Bertram Mills

London in the winter of 1921 was a rehearsal for a country that had forgotten how to enjoy itself. Billy Butlin arrived at Olympia with nine and threepence, one collar and a letter of introduction to a man who did not remember writing it.

Bertram Mills was assembling a circus in a hall the size of a cathedral. Butlin watched the elephants being led out and made his decision on the spot: not to join the circus, but to build one that never ended.