St Anne's sandhills dotted with campers’ tents inspired Mr Pye’s holiday beach

Last week we pondered over the name Squires Gate Holiday Beach. Was it the original name of the old Squires Gate Holiday Camp?

The more evocative of the two names was on a sign on a 1930s postcard found in the Gazette archives.

It didn’t take long for confirmation to emerge in a copy of the holiday company’s weekly magazine for August, 1939, owned by Leslie Heyes, of St Annes.

Les’s mother was the secretary of Mr Roger Pye, who founded the business.

A page from the magazine is reproduced here, offering a Squires Gate Holiday Beach service chalet, including full board and sevices, for £3.3s (that was three pounds and three shillings) a week.

The August Bank Holiday week, which was then at the end of the month, was a few shillings more and for September the price was reduced to £3.

But many holiday plans would have been at risk by the start of WW2 on September 3, for within weeks the camp was requisitioned by the War Office.

An article in the magazine states Roger Pye had returned in the late 1920s from Hollywood “with his building triumphs in Santa Monica and Malibu Beach behind him.”

He engaged the then Dorothy Coldwell as his secretary and looked for a project in the area, becoming intrigued by the possibilities of the sandhills, which were dotted with campers’ tents in the summer.

“What a place for a Holiday Beach on Hollywood lines,” he remarked (quoted from the magazine).

Mr Pye’s experience in California showed in the architectural style of the holiday buildings at Squires Gate, located between the railway line and Clifton Drive North.

He at first leased the site to build his holiday camp, which was formally opened in July, 1937, by Rochdale-born singer and comedienne Gracie Fields.

Mr Pye bought the land from the Clifton Estate and formed Squires Gate Holiday Camp Ltd., in 1938.

Gracie Fields was familiar with the St Annes area, often staying in the town during her regular appearances at Blackpool’s Grand Theatre.

In July, 1939, Gracie wrote from her home in Capri to express best wishes for a second opening ceremony, this time by Lord Derby, of the enlarged holiday camp after the addition of a swimming pool and more chalets.

An interesting photo in the Squires Gate magazine shows the former British heavyweight boxing champion, Bombardier Billy Wells, who was one of the greeters at the holiday camp in the summer of 1939.

Billy was at that time the man who “banged the gong” in the opening titles of Rank Organisation films.

(The gong was phoney. It was made of papier-mache and never got gonged!)

After the War Office took control of the holiday camp the civilian staff were dismissed and Mr Pye’s secretary, Dorothy, married William Heyes, of the holiday camp management team, in 1940.

When the camp reopened in 1946 the title of Holiday Beach seems to have been dropped.