Night 1 at Butlins

Prior to this weekend, I was a Butlins Virgin! But now I can say, the cherry has most definitely been popped.

After months of anticipation and preparation, the Bognor Babes and Boys Hen Weekend had finally arrived. An outfit for School Disco, and one for 80's night meant little room was left in the bag for other essentials - normal clothes for one!

Having got away from work I collected D (who will be known as Pepsi) and L (who we'll call LeeRoy from Fame), and we were off. Normally, I favour a truly eclectic mix of music whilst driving but this weekend was all about cheese and we had that in abundance. Madonna's Greatest Hits, 90's Mix, 70's Disco and Duran Duran set the standard for the musical delights of the weekend. Clearly, the bar had not been set very high!

The lovely hen who we'll call Tiffany had invited 40 of us to share her special occasion. Logistical nightmare! But despite having to co-ordinate 40 grown ups who were travelling across the country after a week of work, we all managed to arrive and be in the Pavilion by 8.30pm. Ahhhh The Pavilion. What a grand name, evoking images of cricket, cucumber sandwiches and a drop of sherry. Not quite...

Try hundreds of Hen/Stag groups all dressed in outfits that had never been stocked in the fancy dress shop that Mr Benn frequented and you'll get the idea.

Pepsi, LeeRoy, Sonya and MC Hammer (not their real names obviously) and myself made our own little sub group for the weekend. We had ringside seats at the experience that really was the Butlins Circus. This is a place where the lines are barely drawn (and if they are, they're ignored). Normal rules don't apply and carnage is the order of the day.

My little group of friends are no strangers to fancy dress. Over the years we've been aliens, superheroes, 70's disco stars and gangsters and molls but this was fancy dress on a whole new level. And believe me, it wasn't always a pretty sight. Men (why is it always men?) dressed as big willies, or in aprons and thongs and all with a disturbing amount of flesh on show. Our outfits have been many things over the years - garish, bad taste or hideous but they have still performed the basic requirement of clothes - they covered us up!!

Anyway, back to the Pavilion and the DJ Extraordinaire! If you go with low expectations for music you're less likely to be disappointed. The old and trusted classics came out with (to be fair) some truly great memories including Reef's 'Put Your Hands Up', Robin S 'You Got To Show Me Love' and of course MC Hammer 'You Can't Touch This'. The 'Running Man' came out to play and school disco mayhem was everywhere. There was even some snogging on the dance floor but it had nothing to do with us!

And then it happened! The DJ decided to end his set with... the 80's classic 'True'?, The Kylie and Jason classic 'Especially For You'? No! He chose UB40 singing 'Red Wine'. There's not enough red wine in the world to make up for that. And so Night One drew to a close.

The Butlins cherry had been popped and left us feeling, well frankly, a bit grubby and used but we were coming back for more the next day!