The Great Escape: Britain's 400-Year Love Affair with Holidays by Annabelle Thorpe

There comes a time in everyone's life when they become more excited over holidays than Christmas. I've been there for quite some time now. Although nostalgia for Christmas still exists - nostalgia for me and then again for my child - nothing beats the holiday nostalgia. From early trips to the seaside, bucket and spade, ice cream and donkeys, to roughing it in tents, frying breakfasts on gas-bottle stoves to the exotic honeymoon in a hot country. That's my personal holiday history. But what about the rest of us?

In this concise and equally personal history of British holidays, we discover the early holidays of baths and spas, through to the invention of the railway enabling travel to our beaches, structured holiday camps like Butlins and Pontins, to air travel to far away places, to  cruise ships and the effects of tourism. There are the changes to landscape, exploitation of people and natural resources as well as the positive effects on holiday makers and economies.

The author has researched the subject well both in an academic sense and the extra, powerful personal evidence. She has visited the baths, hotels and locations and interviewed many people to produce this solid piece of work, providing an empirical critique of the history of holidays from the British perspective. Her writing is light hearted and witty although her research is serious and detailed. The issues of social class and  culture are covered, including how television has influenced attitudes as well as destinations. Who could forget those holiday-centred sitcoms like Benidorm, Duty Free, Hi-Di-Hi and Eldorado?

This is a great fun read, full of history as well as nostalgia and something all British people can identify with. Read this instead of holiday brochures.

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Published by DK Red on 7 May 2026.
Advance review copy supplied by the publisher.

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