Billy Bunter at Butlins

Billy Bunter #29

by Frank Richards

The Famous 5 and Billy Bunter go to Butlins for the holidays.

218 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Pseudonym of author Charles Hamilton, who created Billy Bunter and who also used plenty of other pseudonyms.

Those other pseudonyms were, in alphabetical order:
Winston Cardew; Martin Clifford; Harry Clifton; Clifford Clive; Sir Alan Cobham; Owen Conquest; Gordon Conway; Freeman Fox; Hamilton Greening; Cecil Herbert; Prosper Howard; Robert Jennings; Gillingham Jones; T Harcourt Llewelyn; Clifford Owen; Ralph Redway; Hilda Richards; Raleigh Robbins; Robert Rogers; Eric Stanhope; Robert Stanley; Nigel Wallace; Talbot Wynyard.

Reviews

[Philip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Happy to be proved wrong of course but I don't think anything could top the joy that I experienced reading this book. It is such a fun, sunny, pantomime with every aspect of our familiar Billy Bunter stories in play. If someone had told me that the most enjoyable thing I'd read this year was an extended advert for Butlins... I actually might well have believed them - what could be more fun than that?

[Robert Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fat Owl is on his hols and he’s splashing the cash on tuck. Yes it *is* an extended advertisement for Billy Butlin’s holiday camps - and the great, kindly, rotund gentleman is even embroiled in the story - but it’s still a joyful romp. School comedy as social history infact. And the edition in the Comedy Cottage library even has Gerald Campion in character from the TV series on the cover, so even more joyous.

[Tamsin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a book for the 21st century. It stretches every suspension of disbelief as well as many other sensibilities (contains: constant violence, fat shaming, racist attitudes and extreme arrogance and ignorance). I wanted a quick read and have never read a Billy Bunter book before. I was happy to re-encounter the expression ‘my hat’ though.

[M Gowans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the best Bunter story and obviously an advert for Butlins holiday camps. Interesting from a historical perspective. It is amusing how somehow Richards manages to slowly evolve his characters over the decades from top hat wearing kids from 1908 to roller skating teenagers of the 1960s.

[Peter Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great!