Where's Noddy?

A very British institution is the Holiday Camp. At the heart of Pontin's Holidays was the entertainments team-the Bluecoats. When not running competitions and bingo, introducing cabaret acts, acting as compre for Glamorous Grandmother and Talent shows, and performing in the weekly Bluecoat Show, they mingled with guests-"campers"-telling jokes, being charming, and being pretty adept at the waltz and the foxtrot.

An oft-asked question was "What do you do in the winter?"

In 1982, two Bluecoats, one from Wales, one from Scotland, found themselves working together and falling in love. At the end of the season, separated, their love letters answered this question.

In an age before mobile phones, texts, social networking, digital cameras, and the Internet, these letters explore the difficulties, frustrations, doubts, and occasional hilarity of loving at a distance and surviving Thatcher's Britain.

The letters span the period from near the end of the 1982 season to the start of the 1984 season, and cover working at three Pontin's Holiday Camps.