The Best Summer of Our Lives: A Photographic History of the Derbyshire Miners' Holiday Camp

The story of the Derbyshire Miners’ Holiday Camp at Skegness is the story of the thousands of mining families who holidayed there after the Second World War.

There are also stories of the people who worked at the camp, many of them from mining families and some former miners themselves.

It is also the story of the union men who fought in the 1920s and 1930s for a miner’s right to take an annual holiday with pay and who made the building of the camp possible.

It is very much the people’s story, woven to get her using reminiscences and photographs, and the result is a fascinating look at the variety of life at the camp and the old mining community in Derbyshire itself.

‘In the 1940’s and 50’s, it was the only way you could get a holiday. Most of all, I remember going to the camp in the summer of 1947. It was just after the war, I was 14 – and it was the best summer of my life’