Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Want to be Hi-de-Hired by Butlins?
Our reporter tries out hol camp job
IT’S wet and windy and rain drips down the walls of empty chalets at Butlins in Skegness.
The thousands of holidaymakers who will bring this Lincolnshire resort to life are still a few weeks away.
But there are people here and hard at work. And they include me.
I am at Billy Butlin’s original holiday camp to try out for a series of jobs in the wake of criticism that the holiday icon favours foreign staff, rather than Brits.
First stop is the kitchen, where over the course of a year 65,000 bananas are peeled, 70 tons of baked beans are served and almost a million eggs, 700,000 sausages and 1.1million rashers of bacon are cooked.
Mark Murphy, head chef of the Coral Reef restaurant, expresses some alarm about my knife technique as I struggle to transform fruit into fun creatures for kids.
To be fair, I’ve never been good in the kitchen. My hubby never tires of telling how I once tried to grill a frozen pizza.
Team head chef Ty Chojnacki and a 45-strong team feed 5,000 people per holiday break, on week-long or short breaks.
Ty arrived 14 years ago after spotting an advert on the side of a bus in Krakow, Poland. He said: “I’ve made Skegness my home and I love it here. A lot of local people assume that Butlins is only seasonal but you can really make a career here. All they need is passion and we can give them the skills.”
In the Sky Bar, larger-than-life character Glyn Price, 30, booms with infectious laughter while teaching me how to mix a virgin cocktail.
CHATTY
Turns out my cocktail-making skills are a lot better than my cooking. Hmmm, I wonder why? Glyn says the trick to handling hundreds of customers a night is to “remain calm and chatty”.
He adds: “You’ve got to be able to multi-task because there’s so much going on – children running about enjoying themselves, customers queueing and people ordering cocktails.”
Sounds exhausting. I head to a chalet where I’m to be taught how to create towel animals and make a bed properly. Oh come on! How difficult can it be?
Not so easy, at it turns out. Especially in a minute. There’s all the proper tucking in, changing duvets – and my towel swan looked more ugly duckling.
I’m all fingers and thumbs, and stifling giggles are staff trainer Justyna Filipczac, 35, from Poland, and Kristine Ovington, 32, who lives locally. There are 1,600 chalets. If every guest chose full service, that’s 11,200 beds a week
At the poolside Becky Pimlott, 20, from Boston, Lincs, and Crystal Smith, 19, of Great Yarmouth, show me life-saving CPR on a dummy. Alas, my first attempt wouldn’t have saved a chipmunk.
A mighty 1,300 staff work here – most of them year-round. A recruitment drive in January filled 130 post. But Butlins struggles to fill all positions. Why?
The official line is that people don’t realise they can have a year-round job.
But I secretly suspect there’s a degree of snobbery involved. And there’s a suspicion – a perpetual rumour in a town where seven in 10 back Brexit – that Eastern Europeans are preferred “as they cost less”.
“They don’t want local people, we’re not cheap enough,” says a 26-year-old as he cycles by.
Bosses say 80 per cent of staff are British and there is equality on pay – starting at minimum wage and rising with promotion.
And assistant housekeeper Zoltan Ujvari, 32, from Hungary, adds: “The jobs are there if people want to apply for them.”
For me, my stint with Butlins is over and I leave with newfound admiration for a dedicated workforce. Bye-de-Bye!