Big Charlie the Elephants Grave and the Lost Butlins Holiday Camp. Filey

Synonymous with cheap and cheerful British holidays, Billy Butlin began setting up holiday camps in the 1930s. A camp opened in Filey in East Yorkshire in the 1940s. The success of the holiday camps in the mid 20th Century saw the owner trying to win publicity and unique attractions....and in 1957 he got just that. Big Charlie the Elephant was already a star attraction at a camp in Ayr, Scotland. Billy decided to create a publicity fuelled spectacle of transporting Charlie the 350 miles to Filey, and this gained extensive media coverage. Charlie spent a few years at Filey, but in 1961his handler died and Charlie became difficult and potentially dangerous, and the decision was made to euthanize him. Charlie was quietly buried on the site. In 1983 the Butlins at Filey closed, and a new holiday let is on the site, but, somewhere, underground, is the now mythical resting place of a long lost giant.