The Clacton & District Local History Society was founded in 1985 to research, record and promote the history of Clacton and its immediate locality.

The Clacton & District Local History Society hold regular monthly meetings starting at 7:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of every month at the Friends' Meeting House in Granville Road, Clacton.

It's Another World

The Clacton and District Local History Society is involved with a big project in Clacton with Essex County Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund, Essex Record Office, Colbayns Community Centre, Creative Partnerships, the Arts Council of England, Colbayns School, ZAP Art, Butlins and the Jaywick Martello Tower to remember what Butlins once meant to this town.

We are currently collecting oral memories of the camp from people who worked there or stayed there on holiday as well as from the barrow boys who met the campers every Saturday at the railway station and the coach parks to take their luggage to the camp. As well as oral memories we are also trying to collect as many photographs and post cards as possible of the camp or any other memorabilia. Photographs and post cards can be scanned and copied so they will be given back.

There will be three main outcomes of all this:

1. The Clacton & District Local History Society will finish up with an archive of Butlins material which will be available for everyone to see or listen to at Clacton Library.

2. Essex County Council will produce a teachers' pack which will be used for teaching about Butlins at Clacton in schools. This will show the importance both of Butlin's to the town and also of the importance generally of this type of holiday to Great Britain as a whole.

3. There will be a "Butlins Day" in Clacton on 7th July 2007 celebrating the camp. The day will be like a day on the camp with all the competitions and other events and there will also be a stage show based on life on the camp moving through the different eras from the 1930s to the 80s.

If you think you may be able to help out please contact us on the email address below or on (01255) 426115.

The Butlin's Day was a great success. About 5000 people turned up to the event. The guest of honour was Roy Hudd who introduced the stage show with some reminiscences of his own and spent a long time walking round chatting to people. What was so pleasing about the day was the number of youngsters who turned up of primary school and secondary school age who all thought it was wonderful. The organisers were quite often asked why we can't have something like this in Clacton now as it was such good fun. Why not indeed!?

Here is The Clacton & District Local History Society programme for 2007