Despite the gorgeous summer temperatures of the last month, the joys of the English seaside experience wouldn’t be complete without the kind of driving rain and blustery winds that accompanied my family visit to the Haven caravan park in Doniford, outside Minehead this July.

Of course, the British holiday camp has been immortalised with the ‘kiss-me-quick’ working class stereotype ever since Donald McGill’s saucy seaside postcards of the 50s and the ‘Carry On’ movies of the 60s, and with the rise of the package holiday, it seemed that the holiday camp was consigned to becoming a ridiculed and moribund typology.

However, after my trip away, it’s good to see that, far from declining, the recession is actually spurring a resurgence. My mum can’t resist a bargain, and along with hundreds of other families on the camp, it seems that the £15 a head offer for a week in a chalet was just too good to miss.

Of course, upgrades were available. A taste of the luxury to be afforded was evident in the show mobile homes. The ‘Standard’, at £17K, came complete with two twin and a double room, with a living space just big enough to swing a cat in, but if you were prepared to fork out for the ‘Platinum’ – a snip at £40K, you got an en suite with the double, and luxuriously appointed living and dining areas fit for a conga.

Of course, they suffer the curse of prefabrication – anything not bricks and mortar in the UK ultimately depreciates, and any purchaser can only expect a 10 year life on their investment anyway. For the Platinum’, that’s £4K a year, or £15 a head every week for a family of five, so it actually represents little or no saving on the deals they offer to the the general holidaymaker. Buyers would however, have access to the VIP ‘Privilege Club’, a bar and social area that would avoid, should they so wish,  the daily ‘Polly and Bradley’ kids show, the nightly bingo event and floor show, and the covers band ‘Anthology’, (which I went for days thinking were called ‘Apology’), who were actually made up of Haven’s ‘Redcoat’ equivalent.

But there was a charm to the whole experience. It certainly kept me there with a Carlsberg ‘til midnight, sat next to a table of glad-ragged mums with prams and pints. Cleeve Abbey, whose gorgeous 13th century ruins I wandered earlier one day, it certainly isn’t, but with its popular ‘pass the balloon game’ and talent competitions, it doesn’t look like the holiday camp is up for dissolution any time soon…