, with the dissolution of the Grimsby RDC and the handover of the Fitties to its new owner. The RDC had been a constant figure in the camp’s life up to this time. Initially they had been the responsible local authority and had subsequently added the responsibility of also being the camp’s owner. During their involvement, the RDC members had been a major influence on the well-being of the camp and, despite some problems caused

Haile Sand Fort, June 2022. Spurn Point in the background. Image courtesy of danwhitbyphotography

mainly by the implementation of post-war planning legislation, had managed to work largely in co-operation with the camp’s inhabitants. They could be criticised for possibly not putting enough resources into the camp and perhaps for the occasional procrastination. On the other hand, they had to view the Fitties within the wider context of their duties towards the much larger area, and the much larger population, for which they carried local government responsibility.

We have seen that at times the RDC doubted whether, as a local authority, they were best suited to run the camp and wondered whether it would be better off under outside ownership and management. Shortly before the RDC’s demise, members discussed once again the need for private finance and experience in order to help develop the Fitties. They thought this was especially important in view of the impending merger with Cleethorpes and the coming together under one body of the Humberston and Cleethorpes caravan camps. The RDC reckoned that the larger area had great prospects and serious consideration should be given to its future development. The Fitties bungalow and caravan camp would be joined by the South Beach Caravan Park on the Cleethorpes side of Anthony’s Bank Road. A comparison of receipts from both camps for the five months April to August 1974 shows the importance of the facility which the RDC had built up and was now handing over. Cleethorpes’ South Beach Caravan Park only brought in £58,652 whereas the Humberston Fitties brought in £74,688 during the same period.36

Fishing in the drain behind the Yorston bungalow, family members and friends, late 1950s?

6. CONTROVERSY & CONSERVATION 1986-1996

The preceding chapter was essentially about a time of development and positive expectations. In contrast, during 1986-96 the future of the camp was at risk, making them years of uncertainty, anxiety, high emotions and conflict. Any account of such a turbulent period is liable to overshadow the longer, more peaceful, story of the Fitties which has been set out in the foregoing chapters.

It may also ignore the fact that the day-to-day life of the Fitties went on and most owners, tenants, and children continued to enjoy the lifestyle which made the Fitties so precious to them. Hopefully, the reader will bear this in mind during the following account of the decade.

The main questions which caused the period to be so controversial were, firstly, whether the chalet and caravan camps should be sold or leased to private sector companies and, secondly, to what extent they should be ‘modernised’. These led to other questions such as how to maintain security of tenure for bungalow and caravan owners and how to safeguard the distinctiveness and individuality of the chalet camp.

Before describing the course of events, we should recall that on occasions other parties had expressed an interest in purchasing the Fitties from the Grimsby RDC, whose members had questioned whether they themselves had the necessary expertise for running it to the best advantage, and whether it would benefit from commercial involvement and investment. This theme re-emerged more strongly with the new owner, the Cleethorpes Borough Council, although in a quite different political and financial climate, both locally and nationally.

Over a period of about nine years, the Borough Council examined and re-examined what their policy should be regarding the chalet and caravan camps. A major concern was how large-scale capital investment could be provided to ‘improve’ and modernise the Fitties and South Beach camps. This was at a time when local government throughout the country was being encouraged or directed by central government to reconsider which functions it should be carrying out itself and which might be carried out in conjunction with private enterprise or ‘hived off’ to the private sector.

First Leisure Corporation, 1986-1987

The year 1986 saw the first of the controversial proposals which were designed to involve private enterprise in the Fitties. In October, a local newspaper referred

to ‘top secret’ and ‘hush hush’ meetings involving representatives of the First Leisure Corporation and the Council. The paper reported that ‘seaside impresario Lord Delfont may be on the verge of a multi-million pound deal to take over the Humberston Fitties holiday complex ... The £6 million deal would help secure the town’s future as a leading East Coast resort and help boost council coffers’. The report stated that Lord Delfont’s First Leisure Corporation owned ‘Blackpool Tower, the resort’s three piers, its famous Winter Gardens conference centre, and a handful of seaside attractions on the South and East Coasts’. Reference was also made to a ‘secret’ report by the Council’s Tourism and Leisure Officer which had been ‘leaked’ to the paper and which was reported as saying that:

The Fitties held the key to the future of Cleethorpes. Humberston Fitties proper, and the caravan parks nearby, can cater for up to 180,000 holidaymakers a year - enough on their own to transform the town into a more bustling resort than many along the coast. They already make a hefty profit of £300,000 a year, which helped to pay for extra services in the district and keep down the rates. To ensure they continue boosting the coffers ... they should be transformed into a modern high-class centre called Clee Holiday Village.1

Less than a week later, the newspaper reported that Lord Delfont had offered to buy the Fitties and turn it into a modern vacation park and, consequently, worried residents of holiday homes would be meeting to hammer out a case to put to the Cleethorpes Borough Council.2 The meeting consisted of several hundred Fitties residents and owners ‘from as far away as Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire as well as Lincolnshire and Humberside’. A result of the meeting was the formation of the Fitties Owner and Resident Association (FORA) and the selection of an interim committee to negotiate and campaign during the closed season at the camps. A press release from the new association explained the campers’ concerns:

To understand the many fears of the owners it is necessary to understand the history of the community of people who own the properties on the camps ... Many of the property owners have invested life savings, redundancy money, etc., into a home by the sea and live on the camp for the full open season. A large number are retired miners, steel workers and ex-servicemen who come from all over the region for the benefit of the sea air. Whilst there is a turnover in property, many of the owners have had property on the camp for 30-40 years. The camps also attract families from all over the region who are looking for a no-nonsense healthy holiday by the sea.3

Specific concerns of the owners were: that they had only one to three year leases and if the Council were intent on selling the property they could have offered the freeholds of bungalows to the existing owners; that there was a danger of owners

being ‘priced off’ by a new owner; and that the character of the camp could be altered into some kind of ‘razzle dazzle nightmare’. Caravan owners were in an even more precarious position in that they rented their sites on an annual basis and some had suffered bitter experiences at private sites where ‘revamping’ exercises had led to their eviction. ‘They had moved to Cleethorpes because of the better reputation of Council-run sites ... the secret negotiations ... without the inclusion of the property owners is an outrage ... [and] FORA pledge an all out campaign against the sale of the camps and to safeguard the owners’ rights’.

Members of FORA ‘turned out in force’ at a meeting of the Council’s Policy and Resources Committee and the Conservative leader of the Council pledged that ‘Nothing will be done with Humberston Fitties without consulting caravan and chalet owners ... Whatever is going to happen - and we are just in the initial stages - we will most certainly consult with the people directly concerned’. But he also stressed that the Council had to consider any approach made to the authority because it concerned ratepayers’ money. The campers’ concerns were echoed by many councillors, who were divided across party lines. An underlying complaint by both campers and disaffected councillors was of a lack of consultation and information. In mid-December, local press reported that the Council had agreed in principle to dispose of the Humberston Fitties and the South Beach Caravan Park to First Leisure Corporation.4

The widespread impact of the issue is illustrated by its mention in newspapers across the region. For example, a South Yorkshire paper reported that ‘many local people fear for the future of their holiday homes in the face of negotiations to sell the seaside site on which they stand’. It instanced the case of a Mexborough couple who had invested £4,000 of their savings in a chalet on the Fitties and had spent a further £2,000 improving it. The paper also reported that people in the area of Mexborough, Swinton, and Wath-on-Dearne ‘believe the future of the chalets and caravans in which they have invested their life savings and redundancy money may be in jeopardy’.5

The owners’ campaign intensified as the result of a subsequent meeting of FORA which was attended by several hundred members, including a coach contingent from South Yorkshire. The chairman ‘outlined the campaign waged by the committee of FORA, against the sale of the camps in particular and the so-far fruitless attempts to force the Cleethorpes Borough Council to involve the Owner Residents in the secret negotiations to sell the land from under them’. They were opposed to the sale because they thought it would be detrimental to Cleethorpes and themselves. They feared that chalets might be demolished or prices on the site raised. The meeting agreed to a proposal to set up a legal fighting fund and to contact the local government ombudsman over the Council’s handling of the issue. They also agreed to look into the possibility of a rent and rates strike

and explore the feasibility of setting up a fund into which members could put their rents and rates and keep the money from the Council until the matter was resolved to their satisfaction.6

A combination of councillors’ disquiet over the deal and the campers’ vigorous campaign resulted in the tide turning in the campers’ favour. The issue was finally decided at a full meeting of the Council on 23 March 1987, which was attended by over a hundred bungalow and caravan owners. Once again, the debate ignored party political divisions. There was a heated discussion, with opposition to the scheme being expressed from members of all political parties. The Labour group had described the plan earlier as ‘selling the family silver’. During the debate, one Conservative councillor said ‘The Fitties is part of the Cleethorpes heritage. I don’t think there is a lovelier place anywhere’. In taking up the residents’ cause, she went on to say ‘It’s their home and many of them have put their life savings into the place’. An Independent Socialist councillor remarked ‘It’s the gem in the crown of Cleethorpes which has brought in millions of pounds to the Council over the years’. Councillors were also unhappy that the prospective purchasers had refused to give the holiday home owners any security of tenure. Not surprisingly, the Council voted overwhelmingly to drop the proposal. A measure of the harm which the matter had done to relations between Council and campers was shown by the remark from a FORA spokesman that ‘far from becoming complacent, the association will now be on guard against any further plans to sell the Fitties and with them the livelihoods of residents’.7

Cleethorpes Borough Council Proposals, 1987-1989

Although the First Leisure scheme was abandoned, there were those who still stressed the need for major investment by private enterprise in the Council’s caravan and chalet parks. The Council’s Tourism and Leisure Officer said they needed private management and a £10 million face-lift to achieve their full potential. He thought that the Council did not have the expertise to carry out the modernisation and redevelopment, and would not be able to raise the £10 million needed. FORA’s response was that this proposal still carried inherent dangers to the security of tenure of bungalow and caravan owners and complained again about the lack of information.8 Possibly in response to the call to be kept informed, a Council circular was sent to ‘Owner/Occupiers’ in July 1987. This stated that the Council had been examining ways in which the area could be improved for the benefit of seasonal residents, local residents and traders. It went on to say that ‘a clear decision has been made to maintain Council ownership of the Fitties caravan and chalet site and the Council recognises the need to establish a complex in which both owners and the local authority can be proud’.

However, less than six months after the First Leisure confrontation between Council

and campers, more controversy arose. During the summer of 1987 there was a press report that the Council were considering laying out a ‘luxury holiday village’ on the Fitties and, by encouraging modern caravans, hoped eventually to convert sixty-two acres of farm land into a park for 1,200 caravans. Consequently, it was reported that FORA was ‘set for another battle with Cleethorpes Borough Council over future plans for the Fitties and South Beach holiday camps’.9 The association complained that it had not been fully consulted about these new plans and would be renewing its complaint to the local government ombudsman. The Council maintained that consultation and discussion had indeed taken place.

. A local newspaper reported on the current state of controversy and stated that the chairman of the Council’s Resort and Entertainment Committee had ‘hit back at the scathing attacks’ recently made by FORA. The paper reported that FORA had about 1,000 members who owned some of the 2,750 caravans and chalets on the Fitties. They were ‘up in arms’ about several of the committee’s actions, i.e. ground rents of chalets and caravans had been increased at more than the rate of inflation, promises to improve amenities on the Fitties had not been kept and owners had not been properly informed about the committee’s plans. The war of words continued and the chairman of the Council committee was ‘defiant’ that steps were being taken to improve communications with the Fitties owners and to improve both the resort and the Fitties. But in order to do that, he said they had to make the site profitable.10

The Council debated the future of what was referred to as the ‘money-spinning camp’ and were divided along party lines. Labour councillors wanted ‘a better deal for holidaymakers who live there, and who provide the Town Hall with £300,000 a year income’. One remarked that ‘these people could have been living there forty years. These [bungalows] could have been handed down from generation to generation. Yet at a swoop we could move in with a bulldozer and wipe them away’. A Social and Liberal Democrat councillor retorted that ‘it looks as though it’s forty years since some of them had a coat of paint’ and stressed that the Council wanted to ‘uplift the image of the Fitties to bring it into the 1990s’.11

In view of the prevailing air of discord and uncertainty, it is not surprising that full-blown controversy broke out towards the end of the year when a Council feasibility study on the Fitties and South Beach camps was ‘leaked’. The study contained radical proposals for ‘high class’ holiday development on the Fitties. These included replacing more that 1,000 caravans with 500 ‘high class’ holiday homes on South Beach. A further 900 caravans which were over fifteen years old would not have their existing licences renewed. Chalet leases would only be renewed if new chalets were constructed to Council specifications.12 An emergency meeting of FORA members was called for 20 November. It was reported that up to five hundred members of the association attended the meeting, including some

87 On the Fitties, December 1999. 87 On the 1999. 87 On the Fitties, December 1999.

from London and Manchester as well as South Yorkshire and the Midlands ‘to preempt a confidential report due for imminent publication from the Council which aims to smarten up the Fitties’. A statement from the organisers of the meeting stated:

The people of South Yorkshire and the North East Midlands will be telling Cleethorpes Borough Council what to do with their Cleethorpes if they continue with their attitude that the area needs tidying up. Our immediate reply to the Council is to remind them that together the residents and owners on the Fitties and South Beach ... are the biggest investors in the area, with over £10 million, and the biggest source of revenue and the biggest spenders [from] outside Cleethorpes. If the Council want holiday visitors from South Yorkshire and the North East Midlands, the best thing those arrogant officers and councillors can do is to stop exploiting the residents and owners.13

The Conservative leader of the Council defended the embryonic proposals and maintained that the Council were just looking to building the Fitties up to a reasonable standard. This was in order to attract more holidaymakers, and if some chalets or caravans were not up to standard then something should be done about it. The proposals were attacked by FORA who argued that they threatened the future of the Fitties and they would fight them ‘all the way’. A local newspaper commented on ‘the fresh barrage in an increasingly bitter war of words’. The Council leader had ‘slammed FORA spokesmen for misinforming members and scaremongering’ whilst a FORA representative, remarked that ‘it is Cleethorpes Council which has run the site down’.14

In December, 1988, the Council debated the report and the future of the ‘controversial holiday site’. About 150 owner-residents attended the meeting, some having travelled from South Yorkshire to join in the protest against the scheme. The protest was peaceful and before the meeting protesters carried placards proclaiming ‘Shame On You’. A pensioner from Mexborough who had been coming to the Fitties for forty-two years, and whose grandfather had come before him, said ‘We are the bread and butter holidaymakers for Cleethorpes and we are not going to lie down and be walked on’. An owner from Sheffield remarked ‘We have been treated over the years as third-class citizens. We are just fighting for our rights’. However, the Council were in a mood for reconciliation. Councillors of differing political persuasions agreed that they had ‘messed these people about long enough’ and they should move forward ‘taking the people’ with them. But stress was also laid on the need to upgrade camp facilities and prevent the falls in occupancy rates which had occurred in recent years.

During the debate, the Council agreed to offer chalet and caravan owners two-

year leases, extending to ten years if property reached the standards laid down by the Council. It was also stated that whilst the sites would remain under Council control, it was intended to undertake phased redevelopment involving private capital. Development would go ahead within a flexible framework with consultation between the Council and residents. Under the headline ‘Protesters win battle for Fitties’, a local paper reported that ‘jubilant protesters today claimed victory in the battle for the Humberston Fitties’. The secretary of FORA was reported as saying ‘It is a step in the right direction but we are still worried about the situation after ten years. Our fears were that we were going to be sold out again. It was a heartbreaking situation for the people who had been on the Fitties for years - we did not know what was going to happen to them’.15

Despite this apparent resolution of the issue, problems still lay ahead. A few weeks later, confusion reigned in the Council as members had a ‘long, complicated and stormy debate’ over what exactly had been meant by the decision taken at the December meeting regarding leases. Even though owners of run-down chalets and caravans had apparently been offered two years’ grace in which to bring their properties up to standard, twenty-six chalet and caravan owners on the Fitties were to be given only until the end of April to renovate their properties or be ‘kicked out’. A critical ‘grey area’ was whether the offer of ten-year leases applied to chalets only and not to caravans. Fitties residents and Labour councillors maintained that the offer had clearly included caravans. When the Council stated that caravans were not included in the offer, a FORA representative stated that ‘they have lied to us. The majority of us will burn down our homes rather than let Cleethorpes Council take them over’.16

The Council subsequently informed residents that a fifty-five acre site to the south of Anthony’s Bank and west of the bungalow camp would be ‘marketed for a high class holiday residential development’ and that it would only be accomplished with private development money: ‘The days have gone when the Council might be allowed to pour in vast sums of authority money’. They also tried to pour oil on troubled waters by saying that ‘The Council are aware of the unease of caravan and chalet owners and wish to emphasise that they are working in the interest of the future of the caravan and chalet parks and wish to improve the facilities and retain the goodwill of the occupiers of those sites’.17

It is noteworthy that these two turbulent years were also marked by other disagreements between the Council and Fitties owners. The right of elderly and handicapped Fitties residents to have concessionary travel passes on local public transport became a bone of contention. A Council decision to increase the rents of bungalow and caravan plots was hardly welcome news. An attempt was made by FORA to enlist the help of the local member of parliament into ‘the row over what chalet and caravan folk say is a raw deal at the hands of their Town Hall

landlords’. A request for Fitties residents to have the right to vote at local elections was turned down by the Council but was granted on appeal to the Home Office.18

A recurring topic of disagreement came to the fore when the Council refused a request to extend the opening period of the Fitties caravan and chalet park. The Council were divided politically on the issue. Labour were in favour of extended opening and the other parties were against. There were arguments on both sides that year-round access would either improve or detract from security. The Labour Group leader remarked that ‘They are the greatest investors in tourism in this borough and yet we restrict their access ... If we allow them this, it is a way to move forward and build a bridge over the rifts caused in the last few months’. Security at the camp was a persistent problem during the winter closure period but FORA were unimpressed by the Council’s measures to tackle the problem and maintained in 1988 that ‘a wave of burglaries, theft and vandalism has hit the Fitties’.19

However, it was the question of chalet leases and the linked question of the physical condition and appearance of the chalets which became a major issue between the Council and chalet owners. In 1987, FORA had complained about short-term leases and wanted longer leases which would encourage owners to spend money on their property. The chairman of the Council’s Resort and Entertainment Committee retorted that they had decided to continue short-term leasing because of some owners who let their properties deteriorate to the point where some of them would have to be pulled down. If longer leases were in operation there would be little the Council could do in such instances, he said. The counter argument was made by a FORA representative: ‘You cannot expect people to spend money on their property when they are not given the security of a long-term lease’.20 Wherever the truth may have lain in this circular argument, a Council report on the state of the Fitties in April 1989 stated that about half of the chalets needed to be demolished or repaired on what was referred to as the ‘run-down site’. An inspection of the chalets had revealed that thirty-three were structurally unsound and the owners would have to decide whether they would replace or repair them. Fifty-four other chalets needed major repairs, including the removal of asbestos cladding, and many others required minor repairs.20

It was stated that the new ten-year leases would not be issued until the Council were satisfied with the condition of chalets. In default of private sector or Councilinspired wholesale change and expansion, the Council now followed a policy of ‘improving’ the camp by using the power which was inherent in their control of the leasing system. As part of their policy to bring about desired changes, the Council issued a chalet design guide which expanded on guidelines previously circulated in 1987. The guide reiterated the Council condition that the new tenyear leases would only be issued to properties which had been brought up to what

Then and Now: The Chatterton family bungalow, ‘The Olde Log Cabin’ in 1953. The photograph was taken from the dunes. The bungalow was built by joiners from the local boatbuilders and shipwrights Thicketts in 1932. Lionel Chatterton was manager of the firm. BELOW: in July 2001.

Then and Now: Chatterton family bungalow, ‘The Cabin’ 1953. photograph was from the dunes. The bungalow was built by from the and shipwrights Thicketts in Lionel manager the firm. BELOW: in 2001.

was considered to be a satisfactory standard, and continued:

This guide, therefore, puts forward the standard that will be required for all the chalets. It will cover the external appearance of individual properties and will also cover the appearance and maintenance of gardens, fences, parking areas and drives.22

The guide was an expression of the principle being followed by the Council that there should be a gradual re-development of the chalet park during which individual owners would replace properties with new chalets in line with criteria set out in the design guide. The guide stated that ‘the standards to which the Council aspires are shown in the diagrams’. Two of the three diagrams show chalets which would have fitted comfortably into a contemporary residential bungalow estate, thereby apparently expressing the Council’s aspirations for the appearance of the camp.

Whitegate Leisure, 1989-1990

The next proposal to get private sector investment in the Fitties was the ‘radical’ plan put forward in December 1989 by the Whitegate Leisure company for developing the Fitties, which would be re-named the South Beach Holiday Village. The company (which already operated the Cleethorpes Pier 39 attraction) were to work on the proposals with a working party which had been set up by the Council to consider the development of the Fitties. The proposals would include a woodland-park-style site for caravans, a children’s indoor adventure playground, a fitness centre, a swimming pool and recreation area, a supermarket and other food outlets, a family public house, a cabaret room and a nightclub. Soon after this announcement, a special meeting of the Council heard from a representative of FORA that the association planned to build a ‘multi-thousand pound leisure centre’ to act as a focal point for the community. It would include a library, a kindergarten, a bar and concert room, a snack bar and pool room, and an outdoor sports arena including a bowling green, tennis courts, five-a-side football pitch and volley-ball facilities.23 FORA’s scheme did not materialise.

In view of accusations that there had been a notable lack of consultation by the Council in considering earlier proposals for the Fitties, details of the Whitegate proposals were circulated to all interested parties. Submissions were invited from individuals or organisations. It was emphasised that the company had no proposals or ambitions so far as the chalet park was concerned.24 When the matter was debated by the full Council, the ‘controversial multi-million pound deal to revamp and upgrade the Fitties caravan site’ was rejected by nineteen votes to thirteen. The Council was split across party lines. Some councillors felt that it was a great opportunity to get a £2.5 million cash deal for the Council, which

would ease the financial burden of developing the Fitties, and would generate more visitors. They thought that declining profits from the Fitties over the years would mean, eventually, that borough community charge payers would have to subsidise the Fitties and South Beach parks. Others felt that the council had not listened to the caravan owners, who were not against development but against this ‘grandiose scheme’ and fearful that they would not be able to afford higher rents which would probably be imposed by Whitegate Leisure.

Scores of caravan owners had packed the Council Chamber and overflowed on to the stairs outside, and cheered as the vote was counted. The decision was greeted by FORA members as a great victory and their chairman remarked that ‘we can’t understand how any responsible councillor can consider selling off the family silver when it is making such a big profit ... we don’t need outside developers to come and tell us what to do’. The press report went on to say that ‘the Association now hopes to register as a limited company so that it can do business with the Council’.25 Once again, opposition by campers, aided by cross-party support from councillors, led to the rejection of yet another development scheme for the Fitties. However, on this occasion the proposals would have directly affected caravans only and it is noticeable that the Council vote on the matter was fairly evenly divided. Despite the campers’ joy at the scheme’s rejection, there were undoubtedly no grounds for complacency.

Meanwhile, other long-standing issues did not go away. Problems with security continued and in March 1990 at least twenty-eight caravans on the Fitties site had windows smashed and property stolen. Over forty Fitties residents lobbied councillors to take security measures. The Council undertook to improve security and also investigate the possibility of residents staying on the site all-year-round in a bid to stop trouble. In response to constant requests from FORA for improved security measures, the Council set up a toll-gate at the mini-roundabout entrance to Anthony’s Bank Road but it was scrapped after two weeks. The 50p. toll put off weekend visitors and there were complaints by cafe owners, etc., of takings being down by 85%. December saw more vandalism and burglaries, and owners of caravans and bungalows wanted to be able to make overnight and weekend visits between November and March. Councillors foresaw problems if owners stayed on the Fitties every weekend. It was stated that they could qualify as residents of the borough ‘and that would cause all sorts of problems’.26

Bourne Leisure, 1991-1995

The Council had not given up on the idea of getting private investment into the Fitties and in March 1991 invited companies which had expressed an interest ‘in acquiring all or part of the holiday areas’ (the chalet park was excluded from this exercise) to meet the Council’s Fitties working party to present their aims, financial

status, and leisure industry experience. Subsequently, the companies were invited to make presentations to the Borough Council at special meetings in August. During this period, FORAB* made a request to purchase the freehold of the chalet camp; the Council response was to refuse the request and reaffirm its decision to retain the freehold.27

One of the interested parties was Bourne Leisure, a company with national and international interests in the leisure industry. By October, detailed negotiations were under way with the company regarding the leasing of the Fitties and South Beach caravan sites and adjacent areas of land, but excluding the chalet camp. The lease would include 284 acres and would be for ninety-nine years plus the option of a thirty-six year extension. As part of the agreement, the Council would covenant not to carry out any competing activity on the Fitties land which it retained. This would prevent it using the chalet park as a touring or static caravan park.28

An objection to the lease was received from FORAB, based on the supposition that part of the Fitties was common land. Accordingly, an application was made under the Commons Registration Act of 1965 for ‘Land known as Anthony’s Bank and adjacent areas at Humberston’ (including the land covered by the chalet park) to be designated common land. The application did not include the land used for caravan sites but did include the Anthony’s Bank car park which was already included in the agreed lease with Bourne Leisure. The Council opposed the application but Bourne Leisure agreed to proceed with the lease, even if the application were to be successful, but at a reduced ground rent. The application did not succeed and the only effect was to delay the implementation of the Council’s agreement with Bourne Leisure because of the obligatory six-week consultation period for the common land application to be investigated.29

Early in the new year, 1992, the lease was signed. By August, Bourne Leisure had been in possession of the Fitties and South Beach caravan parks, now re-named Thorpe Park, for five months and expected to spend £1 million on the park in the current year. It undertook ‘to make the area one of the best holiday centres in the country’. It was reported that although the Fitties had remained a traditional Fifties-style holiday site, plans were now under way for turning it into a ‘more sophisticated, better equipped holiday centre’. Future developments were expected to include an 18-hole golf course, a new club, shops and leisure facilities. A new £200,000 swimming pool had already been completed. The company had planning permission to develop land for a further 1,600 caravans on top of the

*FORA had amended its name to the Fitties Owners Residents Association (Bungalows), i.e. FORAB.

2,300 already on the park. This would create one of the biggest caravan parks in the country. It was reported that the park’s summer population was expected to remain largely dominated by visitors from Sheffield, Doncaster and other parts of Yorkshire.30

At this time the opening periods of both the chalet camp and Thorpe Park comprised the eight months March - October.31 The Council decided that it would eventually extend the chalet park season to ten months, with the aim of having a common closed season across the chalet park and Thorpe Park. Bourne Leisure did not want a longer opening season because it considered it would lead to chalets being used purely for residential purposes. Some chalet owners were certainly ignoring the terms of their leases, and a check carried out in the closed season revealed that at least twenty-one bungalows were occupied at night. However, the ten-month open period, March to December, was achieved for the chalet park in 1995. Even so, this did not solve the problem of unauthorised overnight stays and in 1999 the Council agreed to take legal proceedings against chalet owners who had been staying overnight in the park during January and February.32

By the summer of 1994, Bourne Leisure had been developing Thorpe Park for two years, during which time millions of pounds had been invested and a new outdoor swimming pool, tennis courts, bowling green, and entertainment centre had ‘helped turn the site into the caravan capital of Europe’. However, it then chose to drop what amounted to a local bombshell when it declared its interest in acquiring the chalet camp. Local press reported that the ‘chalet town’ was to be sold off to ‘major holiday giant’ Bourne Leisure and that the move would generate hundreds of thousands of pounds for the borough. A chalet owner described the effect of this latest move:

It’s hard to convey the shock wave, the sudden descent into insecurity and outright panic, that this bid (first heard about officially via banner headlines in the local paper) has brought to the Fitties residents... who see their chalets as oases of peace and security in perpetuity... Nowadays though, the pressure from both inside and outside the council offices to sell off everything in sight, has never been stronger, regardless of ethical niceties (or even, in this case, economic sense).33

The Council set in motion negotiations for leasing out the chalet park, the yacht club site and the adjacent boating lake area; and a special meeting of the Council was called for September at which Bourne Leisure would make a presentation. The Council’s Chief Executive said that if the Council did dispose of the camp, Bourne Leisure would be given the first option but that chalet owners’ existing leases would be honoured.34

At the special Council meeting in September it was stated that a massive new investment programme would follow a takeover of the chalet park by Bourne Leisure, who wanted to add it to their 22-park empire. Long-term plans included street lighting, water services, electricity, security, park maintenance, and traffic management. Existing leases would also be honoured. The Council agreed to consider the proposal. Twenty-seven councillors voted to gather more detailed information before making a decision, none voted against this action. The press reported that ‘worried owners’ had packed the meeting to try and sway councillors into rejecting the Bourne Leisure plan. ‘They were left shocked that the idea is now a step nearer to reality. Many fear that when the leases run out in the year 2006, the famous feature of the town will disappear forever’. One owner said ‘We came here on holiday five years ago and loved it so much we bought a chalet ... Everything we have has gone into it and we do not want to lose it’. A couple stated that they had paid £12,500 for their chalet just last year:

We were thrilled to take over such a special building in such a unique place. We were reassured that our leases would be extended if we fulfilled certain conditions and so spent a further £3,500. Now we hear the council may sell the site and we would have no rights here after our lease runs out in seven years. Bourne Leisure will try and frighten us off with rent increases because they will want to park their mobile homes on the land.35

Other objections from chalet owners urged the Council to retain ownership and control of the chalet park. Significantly, a fresh approach was taken by a group of chalet owners who set out to ‘put the Fitties on the map’ both locally and nationally by stressing that the chalet park was an important part of local and national heritage. This argument was based on the camp’s individual character and history and the fact that it was a rare surviving example of the many plotlands which had once existed in the country. Their campaign included representations to local councillors, an approach to English Heritage to try and get some of the bungalows ‘listed’, and strenuous efforts to publicise the issue in the local and national media and enlist the support of sympathetic individuals and organisations locally and countrywide. As a result, the national media began to take an interest in the Fitties and the current dangers to its survival.

An influential supportive article appeared in The Guardian in November 1994 and not long afterwards Labour councillors decided to oppose any takeover of the camp by Bourne Leisure. At the ensuing meeting of the Council in December, party divisions were once more ignored when some Conservative councillors joined with Labour members and, by a majority of one, the Council voted to call off negotiations with Bourne Leisure. One councillor stated that the Council would lose financially if the park was taken over by Bourne Leisure and that the company

On the Fitties, July 2001.

ABOVE: The open plan area showing ‘prefabs’ BELOW: In the sun at Sunny Days.

intended to expand its caravan park and would have to knock down chalets to find space for caravans. He also declared that ‘we have a moral obligation to the people down there’. Another councillor described handing over the site ‘as selling the family silver’. Others called for the discussions with Bourne Leisure to continue and one said that the owners believed that they were secure under the Council but in six months time the debate could come back. However, ‘relieved chalet-owners were overjoyed’ at the decision to keep the Fitties under Council control. As they filed out of the Council chamber ‘many wore expressions of ecstasy’. One owner said ‘I feel we can sleep now - it’s been really awful ... We have been terrified that they would give the park away to people who don’t care’. Another owner was also delighted: ‘We have campaigned like mad for this. The council at last realise they have a moral duty to us and we are so pleased’.36

The councillor who said the issue would come up again within six months was proved to be correct when, despite its reversal, Bourne Leisure launched a fresh attempt in August 1995 to acquire the camp. On this occasion it ‘wrote to all the residents with offers of financial compensation, protection of their leases and provision of electricity’. There had been no fresh approach by the company to the Council but the latter received a petition from campers urging members not to resume negotiations for the lease of the chalet park. The Council’s influential Policy and Resources Committee resolved that the Council should adhere to their previous decision to discontinue negotiations for the disposal of the chalet park to Bourne Leisure and should also emphasise that the site would stay in the control of the Council.37

Although chalet owners had reason to be pleased at the Council’s rejection of the Bourne Leisure bid, there were other long-standing matters which caused concern. The central one was still the question of leases. The Council had effectively taken further moves to control and direct the appearance and condition of the camp when it issued new leases to take effect from April 1991. Under these, chalets would be graded by the Council’s buildings inspectorate according to their physical condition. They would then be leased for varying terms of years, according to their grading. Chalets given an ‘A’ grade would be granted a 15-year lease, ‘B’ grade chalets a 10-year lease and ‘C’ grade chalets a 5-year lease.*

Delays ensued in the completion of the new leases. The Council were also increasing the annual charges to chalet owners, some of whom contested both the content of the leases and the increased charges. Only 155 leases out of 321 had

*In 1995 it was reported that 81 chalets had been given ‘A’ grades, 141 had ‘B’ grades and 88 had ‘C’ grades. (NELA 71/1/87, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 4 September 1995).

been signed by owners and completed by July 1991. The owners of the remaining 166 bungalows had paid nothing or insufficient to enable leases to be completed. In response the Council stated they would not alter the contents of the leases and that the non-payment of charges would result in legal action being taken and, if necessary, the enforced removal of chalets from the site. Most of the remaining owners complied, if reluctantly, with the Council’s requirements. Legal action was taken against a small number and two years later the number of uncompleted leases had fallen to twenty-two. A handful of complicated cases dragged on for several more years.38

One worry to chalet owners at this time was that the Council were not prepared to give any commitment to lease chalets beyond the year 2006 (i.e. the expiry date of the longest, fifteen-year, leases issued in 1991). The Council maintained that although it was not their policy to sell the chalet park, re-leasing beyond 2006 would depend on several factors, viz. the park still being owned by the Council, a decision by the Council to continue with the existing policy of leasing and the covenants in the current leases being satisfactorily carried out by the owners.39

The new system of grading also undoubtedly caused anxiety to chalet owners and when the Council were considering revisions to the chalet design guide in 1994, it was noted that guidance was required for lessees on how the length of a lease was determined. Therefore, a standardised chalet condition survey was developed under which points were awarded according to how well the chalet met Council requirements in particular areas, e.g. the roof, the walls, the floor. Depending on the number of points a chalet scored in total, the length of lease would be for five, ten or fifteen years, or possibly no lease at all. When a revised design guide was issued in 1995 it stated that:

The Borough Council is seeking to improve the layout and standards of chalets on the Humberston Fitties Chalet Park, some of which are showing obvious signs of their age. This leaflet aims to provide guidance to lessees regarding the design of chalets and proposed extension and alterations; and clarification of the procedure used to determine the length of leases granted.40

Despite the Council’s declared aim to ‘improve the layout and standards of chalets’ there was a body of opinion amongst chalet owners that ‘the inflexible application of its guidelines and system of assessment for leases’ were having a negative effect on the character of the chalet park:

The effect of the assessment system currently employed has created more concrete boxes and less traditional chalets than before. The assessment system discourages the preservation of original features... New building

standards are being applied to the oldest and most interesting chalets. If this situation continues, the remaining older chalets will be ruined and the essential character of the Fitties will be gone.41

Becoming a Conservation Area, 1995-1996

Bourne Leisure’s continued interest in leasing the camp had caused more uncertainty and apprehension in the minds of the campers. Coupled with this was anxiety that the recently introduced methods of lease assessment would lead to a change in the character of the chalet camp. A local architect suggested to the campers who had been pursuing the successful campaign to ‘put the Fitties on the map’ that the designation of the camp as a conservation area could be one way of protecting its future and individuality. Consequently, a group of chalet owners decided to work to achieve this and, accordingly, founded the Fitties Preservation Society in November 1995. Because the eventual decision would have to be made by the Cleethorpes Borough Council, they set out to inform and persuade councillors of the benefits of declaring the camp a conservation area. In addition, the society organised a petition which requested the Council to grant conservation area status so that the character and nature of the park could be preserved. The petition had 803 signatories, including not only bungalow owners but also caravanners, local residents and others.

The primary objective of the new society was to persuade the Council to designate the chalet park as a conservation area. In addition, it had wider aims, i.e. to work to preserve the character and nature of the Fitties and to protect its natural environment, to collect and record all available historical material about the Fitties, to encourage a wider knowledge and appreciation of the Fitties and its place in local history, to work to enhance the appearance of the chalet park and to improve amenities, to work to improve security of tenure and ensure sympathetic management, and to investigate the possibility of making links with similar settlements.42

The petition and letters of support were received in November 1995 by the Council’s Development and Planning Committee who also received a presentation by a representative of the society and an account of the early history of the camp and a plea for its survival, written by a long-standing chalet owner. The committee gave an encouraging response and decided to have a detailed analysis of the issue prepared for consideration early in the ensuing January. The analysis was favourably received by councillors, discussions took place with representatives of the Fitties Preservation Society and conservation area status was agreed by committee on 5 March and confirmed by the full Council on 22 March 1996.43 On the ensuing first day of April, the Cleethorpes and Grimsby boroughs combined to form the new local government authority of North East Lincolnshire, which

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REPRODUCED FROM THE 1995 ORDNANCE SURVEY MAP WITH PERMISSION OF THE CONTROLLER OF HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE © CROWN COPYRIGHT

In 1996 the Humberston Fitties was designated a Conservation Area in view of its historical importance (coloured yellow on this plan).

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became the new owner of the Fitties. It is noteworthy that the Grimsby Borough Council already had experience in creating conservation areas. It had previously created six conservation areas and had a conservation budget and a local list of buildings of architectural and historic interest.

The analysis which had been prepared for the Cleethorpes Council’s Development and Planning Committee had made the point that whilst conservation was not about preservation as such, it was certainly about retaining the essential character of a place. Consequently, it was important to realise that some changes could dilute or impair a conservation area’s character. This had the ironic outcome that conservation area status would mean that the camp, which had evolved its essentially ‘home-made’ character because of a lack of close control in the distant past, would now be subject to additional local authority scrutiny in order to retain the essence of that character.

One result was a major change in emphasis regarding chalet buildings. The previous policy of the Council had concentrated on the replacement or renewal of buildings with the use of modern building materials. It was now stated that the emphasis forthwith should be in favour of the retention of buildings and older fabric and the use of recycled building materials. An implication of this was that the chalet design guide would have to be amended to reflect the change in emphasis towards conservation. Accordingly, a revised draft design guide was circulated to chalet owners and others in August 1996 by the new owner of the camp, the North East Lincolnshire Council. The change in emphasis is shown in the draft by the use of such phrases as the need to ‘protect the unique character of the Humberston Fitties’, ‘Chalets are characteristically of an individual style and appearance’, ‘The character is derived from the overall mix of materials and building styles’, and ‘Owners are encouraged to repair and renovate the existing features of a chalet rather than seek complete replacement’. The Council foresaw a co-operative approach in the future:

Successful conservation cannot be achieved by the use of development control powers alone. Much must depend on the goodwill and cooperation of the individual chalet owners. Emphasis is placed on seeking to conserve and enhance the essential character of the area. Chalets must be maintained in good order, and new development or alteration designed sympathetically.44

Despite arguments that the points method of leasing should be changed, the Council decided to retain the grading system but extended the leasing commitment by five years up to 2011, ‘subject to the chalet and plot reaching the Council’s minimum standards’.45

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An outstanding issue which still had to be resolved was the supply of mains electricity to each chalet. During the 1980s and early 1990s, there was pressure from chalet owners for a supply to be made available but, despite schemes having been put forward and considered, there was no positive outcome.46 It was not until 1996 that the possibility of electric light appeared at the end of the metaphoric tunnel when the new site owner approved the provision of electricity subject to the availability of finance. The local newspaper reported that:

Owners of the Humberston Fitties holiday chalets have praised North East Lincolnshire [Council] over a plan to bring electricity to their summer homes. Councillors have agreed to draw up a package to introduce mains electricity into the historic site after lobbying from residents. Dozens of owners from all over the country, including London, attended this week’s full council session to see the plan rubber-stamped. Chalet-owners say the plan secures the area’s long-term future after years of uncertainty. The scheme is subject to European grants and Fitties owners paying a proportion of the costs.47

The scheme was also dependent upon a minimum of 165 (50%) of the owners taking up the offer and sharing the capital cost by paying £400 each for connection to their chalet. In addition they would have to pay for the installation of their chalet’s internal domestic wiring. In 1999, mains electricity was provided for those chalets that wanted to hook up to it and the Fitties finally completed its trio of mains services - water, sewerage and electricity.

Postscript

As we bring this account of the camp to an end, it is worth asking the question, why has the Fitties survived whilst so many other plotlands have not? Other camps have succumbed to a wide variety of factors. These have included official opposition, transformation into permanent residential development, coastal flooding, wartime clearance and commercial pressures. If we consider these factors in turn, we find that official opposition was diluted in the case of the Fitties when the freehold was purchased by the local government authority in 1938, and the camp evolved into a source of healthy profit for the local exchequer. Permanent residential development of the camp as a whole has never been considered publicly as a serious option. Flooding has affected the camp more than once, especially during the 1953 North Sea storm surge, but it escaped lightly compared with the devastation which was caused elsewhere along the coast. Wartime clearance was not inflicted on the camp to any great extent and, despite being requisitioned by the military during the Second World War, it was returned to civilian use largely unaltered, although individual bungalows suffered from misuse, damage and neglect.

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Indeed the only real threat to the camp has come from the commercial pressures and schemes of recent years. We have seen that these schemes were opposed by campers with energetic campaigns which gained the support of members of the local authority. Councillors also acceded subsequently to the request of a widely-supported campaign for the camp to be given a measure of protection by the granting of conservation area status. There is no doubt that these campaigns played a large part in ensuring the camp’s recent survival and, with media coverage and outside help, have raised the profile of the Fitties.

However, if we are looking for a long-term underlying reason why the Fitties has survived, we should look no further than the fact that it is in local authority ownership. Of course, being owned by a local government body does not of itself guarantee survival but the Grimsby RDC owned and developed the Fitties for nearly forty years because it suited their economic strategy. The next owner, the Cleethorpes Borough Council, included a body of opinion which argued that the camp should be disposed of to the private sector and radically altered. But by then it had become a significant part of the local community and had acquired trappings of family memories, nostalgia and affection. It had indeed become something of a local ‘institution’. The holiday homes also represented a major financial investment by many campers. A private owner may have shrugged off the resulting campaigns but municipal councillors have inherent obligations to the community which they serve and are open to many types of public and private pressures. In the case of the Fitties, a majority of councillors accepted that they had an obligation to maintain the continuity of the camp, and acted accordingly. It is unlikely that a private owner or a board of directors would have taken notice of the campaigns in the same way. There have been, and still are, differences of opinion between the campers and the local authority owner but it is extremely doubtful that the camp would have survived in its present form if it had not been purchased by the Grimsby RDC in 1938.

What the future may bring has to be conjecture. The granting of conservation area status has confirmed that the Fitties is an important part of the area’s historical heritage. In addition, the camp has regional and national significance as a rare example of the many plotlands which were once a feature of our countryside and coast. Such forms of ‘alternative’ and plotland housing provision are also the subject of international comparative studies and it is not fanciful to suggest an even wider potential interest in the camp. Even if we discount international interest, there is no doubt that the Fitties could be of increasing value in an educational context for students at schools, colleges and universities studying aspects of social history and housing. And, of course, the camp is a notable part of the local holiday economy. But the dominant strength of the Fitties is that it is, above all, a vibrant community which shows no signs of decline and which provides pleasure and relaxation for many people. Consequently, the Fitties is important

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socially, economically, historically and educationally and is of local, regional and national significance. These facts provide an overwhelming case for the continued existence of the camp and its individualistic character.

The period since 1986 has been unlike any other in the history of the Humberston Fitties. Accordingly, it may be helpful to keep things in perspective and bear in mind the intrinsically important facts about the Fitties. These are, that despite the intermittent turmoil and worry of the recent period, families have continued to enjoy themselves, children have continued to build sand-castles and play hide and seek, grown-ups have continued to relax, drinks have continued to be drunk on verandahs and the sun has continued to shine, on occasions. In other words, the essential Fitties lifestyle has continued undaunted:

We loved our boisterous exhilarating days, pelting round the dunes, pursuing or being pursued by our family dog, swimming at least twice a day... Though I took my own children camping, it was never quite the gritty outdoor experience of the Fitties where we made lifelong friends and forged deep family ties.48

Certainly, we have come a long way since we started our story of the Fitties. Commencing with Victorian and Edwardian tent campers, then wartime military pickets, on to the first bungalow colonisers, who were rapidly joined by other seekers of the Fitties delights, then another world war and post-war recovery, followed by an era of large-scale holiday development and a period of uncertainty and discord culminating in the recognition of the camp as being part of our historical heritage. Or from another viewpoint, we started with natural springs, privy buckets, candles and oil lamps and finished up with mains water, water closets and electricity. However, although the years have seen a comprehensive transformation in the layout and appearance of the Fitties, it has retained an individualistic character and charm and is enjoyed as much by its present devotees as by those pioneering families of long ago. Long may it be so.

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Heritage Open Weekend, September 2000.

APPENDIX A First Camp & Second Camp

Older local residents will recall the use of the terms First Camp and Second Camp. ‘First Camp’ was a bungalow camp situated on the coast just south of the present sewage pumping station at Cleethorpes, in the whereabouts of the Cleethorpes Showground.

‘Second Camp’ referred to the original Fitties bungalow camp in the vicinity of the sand dunes. At the time of writing, some local residents still use the term Second Camp when referring to the Fitties bungalow camp. It is believed that these names may have been used by the army during the First World War. The rest of this book is concerned with Second Camp, otherwise the Humberston Fitties, so the following notes concentrate on First Camp.

In a local press report on First Camp in 1920, reference was made to ‘The Simple Life’ in the ‘Bungalow Town’ of ‘weekend residences ... for fresh air lovers’:

The residents here may be divided into two classes - people who are there for health reasons, and others of the great army of homeless, who are only waiting for the opportunity to get into a house of more adequate proportions elsewhere. Of the former are people with homes elsewhere who for some months live here - and probably sacrifice much in the way of comfort and convenience - in order to breathe the pure air available in the district. To passers-by on a sunny afternoon it probably appears an ideal existence to live the simple life, ‘away from the madding crowd’. It is, in many ways, but there are drawbacks. It is a long distance to the shops, and arrangements generally for the housewife are crude. Still the ‘settlers’ put up with the disadvantages for the sake of the advantages. The people in the other category who cannot get a house in town simply make the best of their lot - and wait. The ex-soldiers living here will find the conditions not far-removed from army life - although most of them will have experienced far less congenial billets.1

A local resident remembers First Camp as consisting of ‘sub-standard’ small wooden huts. It was reported in 1921 in regard to the camp that ‘These bungalows are the only homes of some of the people there. They were taken when the house shortage became very acute, and what was at one time purely a summer camp has become a residential quarter’. Of the thirty bungalows on the camp at the time, twenty-five were used as permanent accommodation.2

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In September 1921, an abnormally high tide led to local flooding. At Second Camp [Humberston Fitties] the sea bank burst for a space of sixty yards and a number of bungalows were damaged. The greatest devastation was on First Camp, which was completely flooded. The press report mentioned that the residents were chiefly people who had been unable to get proper housing accommodation. Several bungalows were damaged beyond repair, and eleven or twelve other bungalows were moved from their positions by the force of the sea. Some residents managed to paddle to safety but others, including a number of women and children, had to ‘float to safety in tubs’.3 Despite this onslaught, the camp remained in use. Because of the housing shortage, the Cleethorpes UDC continued to allow the bungalows to be used for residential accommodation. However, the respite was only temporary and First Camp ceased to exist in 1930, after the UDC insisted that all the bungalows had to be removed from the site.4

APPENDIX B

Other Camping at Humberston

The local coastal land in Humberston and Cleethorpes has been a popular venue for all manner of camping. In the 1920s the Cleethorpes UDC erected a wooden building on their land to the north of Anthony’s Bank and near to the foreshore for use as an emergency isolation hospital.

During the 1930s, when it was no longer used as a hospital, the Toc H organisation provided summer holidays there each year for several hundred boys from poorer families. Horace McDonald and his friends set out fishing lines to catch codlings, plaice, etc., which they took to be fried for the boys at the Toc H camp. Every Friday night there would be a bonfire to which Horace and his friends were invited.

Other groups held summer camps. Some were from far afield whilst others were local. For example, in 1924, groups included the 1st Leicester Boys Life Brigade, the St. John’s Drypool (Hull) Boy Scouts and the Brighowgate Children’s Home from Grimsby. The Brighowgate Children’s Home had annual summer camps and the following account of a camp in 1945 is based on information supplied by Peter Gough.

Peter was a ‘Brighowgate boy’ during the period 1941-51. Wartime years saw the annual camps being held at the disused isolation hospital at Laceby. Camps were later held at different venues such as Humberston, Saltfleet and Filey. The first post-war camp was at Humberston in August 1945. As an eleven-year-old it was Peter’s first experience of camping and he remarks on ‘what a wonderful

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experience it was’. The Home’s entire complement of children and staff spent the whole of August at the camp. There were over a hundred boys and girls, whose ages ranged from three to fifteen, plus about twenty members of staff. In their absence, the Home was cleaned and decorated.

The task of setting up the camp was the responsibility of Bill Rockett who was the general handyman at the Home. Two or three days before the camp date, an advance party of senior boys would help him to set up the camp. Peter comments that it was carried out like a military operation. The Home had all its own camping equipment, including large marquees, bell tents and colonial tents (ridge tents with a front awning). One marquee was for the boys to sleep in, another was for the girls and the third was for mixed dining. A dozen or so bell tents were for members of staff. The colonial tents were used for the superintendent and matron and any important visitors, such as local councillors. All the marquees and tents had floors of wooden decking. The boys and girls slept on palliasses and the staff had beds, but as Peter remarks, ‘you can’t win them all’. Mr. Rockett erected a cookhouse out of scaffolding covered with tarpaulins. Toilets were erected on the edge of the site and were emptied every night by the nightsoil wagon. The contents of the swill bins were taken by local farmers to feed their pigs.

A flag pole was erected in the middle of the camp site. This was the focal point of the camp where everybody congregated after breakfast to be told the programme for the day. Many activities were organised, including sports days, outings, camp fires and singing. Anyone misbehaving would have to sit under the flag pole all day as a punishment. Peter recalls fishing for ‘dabs’ at Tetney Lock. The boys would also sometimes ‘avail’ themselves of potatoes, peas and carrots from local fields and make themselves some stew with the help of Symingtons soup blocks. At low tides, and taking great care, they would walk out to the Haile Sand Fort. At meal times, a welcome rendering of ‘Come to the Cookhouse Door Boys’ would be played by a senior boy on his bugle; the Home had its own brass band.

On 15 August 1945, VJ Day, when the war in the Far East ceased, Peter remarks that ‘we marched to the beach at Humberston dragging an effigy of Tojo [the Japanese leader] which we duly burnt on a big bonfire on the beach, with an abundance of fireworks! The donkeys from Cleethorpes were grazed in the next field to us and one of them had a foal on VJ Day, which we called Victory’. Peter sums up his experience of the Home’s camps as ‘Such Happy Days’.

Individual campers between the two world wars could use the camps at the seaward end of North Sea Lane. These were Thompson’s camp site (north side) and Coulam’s (south side). These were used by summer campers, many in First World War ex-army bell tents which were pre-erected by the camp owners. Land further inland along North Sea Lane accommodated a large number of temporary

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dwellings, including huts, old converted vehicles and caravans. Some had no sanitary conveniences, and ditches and hedges were being fouled.1 In August 1933 the RDC received a letter ‘From Some of the Old Ratepayers of [North] Sea Lane, Humberston’:

We as old residents appeal to you to see if we cannot get some people that live in a caravan removed. Their language is most filthy and vile, not fit for any human being to bear. Last night after 11 o’clock there was screaming and shouting and filthy language used and has been several times lately. The caravans were ordered away last summer but they remained behind being rag and bone tatters. The smell that comes from under the shed smells putrid at times also from a jerry rigged stable for their horse. It is far from sanitary and no water near the place. Their lavatory is also rigged under the shed. [The land owner] has been appealed to but takes no notice for they spend their money on beer at his club and that is all he cares about.2

Other camping ground owners tried to forestall criticism; as in a letter to the RDC in October 1937 from the owners of Egarr’s Camping Ground in North Sea Lane:

We beg to apply for a licence to carry on camping in the same way as we have done for the last seven years. The land is three and a half acres. It is 490 feet from North Sea Lane and is no disadvantage to the residents in any way. We reside on the premises winter and summer and give personal supervision night and day. We will not have any disorderly conduct on it. We keep the lavatories clean and well disinfected and also the land clean.3

Even so, the problems caused by mixing camping and residential accommodation in North Sea Lane was illustrated by a resident who complained of ‘an old tram being facing my door, it is an eyesore and a noisy object, we can hear every word and foot fall, up to the present it is a store with an hanging paraffin lamp, a danger to my property’. In 1939 a request was made to the RDC for sanction to site ‘some double deck buses ... on Egarr’s Camping Ground, to be used as bungalows during the holiday season as temporary residences’. There were still buses and other vehicle conversions on local camp sites after the Second World War.4

1938 saw what would be a long-term development in the North Sea Lane camping facilities with the founding of the Beacholme Holiday Camp. Messrs. Would and Ealand acquired a licence to run a holiday camp on land which had previously been Coulam’s camp site. The licence was for 294 ‘moveable dwellings’ and subject to sanitary and water provision being provided. Rows of bell tents and small tents would be laid out, with a portion reserved for motor cars and caravans. The camp traded under the confident slogan ‘Camping at its best.

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Beacholme Holiday Camp’.5

In 1948 there were four licensed camping grounds in North Sea Lane, i.e. Beacholme Holiday Camp, Lister’s Select Holiday Camp (formerly Egarr’s camp), Eperstone Camp (owner, Mrs. L. Webster) and Carrington Camp (owner, R. C. Reinecke).6 Some, if not all, of the North Sea Lane camps had an RDC inspection in 1952. Approximately 150 chalets were ‘passed’ as fit to remain on the Beacholme Holiday Camp whilst thirty-four had to be removed either because of their unsatisfactory appearance or because they were considered to be detrimental to the amenities of the camp site and the locality. One of these was a ‘Bus Body Without Wheels’. A similar inspection of Lister’s Holiday Camp produced approximately twenty-six chalets that were approved and sixteen that had to be removed, including two ‘Tram Bodies’.7

The chalets that remained on the North Sea Lane camps demonstrate the variety of materials used in chalet construction, including wood, felt, asbestos, metal and hardboard. Their names also say a lot about what people expected from their temporary homes from home, e.g. Sea Esta, It Will Do, Salt Air View, Dun Ro Min, Daisy Nook, Valentine Cottage, Lovely Cottage, Windysails, Windyview, Windyridge, Windybough, Windynook, Windyend (all six ‘Windys’ held by one owner), Sun Ray, Shangrilar [sic], Flo’s Cottage, Here It Is, Bella Vista, Sunnyview, Sun Glow, Sunny View, Sandhaven, Bijou.8

By 1952, attention was being given to what was reckoned to be the uncomfortable mix of camp sites and residential accommodation in North Sea Lane. The RDC agreed that the camps should be moved to the Fitties, to land on the inland side of Anthony’s Bank (where Thorpe Park is now). The County Council and the Ministry of Agriculture blocked the move on the grounds that the land should be kept for agriculture, especially as the government of the day was stressing that it was vital to keep every acre of agricultural land in full production. The same objections to a move were repeated five years later and, accordingly, the camps remained in North Sea Lane.9

APPENDIX C

Defending the Fitties against the sea

The Lincolnshire coast has frequently suffered serious damage and erosion by the sea. One of the better-known events is the flood of 1571 during which there were massive losses of stock, including 1,100 sheep lost between Humberston and Grimsby.1

There are several references in the main text to the flooding or likelihood of

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flooding of the Fitties by the sea. (See index entries under ‘Sea defences’). At the beginning of the twentieth century, defence from floods was afforded by a line of prominent sand dunes, with a second line of defence being provided by Anthony’s Bank. These defences were breached and Fitty land was flooded in 1905 and 1921 but it was the East Coast Floods of 1953 which highlighted the camp’s increasing vulnerability to marine flooding. The evening and night of 31 January 1953 saw major flooding by the sea of large areas of the east coast. A combination of a strong northerly wind and rising tide led to the breaching of lines of sand dunes and other sea defences. The well-known plotland developments of Jaywick and Canvey Island in Essex were devastated. Because they had evolved into permanent settlements with a year-round population, thirty-five residents were drowned in Jaywick and fifty-eight on Canvey Island. Over 10,000 residents had to be evacuated from Canvey Island.2

In so far as Lincolnshire was concerned, the central part of the coast was the worst affected, forty-one lives were lost, and Mablethorpe and Sutton-on-Sea had to be totally evacuated. In north-east Lincolnshire, thousands of acres were flooded and RAF North Cotes was evacuated. At Cleethorpes, amusement facilities were destroyed, nearly 1,000 homes were flooded and about 150 acres of agricultural land to the north of the Fitties were flooded when the marine embankment was breached near to the Buck Beck outfall. The emergency operations to fill the breaches along the Lincolnshire coast were carried out by 4,000 troops and workmen using sandbags and heavy moving equipment, and working in rain, wind and snow.3

With regard to the Humberston Fitties, there was considerable damage to the sea defences. The sand dunes were breached, as were Anthony’s Bank and the Dutch Wall. The camp from the car park in the north to Tetney Fitties in the south was flooded and ‘considerable damage was done to about 20 bungalows’.4 Many bungalows were flooded, including the Storey family’s bungalow on Main Road where the water came halfway up the chimney breast. A notch was carved into the brickwork to mark the point. The Johnson family bungalow at the southern end of the camp was also flooded and when the family went in after the water had subsided ‘the stench was unbelievable’. When Mr. and Mrs. Reaney went to the camp on the morning after the flooding had taken place, someone was using a rowing boat as a means of transportation. Their bungalow was flooded to a depth of about three feet and had to be cleared of the sand, mud and debris left by the floodwater.

The flood had moved several bungalows and left a heavy covering of sand and rubbish over the camp. Roads and bridges were damaged. Approximately 450 acres in the immediate area were flooded. Most of the land belonged to the RDC and was let to farming tenants. It was a matter of urgency to rebuild the breached

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banks. The dunes were the responsibility of the RDC, whilst the Lincolnshire River Board was responsible for Anthony’s Bank. But, in view of the emergencies further down the coast, the Board had more than it could cope with before the next spring tides, so it was decided that the RDC should repair the breaches on the Fitties, regardless of responsibility. The first priority would be Anthony’s Bank to try and prevent the flooding of more agricultural land.5

Mechanical equipment and extra labour were obtained and the repair work was started. Ten thousand sandbags were ordered, especially for filling the breaches in Anthony’s Bank and the Dutch Wall. Repairs were also started on the dunes by way of kidding.* Campers assisted with the clearing up of sand on the roads and around the chalets and helped with the re-siting of the chalets which had been moved by the flood. By the end of February, the work of clearing up the camp was well in hand.6

By May, the Lincolnshire River Board were able to draw breath and give consideration to long-term questions regarding the sea defences at the Fitties. The Board had no major concern over Anthony’s Bank and the Dutch Wall but anxiety was expressed over the dunes, on which the RDC had carried out short-term repairs. These would have to be made good during the summer and the restoration of the dunes attempted by bulldozing sand on the seaward face and extending the kidding. The increasing number of holiday-makers along the Lincolnshire coast had brought a new sea-defence problem. This was the trampling of the dunes, leaving areas bare of vegetation, particularly on the seaward side. This was more vulnerable to damage by waves: ‘It is likely that one of the causes of the dune breaches was excessive treading of dune vegetation by holiday makers’.7

The River Board considered it essential that public access should be restricted on the dunes. They suggested to the RDC, who were the owners of the dunes, that they be fenced off and that access be confined to individual pathways. The few chalets still left on the dunes should be removed to other sites. The RDC’s reaction was to ask the Board to take over responsibility of the dunes as a first line of sea defence and carry out the fencing and the provision of pathways. This request was turned down by the Board who stated that the dunes should continue to be maintained by the RDC, whilst they would maintain Anthony’s Bank as the second

*The usual method of repairing breaches in the dunes has been to fill the gap with a bank made of clay, usually dug from clays exposed on the foreshore, and then to encourage sand to build up by setting ‘hedges’ of bundles (‘kids’) of brushwood on the seaward side of the bank to trap wind-blown sand; a procedure known as ‘kidding’. (D N Robinson, ‘The Changing Coastline’, in D. R. Mills (ed.), Twentieth Century Lincolnshire (Lincoln, 1989) pp.159-60).

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line of defence. The RDC continued with remedial work and in 1955 agreed to proceed with a large-scale scheme of fencing off the dunes, providing public footpaths to the shore, further kidding and the encouragement of plant growth to bind the dunes together.8 The total cost of the scheme was to be £6,350, of which 75% would be paid by the Ministry of Agriculture; the RDC would pay the remaining 25%. The North East Lindsey Drainage Board carried out the work, most of which was completed by May 1957.9

This scheme was not a permanent solution to the problem and there followed several years of intermittent damage to the dunes, temporary repairs and the consideration of a series of options to improve the sea defences. At one point in 1957 it was even considered abandoning the main camp to the sea and retreating to the second line of defence, Anthony’s Bank. The RDC’s annual income from the camp at that time was in the region of £5,000 so it is not surprising that this option was rejected.10

Following a request from the RDC, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research inspected the defences and reported in May 1958. Their report provided little comfort.11 It said that there was real danger that the Fitties camp would continue to be subject to flooding from the sea, that the present system of kidding was quite ineffective in preventing erosion due to wave action, and that there was no simple and cheap form of sea defence work which could be used to improve the present defences. The beach could be built up by the use of groynes but the only completely secure protection was an expensive sea wall. The RDC’s response was to reject the idea of building a sea wall and groynes on economic grounds but to continue to raise the sandhills by kidding and marram grass planting. Chalet owners within the main camp were to be informed of this decision and a suitable clause inserted in new leases to indemnify the RDC against claims in connection with flooding. Finally, the flood warning system was to be examined to ensure its efficiency.12 Further damage occured and the RDC’s favoured option became the construction of a clay wall along the dunes.13

According to a newspaper report in February 1963, the RDC were concerned that the sea would break through and a deputation were going to the Ministry of Agriculture in London to try to get government approval for a £20,000 sea defence scheme. The RDC maintained that they had been trying for three years to get a scheme approved for permanent sea defences to protect the sandhills and prevent the sea causing damage to holiday chalets. The North East Lindsey Drainage Board had submitted a scheme to the Ministry on behalf of the RDC but there had been no response. The Ministry had initially refused to meet an RDC deputation but Sir Cyril Osborne, the local member of parliament, had intervened and arranged a meeting. Since the end of summer 1962, sixty feet of sandhills had disappeared completely and four exceptionally high spring tides were expected

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in February/March 1963. Even at this stage, the Ministry tried to maintain that Anthony’s Bank was the first line of defence against the sea. The local delegation refuted this and said that the bank was not an absolute safeguard and that unless the dunes were strengthened they would soon not be there to act as a ‘buffer’ to protect Anthony’s Bank.14

With help from Sir Cyril Osborne, Ministry approval was given for the construction of a gabions (mesh basket) sea wall at an estimated cost of £18,330, for which the Ministry would provide a grant of 50%. Later in 1963, the chairman of the RDC remarked on the recent completion of sea defence works: ‘If these had not been in position three weeks ago, further erosion of the sand dunes would have taken place and the sea could possibly have broken through’.15

However, later problems occured with the wall, which was said to have cost only one-third the cost of a conventional sea wall. It was built from concrete frames faced back and front with heavy wire mesh. Slag was tipped into the frames, the intention being that the sea would percolate and leave behind a deposit of sand, and in time sand would build up around wall. Unfortunately, by 1967, the wall was being undercut by the sea, and slag was dropping out of the ‘baskets’ and littering the foreshore. It was described as an ‘eyesore’ and further work was necessary.16 At the time of writing, the wall is being renovated in stages.

The Fitties had been flooded in August 1963, when considerable areas of the camp were under water. Alternative accommodation had to be found for visitors and the yacht club allowed their clubhouse to be used. However, on this occasion it was not mainly the sea that was to blame. There had been excessive rain over a weekend, with which the drains had been unable to cope. The RDC surveyor reported that it would be extremely expensive to drain the site adequately to cope with such amounts of rain. On occasions such as this, coupled with high tides, the area as far south as Tetney Lock was affected by flooding.17

Linked to the question of sea defences was the loss of sand from the Fitties beach. During the 1960s this became a major problem. In an attempt to achieve a solution the RDC erected two groynes in 1965 but four years later there was more concern regarding ‘difficulties in the past, present and future of retaining sand on the beach’. It was suggested that a ‘huge’ sand pit should be provided on the Fitties because the sand seemed to be disappearing from the beach.18 In 1970/71, the RDC asked Dutch engineers working for the Rotterdam Works Department for expert advice on how to build up the beach. Despite the RDC’s call for the matter to be dealt with urgently, they were not able to discuss the engineers’ final report until the autumn of 1973. It contained several options, from which the Fitties Committee recommended that the option be adopted which would provide a new range of dunes and a beach by importing clay and sand and constructing six groynes at a

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total cost of approximately £235,000. The most expensive option (estimated cost £1.5 million) for heightening the offshore ‘Whale Back’ and making a connection from it to the shore should be considered as a long-term project. However, the impending reorganisation of local government meant that in a few months time, April 1974, the Rural District would be absorbed into the new Cleethorpes District. Accordingly, the RDC passed a recommendation that the new Cleethorpes District Council should adopt the above proposals at such time as the national economic situation permitted.19

Problems with the beach and sea defences certainly did not go away and the Fitties continued to be under threat from marine erosion. A deep and fast-flowing creek which ran close to the shore was threatening to undermine part of the seabank, as well as being a danger to children on the beach. In 1989, Norwegian rock was brought in by sea and used to form a T-shape groyne on the beach in order to direct the creek away from the seabank and out to sea. The cost of the scheme was £175,000 and by the end of the 1990s appeared to have fulfilled its purpose.20 It is unlikely that this will be the final measure needed to protect the Fitties from the sea.

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Renewing the Fitties gabions sea wall, October 2000. Renewing the Fitties gabions sea wall, October 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The main source of official records has been the North East Lincolnshire Archives (NELA), Town Hall, Town Hall Square, Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire. Other records, particularly the newspaper clippings collection, have been consulted at the Central Library, Local History Collection, Town Hall Square, Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire.

Books and Periodical Articles

Blair, Betty. ‘The Colonization of Humberston’ in More Memories (Grimsby, ca.1982).

Defoe, D. A Tour Through England and Wales, 2 vols. (London, 1928 ed. vol.1).

Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Hydraulics Research Station. Report on the Sea Defences of Humberston Fitties to Grimsby Rural District Council (May 1958).

Dickens, C. Oliver Twist (London, 1838).

Drury, E. Recollections of the Fitties (Typescript, ca. 1996).

Edwards, A. M. The Design of Suburbia: a critical study in environmental history (1981).

Ellidge, A. A brief history of the Fitties (Typescript, 1998).

Ellis, C. B. D. ‘On Bungaloid Growth’ in Roberts, M. (comp.) The Faber Book of Comic Verse (London, 1942).

Hardy, D. and Ward, C. Arcadia for All: the legacy of a makeshift landscape (London, 1984).

Hartley, K. E. The Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway (1970).

Holtby, W. South Riding: an English landscape (London, 1936).

Johnson, P. ‘Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway’. Railway World, July, 1983, pp.355-58.

King, A. D. The Bungalow: the production of a global culture (London, 1984).

Kirkby, A. E. Humberstone: the story of a village (Lincoln, 1953).

Lane, Revd. F. J. A Souvenir of the Great World War from 1914 to 1915 as it concerns the parish of Humberston ... [1919].

Marsh, Jan. Back to the Land: the pastoral impulse in England, from 1880 to 1914 (London, 1982).

May, P. ‘Heavenly Days on Holiday’, Grimsby Evening Telegraph Bygones, 31 January 1998, p.12.

Orwell, G. The Road to Wigan Pier (London, 1937, reprinted by Penguin, 1962).

Robinson, D. N. The Book of the Lincolnshire Seaside (Buckingham, 1981).

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Robinson, D. N. ‘The Changing Coastline’, in Mills, D.R. (ed.) Twentieth Century Lincolnshire (Lincoln, 1989).

Robinson, D. N. ‘The North East Coast of Lincolnshire: a study in coastal evolution’, University of Nottingham M.Sc. thesis, 1956.

Scott, Sir W. Guy Mannering (1819).

Scully, E. E. ‘Humberstone Camp’ in Grimsby Roads; poetry and prose, selected by Peter Bennet (Grimsby 1985) p.52.

Scully, E. E. ‘Holidays at Humberston: early days in the hutted camp at the Fitties’, The Poacher, an annual companion to ‘Lincolnshire Life’, 1997, pp.11-15.

Sheail, J. ‘The Impact of Recreation on the Coast: the Lindsey County Council (Sandhills) Act, 1932’, Landscape Planning, 4 (1977) pp.53-72.

Smellie, K. B. A History of Local Government (London, 1968).

Thorneycroft, C. M. The 3rd Battalion (Militia) The Manchester Regiment: its origin and services with special reference to its work during the Great War 1914-1918. [n.d., typescript from ms. 1937] (Tameside Local Studies Library and Archives, MR 1/3/1/25).

Trevitt, E. Recollections of the 1st and 2nd Camps near the Humberston Fitties from the early 1920s (Typescript, ca.1996).

Walker, J. A. ‘Seaside memories’, Lincolnshire Life, October 2000, p.10.

Wyatt [Ellidge], R. ‘Fighting for the Fitties’, Tourism in Focus, No.14, Winter 1994, pp.14, 19.

Young, A. General View of the Agriculture of Lincolnshire (London, 1813; reprinted by David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1970).

118

REFERENCES

1. Introduction: Plotlands

1. J. Wright, The English Dialect Dictionary (London, 1900) pp.373, 326, 341.

2 A. E. Kirkby, Humberstone: the story of a village (Lincoln, 1953) p.27.

3 D. N. Robinson, The Book of the Lincolnshire Seaside (Buckingham, 1981) pp.29, 150; A. Young, General View of the Agriculture of Lincolnshire (London, 1813; reprinted by David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1970) p.308; NELA, 63/100/10, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Hydraulics Research Station, Report on the Sea Defences of Humberston Fitties to Grimsby Rural District Council (May 1958).

4 D. Hardy and C. Ward, Arcadia for All: the legacy of a makeshift landscape (London, 1984) p.vii.

5 Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All, p.15.

6 D. Defoe, A Tour Through England and Wales, 2 vols. (1928 ed. vol.1, pp. 115, 157-61, 168)

7 C. Dickens, Oliver Twist (London, 1838) Chapter 32.

8 Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All, pp.9-10.

9 Grimsby Central Library, Local History Collection, Skelton Papers 1834, vol.2, no.170, 20 October 1834.

10 Sir W. Scott, Guy Mannering (1819) p.495.

11 A. D. King, The Bungalow: the production of a global culture (London, 1984) p.245.

12 J. Marsh, Back to the Land: the pastoral impulse in England, from 1880 to 1914 (London, 1982) pp.3-7.

13 Marsh, Back to the Land, p.220.

14 A. M. Edwards, The Design of Suburbia: a critical study in environmental history (London, 1981) pp.82-84, 191.

15 Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All, pp. 21-5; J. Stevenson, British Society, 1914-45 (London, 1984) p.393; J. Walwin, Beside the Seaside (London, 1978) pp.115-116.

16 Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All, pp.2-3.

17 King, The Bungalow, p.175.

18 Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All, p.77.

19 King, The Bungalow, p.169.

20 King, The Bungalow, p.174.

21 Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All, p.7.

22 W. Holtby, South Riding: an English landscape (London, 1936) p.33.

23 G. Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (London, 1937, reprinted by Penguin, 1962) pp. 54-5.

24 C.D.B. Ellis, ‘On Bungaloid Growth’ in M. Roberts (comp.), The Faber Book of Comic Verse (London, 1942) p.338.

25 Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All, pp.36-41.

26 K. B. Smellie, A History of Local Government (London, 1968) p.107.

27 Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All, pp.280-1.

28 Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All, p.149.

29 Betty Blair, ‘The Colonization of Humberston’ in More Memories (Grimsby, ca.1982).

119

2. Tents and Troops: 1900-1918

1 GN, 21 August 1900, p.6.

2 GN, 23 August 1901, p.6.

3 GN, 10 January 1905, p.6.

4 GN, 5 November 1907, p.5; NELA 353/1/48, Duties on Land Values ...1910, pp.7-8.

5 Tameside Local Studies Library and Archives, MR 1/3/1/25, C.M. Thorneycroft, The 3rd Battalion (Militia) The Manchester Regiment: its origin and services with special reference to its work during the Great War 1914-1918. [n.d., typescript from ms. 1937] pp.31, 32, 40, 50, 67, 71, 82.

6 Thorneycroft, The 3rd Battalion, p.41.

7 Thorneycroft, The 3rd Battalion, pp.66-7, 111.

8 Thorneycroft, The 3rd Battalion, p.89.

3. The Simple Life: 1919-1939

1 J. Sheail, ‘The Impact of Recreation on the Coast: the Lindsey County Council (Sandhills) Act, 1932’, Landscape Planning, 4 (1977) pp.55-57; Robinson, Lincolnshire Seaside, p.147.

2 Grimsby Central Library, Local Studies Collection, Sale catalogue: To be Sold by Auction... The Whole of the Valuable Freehold Humberston Estate... 1920; NELA, 61/1/12, RDC Minutes, 30 June 1930.

3 Blair, ‘The Colonization of Humberston’.

4 A. Ellidge, A Brief History of the Fitties (Typescript, 1998).

5 Ellidge, A Brief History of the Fitties

6 E. Drury, Recollections of the Fitties (Typescript, ca. 1996).

7 E. E. Scully, ‘Humberstone Camp’ in Grimsby Roads; poetry and prose, selected by Peter Bennet (Grimsby 1985) p.52.

8 E. Trevitt, Recollections of the 1st and 2nd Camps near the Humberston Fitties from the early 1920s (Typescript, ca.1996).

9 Letter to the author from Mrs. P. May, 8 June 2000.

10 NELA, 62/300/1/2/, RDC General Rate Book No.2, 1938/9.

11 E. E. Scully, ‘Holidays at Humberston: early days in the hutted camp at the Fitties’, The Poacher, an annual companion to ‘Lincolnshire Life’, 1997, p.12.

12 Scully, ‘Humberston Camp’.

13 Scully, ‘Humberstone Camp’

14 Scully, ‘Humberstone Camp’

15 Scully, ‘Holidays at Humberston’, p.13.

16 P. May, ‘Heavenly Days on Holiday’, Grimsby Evening Telegraph Bygones, 31 January 1998, p.12.

17 Scully, ‘Holidays at Humberston’, pp.14-15.

18 Trevitt, 1st and 2nd Camps; NELA, 61/1/12, RDC Minutes, 14 October 1929; 61/4/2, RDC Sanitary and Building Plans Committee Minutes, passim; 61/100/192; 61/100/382, file A54/8; 61/100/383, file A53/28.

19 NELA, 63/600/1/2, p.174.

NELA, 61/1/14, RDC Minutes, 29 April 1935; Grimsby, Cleethorpes and District Directory (Leeds, 1935) pp.689-92.

21 NELA, 63/600/1/4, 10 February 1936, 21 June 1937; 62/300/1/2, RDC General Rate Book No.2, 1938/39.

120

NELA, 62/300/1/2, RDC General Rate Book No.2, 1938/39; 206/2/7/1

Inland Revenue Board, Valuation List, RDC, 1929.

23 Sheail, ‘Impact of Recreation on the Coast’, pp. 62-65; Robinson, Lincolnshire Seaside, p.148-9.

24 NELA, 61/100/207, letters 2 September 1937 and 6 September 1937 from RDC and Monkseaton UDC; 61/1/15, RDC Minutes, 20 December 1937; 7 March 1938; July 1938; 61/100/206, file A43/37, letters dated 23 March 1938 from RDC to Lindsey County Council and Mablethorpe and Sutton UDC.

4. War and Recovery: 1939-1949

1 Kirkby, Humberstone, p.188.

2 NELA, 61/100/211, files A51/2 and A51/3; 61/1/19, FC Minutes, 27 October 1952; GET, 24 August 1990, p.12.

3 Kirkby, Humberstone, pp.190-1; NELA, 61/1/16, RDC Minutes, 28 April 1941; 9 June 1941; 3 May 1941; 5 May 1941.

4 NELA, 61/100/211, file A51/4; GN, 31 October 1941.

5 NELA, 61/100/211, file A51/4; 61/1/17, RDC Minutes, 23 August 1943.

6 NELA, 61/100/211, file A51/7.

7 NELA, 61/1/17, RDC Minutes, 23 August 1945; 61/100/211, file A51/7.

8 NELA, 61/100/211, file A51/7, Farm Committee Minutes, 16 July 1945; 61/1/17, RDC Minutes, 19 November 1945.

9 NELA, 61/100/206, file A51/7; 61/100/211, file A51/7.

10 NELA, 61/100/211; 61/1/18, RDC Minutes, 2 May 1949.

11 NELA, 61/100/206, file A51/7; 61/100/211; 61/1/18, RDC Minutes, 15 July 1946.

12 NELA, 61/100/ 211, file A51/9; 61/1/18, RDC Minutes, 16 June 1947; 61/1/19, FC Minutes, 24 January 1952; 28 July 1952.

13 NELA, 61/100/211; 61/1/18, RDC Minutes, 26 August 1946; 61/100/382, file A54/24.

14 NELA, 61/1/18, RDC Minutes, 17 June 1946; 20 October 1947; 61/100/211, file A51/10.

15 NELA, 61/100/211, file A51/10.

16 NELA, 61/100/211, file !51/10.

17 NELA, 61/100/211, file A51/10.

18 NELA, 61/1/18, RDC Minutes, 25 April 1949.

19 NELA, 61/100/211, file A51/10.

20 NELA, 61/100/211, file A51/10.

5. Holidays for All: 1950-1974

1 NELA, 63/600/1/2, RDC Register of Plans.

2 Lincolnshire Archives, LACC 31016/1, Lindsey County Council Planning Committee Minutes, 30 June 1949.

3 NELA, 61/1/19, FC Minutes, 25 February 1952; 24 March 1952; 9 April 1952; 27 October 1952; 5 December 1952; 9 January 1953; 61/1/20, FC Minutes, 12 June 1953; 61/1/23 FC Minutes, 6 April 1956.

4 NELA 61/1/25, FC Minutes, 16 January 1959.

5 D. N. Robinson, ‘The Changing Coastline’, in D. R. Mills (ed.), Twentieth Century Lincolnshire (Lincoln, 1989) p.175.

121

NELA, 61/1/24, FC Minutes, 5 July 1957; 17 December 1957; 61/1/26, FC Minutes, 18 September 1959; 61/1/38, FC Minutes, 29 November 1971; 61/1/39, FC Minutes, 29 January 1973; GET, 7 January 1969; 25? September 1972.

7 Grimsby Rural District, Official guide [n.d., c.1959-60?] p.25.

8 NELA, 61/1/30, RDC Minutes, 27 May 1963; 24 February 1964.

9 GET, 26 September 1967; NELA, 61/1/30, RDC Minutes, 24 February 1964; 61/1/34, RDC Management Board Minutes, 22 January 1968.

10 NELA, 61/1/38, FC Minutes, 29 11 71.

NELA, 61/1/19, FC Minutes, 9 January 1953.

NELA, 61/1/19, FC Minutes, 6 March 1953; 61/1/21, FC Minutes, 7 December 1954.

13 GET, 29 November 1957.

14 NELA, 61/1/24, FC Minutes, 17 December 1957; 61/1/24, FC Minutes, 17 December 1957; 61/1/23, RDC Minutes 23 December 1957.

15 GET, 24 December 1957.

NELA, 61/1/25, FC Minutes, 5 June 1958; 11 July 1958; 14 November 1958; 11 December 1958; 61/1/26, FC Minutes, 17 April 1959; 61/1/27, FC Minutes, 22 April 1960.

NELA, 61/1/24, FC Minutes, 11 October 1957; 61/1/29, FC Minutes, 24 April 1962.

NELA, 61/1/19, FC Minutes, 9 April 1952; 61/1/20, FC Minutes, 12 June 1953; 10 July 1953.

19 NELA, 61/1/20, FC Minutes, 6 November 1953; 11 December 1953; 61/1/21, FC Minutes, 9 July 1954, RDC Minutes 26 July 1954; 61/1/22, FC Minutes, 9 September 1955.

20 NELA, 61/1/24, FC Minutes, 5 July 1957; 61/1/25, FC Minutes, 16 January 1959.

21 NELA, 61/1/28, FC Minutes, 16 June 1961.

22 NELA, 61/1/28, FC Minutes, 13 October 1961; 15 December 1961.

23 NELA, 61/1/25, FC Minutes, 12 September 1958; 61/1/26, FC Minutes, 17 April 1959.

24 NELA, 61/1/25, FC Minutes, 6 June 1958; M. Philp, letter in Lincolnshire Life, January 2001, p.4.

25 NELA, 61/1/27, FC Minutes, 22 April 1960; 16 September 1960; 24 October 1960; 16 December 1960; 17 February 1961.

26 NELA, 61/1/29, FC Minutes, 15 February 1963; 15 March 1963; 63/100/10, file A45/5; 61/1/30, FC Minutes, 15 November 1963; 61/1/31, FC Minutes, 17 April 1964.

27 NELA, 61/1/21, FC Minutes, 11 March 1955; 5 November 1954; 10 December 1954; 61/1/22 FC Minutes, 10 June 1955.

NELA, 61/1/27, FC Minutes, 16 September 1960; 61/1/29, FC Minutes, 25 March 1963; 61/1/30, FC Minutes, 13 December 1963; 17 January 1964.

NELA, 61/1/25, FC Minutes, 13 March 1959; 61/1/26, FC Minutes, 17 April 1959.

NELA, 61/1/26, FC Minutes, 12 February 1960; 61/1/27, FC Minutes, 15 July 1960; 16 September 1960; 61/1/28, FC Minutes, 16 June 1961; RDC Minutes, 26 June 1961; FC Minutes, 14 July 1961; FC (Special) Sub-Committee Minutes, 17 January 1962; 2 February 1962; FC Minutes, 18 February 1962; 61/1/29, FC Minutes

14 September 1962.

31 NELA, 61/1/21, FC Minutes, 9 July 1954; 7 December 1954.

32 NELA, 61/1/26, FC Minutes, 12 June 1959; 16 October 1959; 61/1/27, FC Minutes, 16 September 1960; K. E. Hartley, The Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway (1970) pp.8-14; Lincolnshire Life, 6 (12) February 1967, p.31; Letter to author from W. Woolhouse, 8 January 2001.

122

33 NELA, 61/1/27, FC Minutes, 18 November 1960; 61/1/28, FC Minutes, 2 March 1962.

34 NELA, 61/1/24, FC Minutes, 11 October 1957; 61/1/27, FC Minutes, 22 April 1960; 15 July 1960; 17 March 1961; 61/1/31, FC Minutes,12 June 1964; 22 July 1964; 17 February 1965; 61/1/32, FC Minutes 14 June 1965; 61/1/36, FC Minutes, 19 January 1970; 61/1/37, FC Minutes, 3 May 1971; 61/1/38, FC Minutes, 29 November 1971.

35 NELA, 61/1/39, FC Minutes, 6 November 1972.

36 GN, 5 August 1977, pp.14-15.

37 GET 25 September 1972; NELA, Cleethorpes BC Recreation and Amenities Committee, 3 June 1974; 15 July 1974.

6. Controversy and Conservation, 1986-1996

1 GET, 17 October 1986.

2 GET, 23 October 1986.

3 FORA press release, December 1986.

4 GET, 10 December 1986; 16 December 1986.

5 South Yorkshire Times, 9 January, 1987; 30 January 1987.

6 FORA press release, 1 February 1987; GET, 3 February 1987.

7 NELA, 61/1/34, RDC Minutes, 25 September 1967; The Guardian,

7 November 1994, p.4; GET, 13 March 1987; 24 March 1987.

8 GET, 7 May 1987.

9 GET, 11 August 1987; Grimsby Gazette, 14 August 1987.

10 Grimsby Gazette, 20 November 1987.

11 GET, 29 June 1988; 3 December 1987.

12 GET, 2 December 1988.

13 GET, 22 November 1988.

14 GET, 2 December 1988; 7 December 1988.

15 GET, 13 December 1988; 13 December 1988.

16 GET, 24 January 1989; 31 January, 1989; 14 March 1989.

Circular dated 25 April 1989 from Cleethorpes BC Chief Executive and undated circular from Chairman of the Resort and Entertainment Committee to Fitties residents.

Grimsby Target, 3 September 1987; GET, 21 October 1987; 26 October 1987; FORA press release, 18 April 1988.

19 GET, 16 December 1987; 28 July 1988; 3 November 1988. 20 GET, 13 August 1987; 26 October 1987; 7 December 1988; 13 December 1988; 31 January, 1989; 14 March 1989.

21 GET, 20 April 1989.

Cleethorpes BC. Design Guide: Humberston Caravan and Chalet Park. [1989].

23 GET, 1 December 1989; 14 December 1989.

24 Letter dated 24 May 1990 from Cleethorpes BC Chief Executive.

25 GET, 26 June 1990.

26 GET, 20 March 1990; 22 May 1990; 3 December 1990. 27 NELA 71/162, Policy and Resources Committee Minutes, 11 March 1991; 71/1/65, Policy and Resources Committee Minutes, 16 July 1991; 5 August 1991.

28 NELA 71/1/65, Policy and Resources Committee Minutes, 19 November 1991.

29 GET, 23 December 1991; NELA 71/1/65, Policy and Resources Committee Minutes, 23 December 1991.

123

30 GET, 17 October 1986; NELA 71/1/65, Policy and Resources Committee Minutes, 27 January 1992; GET, 7 May 1987.

31 NELA 71/1/71, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 20 July 1992; GET, 13 August 1992, p.4.

32 GET, 27 June 1992, p.4; NELA 71/1/71, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 23 November 1992; 71/1/78, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 6 March 1995; GET, 29 June 1999, p.15; 26 July 1999, p.13.

33 R. Wyatt [Ellidge], ‘Fighting for the Fitties’, Tourism in Focus, No.14, Winter 1994, pp.14, 19.

34 GET 30 August 1994, p.1; NELA 71/1/79, Policy and Resources Committee Minutes, 23 August 1994.

35 GET 14 September 1994, pp.1, 3.

36 GET, 9 November 1994, p.1; 16 November 1994, p.2; 13 December 1994, p.3.

37 Observer Life, 28 July 1996, p.31; NELA 71/1/86, Policy and Resources Committee Minutes, 11 September 1995.

38 NELA 71/1/65, Policy and Resources Committee Minutes, 5 August 1991; 71/1/72, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 18 October 1993; 71/1/87, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 16 October 1995; 22 January 1996.

39 Letter dated 1 May 1992 from Cleethorpes BC Director of Law and Administration to FORAB and others.

40 NELA 71/1/72, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 24 January 1994; 18 April 1994; Cleethorpes BC, Chalet Owner’s Guide, August 1995.

41 A. Ellidge, comments on the chalet owner’s guide, June 1995. [typescript]

42 NELA 71/1/87, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 27 November 1995.

43 GET, 29 November 1995; 10 January 1996; 6 March 1996; NELA 71/1/85, Development and Planning Committee Minutes, 28 November 1995; 9 January 1996; 5 March 1996; 71/1/87, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 22 January 1996; Fitties Preservation News, number one, May 1996, p.1.

44 North East Lincolnshire Council. Humberston Fitties: Conservation Area (draft), August 1996.

45 North East Lincolnshire Council. Humberston Fitties Conservation Area: Chalet Design Guide, July 1997.

46 NELA 71/1/64, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 29 April 1992; 71/1/71, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 18 January 1993; 71/1/72, Resort and Entertainment Committee Minutes, 14 June 1993.

47 GET, 16 October 1996; 26 October 1996.

48 M. Philp, letter in Lincolnshire Life, 4 January 2001, p.4.

1 GT, 5 March 1920.

2 GDT, 23 December 1921; GN, 23 December 1921; GN, 9 September 1921, Report of public inquiry into boundary extension.

3 GDT, 19 December 1921.

4 NELA, 51/1/30, Cleethorpes UDC Pleasure Grounds, etc. Committee Minutes, 4 September 1929; 5 February 1930.

124

Appendix A:First Camp and Second Camp

Appendix B: Other Camping at Humberston

1 NELA, 61/100/192.

2 NELA, 61/100/396, file A44/135, letter dated 12 August 1933.

3 NELA, 61/100/206, file A43/37.

4 NELA, 61/100/206, file A43/37; 61/100/211, file A51/1; 61/100/211.

5 NELA, 61/100/206, files 26 and A43/37; 61/1/15, RDC Minutes 30 May 1938.

6 NELA, 61/100/192; 61/100/382, file A54/8; 61/100/383, file A53/28.

7 NELA 61/100/192.

8 NELA, 61/1/19, FC Minutes, 24 January 1952.

9 NELA, 63/600/1/2, p.174; 61/1/12, RDC Minutes, 29 June 1931; 20 April 1931.

Appendix C: Defending the Fitties Against the Sea

1 Robinson, Lincolnshire Seaside, p.21.

2 Hardy and Ward, Arcadia for All, pp.127, 154.

3 Robinson, Lincolnshire Seaside, pp.125-9.

4 GET, 2 February 1953, pp.1, 4, 5.

5 NELA, 61/1/19, FC Minutes, 2 February 1953; GET, 27 February 1953.

6 NELA, 61/1/19, FC Minutes, 6 February 1953; 6 March 1953.

7 D.N. Robinson, ‘The North East Coast of Lincolnshire: a study in coastal evolution’, Nottingham University M.Sc. thesis, 1956, p.85; Robinson, Lincolnshire Seaside, p.162.

8 NELA, 61/1/20, FC Minutes, 8 May 1953; 18 September 1953; 61/1/21, FC Minutes, 11 March 1955; 61/1/22, RDC Minutes, 25 April 1955; FC Minutes, 10 June 1955; 14 July 1955.

9 NELA, 61/1/23, RDC Minutes, 24 September 1956; 61/1/24, FC Minutes, 10 May 1957.

10 NELA, 61/1/24, FC Minutes, 17 December 1957.

11 NELA, 63/100/10, file A45/5.

12 NELA, 61/1/25, FC Minutes, 11 July 1958.

13 NELA, 61/1/29, FC Minutes, 14 December 1962.

14 GET, 20 February 1963; 25 February1963.

15 NELA, 61/1/29, FC Minutes, 15 February 1963; RDC Minutes, 25 February 1963; 61/1/30, FC Minutes, 12 July 1963; RDC Minutes, 23 December 1963.

16 GET, 24 January 1964; Lincolnshire Life, 7 (1), March 1967, p.67.

17 NELA, 61/1/30, FC Minutes, 13 September 1963.

18 NELA, 61/1/32, FC Minutes, 27 July 1965; 61/1/36, FC Minutes, 27 October 1969; 8 December 1969.

19 NELA, 61/1/37, FC Minutes, 29 December 1970; 61/1/38, FC Minutes, 29 November 1971; 61/1/40, FC Minutes, 12 November 1973; RDC Minutes. 17 December 1973.

20 GET, 7 June 1988; 19 May 1989.

125

Abbott family, 36

Addison’s shop, see Shops 40

Anthony Farm, 10

Anthony Water, 10

Anthony’s Bank, 9, 10, 34, 41 and throughout

Anthony’s Bank Road, 10 and throughout

Drewry family, 27, 28

Drury, Edward, 28

Dutch Wall, 48, 62, 78, 112, 113

Beacholme Holiday Camp, 59, 77, 110, 111

Beardshaw family, 58, 59, 60, 65, 75,

Boating Lake, 78, 95

Bourne Leisure, 93, 100

Bournville, 13

Brighowgate Children’s Home, 108-109

Buck Beck outfall, 112

Bull Fort, 35

Bunker family, 26, 37, 43, 46, 57

Burnett family, 26, 35

Burton family, 26, 36

Canvey Island, 14, 112

Carrington Camp, 111

Chatterton family, 26, 28, 36, 57, 76, 91

Cobley family, 26, 28, 35, 37-39, 43, 47, 57

Commons Registration Act (1965), 94

Conservation Area, 100-103

Cottagers Yard Farm, 10

Coulam’s Camp, 109-110

County Development Plan, 59

Cox, Mr. and Mrs., 30

Coxall family, 53, 57

Cripsey family, 26

Defoe, Daniel, 11

Delfont, Lord, 83

Dilly cart, see Privies

Dickens, Charles, 11

Drewery, Arthur, 26, 57

Ealand, Mr., 110

East Coast Floods (1953), see Sea Defences

Edge family, 26, 29, 33-37, 38, 39, 42, 47, 57

Edwards, Dave, 63, 65

Edwards, Kath, 62

Egarr’s Camp, 111

Electricity, 65, 71, 98, 103

Ellidge, Alfreda and Robert Wyatt, 6-7

English Heritage, 96

Eperstone camp, 111

Felton, Dr. E., 43

First aid, 72

First Camp, 107-108

First Leisure Corporation, 82-85

First World War, 22-23, 44, 51, 109

Fitties Field, 32-33 and throughout

Fitties Owner and Resident Association, see FORA/FORAB

Fitties Owner and Resident Association

(Bungalows), see FORA/FORAB

Fitties Preservation Society, 100

Flamborough Head, 14

Floods, see Sea Defences

FORA/FORAB, 83-94

Foreshore Inn, 72, 77

Goodhand family, 26, 28, 35-37, 39-40, 43, 57

Gordon family, 26, 27, 35, 47

Gough, Peter, 108-109

Grant family, 76

Grantham family, 32, 38, 43

Grimsby East Marsh, 12

Grimsby Rifle Club, 22

126 INDEX

A B C D E F G

HHaile Sand Fort, 35-36, 47, 75, 78, 80

Harrison family, 35

Hawley sisters, 30

Heritage Open Weekend, 100

Hibbit family, 27, 35

Hockney, 30

Holtby, Winifred, 14

Holton-le-Clay, 22

Hopps family, 50

Howe, Anne, 76

Housing shortages, 44, 51

Humber Mouth Yacht Club, 28, 47, 77-78, 79, 95

Humberston Fitties Campers’

Association (HFCA), 33, 49, 52, 65, 66, 72

Humberston Fitties Company, 25-26, 45

Manchester Regiment (3rd Battalion), 22-23

Marchant family, 50

Marquess of Lincolnshire, 25

Maslin family, 26, 35

Meakings, Stanley, 64-65, 66, 69, 72

NNickerson family, 28, 47

Nightsoil, see Privies

Norris, 30

North Cotes, 112

Nottingham, 12

OOpen plan area, 68, 97

Orwell, George, 15

Osborne, Sir Cyril, 115

JJaywick, 14, 16, 112

Johnson family, 58, 77, 112

Johnson, Mrs. M., 68

LLeases, 69, 83, 88-90, 95, 98-99, 102

Letchworth, 13

Lifeboat, 78

Lifeguards, 78

Lincolnshire Caravans, 62, 63

Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway, 63, 77, Lindsey County Council (Sandhills) Act (1932), 45

Lister’s Camp, 111

MMcDonald family, 17, 30, 35, 37-39, 42, 47, 57, 108

McKerchar family, 26, 43

Mablethorpe, 25, 112

PPalmer’s shop, see Shops

Pea Bung, 30

Peacehaven, 13, 14

Police, 40

Port Sunlight, 13

Postal service, 40

Powell family, 26, 35

‘Prefabs’, 58, 87, 91, 97

Privies, 40, 51, 54, 69, 71

RRadar station, 47, 77

Railway, see Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway

Reaney, Len, 17, 32, 47, 112

Red Cross, 72

Reinecke, R. C., 111

Richmond, John, 12

Rifle range, 47

Rimac, 45

Robinson family, 35

Robson family, 26, 36

127 INDEX

SSanitation, 22, 44, 109-110

Scott, Sir Walter, 12

Scully, Mrs. E. E., 26, 30, 40

Sea defences, 16, 21, 61, 66, 108, 111-116

Seaton, Charlie, 40

Second Camp, 32

Second World War, 16, 47-52

Security, 51, 93

Sewerage, 65, 69, 71

Shaw family, 57, 74, 76, 80

Sheffield Arms, 30

Shepherd’s hut/house, 21-22

Shops, 39-40, 72

Shoreham, 14

Sissons family, 59, 74

Skegness, 55

Smith, 30

South Bank Jazz Club, 75

South Beach Caravan Park, 81-82, 84,

86-88, 92, 94

Storey family, 57, 69, 74-75, 112

Sunny Days, 97

Sutton-on-Sea, 112

TTaylor, Hadyn, 26, 72

Tertia Trust, 30, 47, 65, 77

Tetney Fitties, 46, 54

Tetney Haven, 47

Tetney Lock, 22, 75

Thompson, C.H., 32

Thompson, Dick and Pat, 58

Thompson’s Camp, 109

Thorpe, Mariette, 75

Thorpe Park, 33, 48, 62, 94-95, 111

Toc H, 108

Town and Country Planning Act (1947), 15, 59

Transport, 42-43

Trevitt, Edward, 32

WWaltham, 48

Water, 20, 21, 44, 54, 65, 69, 71-72

Webster, Ben, 76

Webster, Mrs. L., 111

Weltman, Marlene and Dennis, 6

Whitegate Leisure, 92-93

Wigan, 15

World War I, see First World War

World War II, see Second World War

Would, F. A., 52, 110

YYMCA, 47, 76-77

Yorston family, 58, 69, 73-75, 78, 81

* Page numbers marked in bold signify images

128 INDEX

The authors daughter and grandaughter on the Fitties beach

The Humberston Fitties is one of the many ‘plotlands’ which were once to be found scattered in a haphazard manner on coasts and in the countryside, and which consisted of informal developments of bungalows, huts, converted buses, railway carriages, etc. This book gives a history of ‘the Fitties’ and recounts how the Humberston sand dunes accommodated the tents of Summer campers in Victorian and Edwardian times and how the bungalow camp began in the dunes following the First World War. It blossomed in the 1920s and 1930s but during the Second World War was commandeered for military purposes. After the war it returned to civilian use and the camp flourished. More recently it experienced a troubled period during which its character and existence were threatened. It survived and was created a conservation area in 1996 on the grounds of its historical significance.

The author was born in Hull and has lived in Cleethorpes for the past twenty years. During his working life as a librarian, and later as a university adult education tutor, he developed his interest in local history. The author has a degree in local and regional history, and a PhD gained by way of a research thesis into the development of Grimsby and Cleethorpes. Although he has never resided on the Fitties, four years of early married life were spent living in a caravan near the River Thames, complete with wife, two babies and an Elsan toilet. His ‘plotland’ apprenticeship included fetching water from the communal pump and carefully carrying a full chemical toilet along a cinder track (as dusk fell) to dispose of the aromatic contentssuch happy days! Could this background explain his fascination with the Fitties and the underlying reason why this book has been written?

£12.00

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