Am I remembering this all wrong?

[Makeitgoaway]

1977, aged 7 at Pointins. I entered a beauty competition wearing a swimming costume.

It's possible it was a fancy dress comp, not a beauty contest, but there are photos of me in costume, sash and crown, including one sat on the lap of a man in a dog costume!

My goodness, times have changed but wouldn't that have been weird even then?

DH was watching a 70s documentary last night, I looked up from my book to see a scene filmed on a topless beach. The women looked oblivious to being filmed. The children were playing in the sea, all just wearing trunks regardless of being boys or girls...

We both agreed there would be outrage at such filming these days!

It doesnt sound weird to me OP! Although it is weird lol .The 70s holiday camp experience was full of stuff like this...bonny baby comp, knobbly knees comp..nothing of the 70s was as we could possibly imagine now.I Have a google at HI DE HI on you tube...yes that was us and yes we were there in that decade!!!! the programme was a really accurate discription of 70s holiday camps!

I won a heat of Junior Miss Pontin back in the late 60s and yes, as a young teen I paraded around in a swimsuit. I also dressed up as a needle in a haystack and a sugar cube (Spoon Full of Sugar from Mary Poppins was popular at the time). The past is another country.

Most of my 1970s family holidays were at Pontins, that's exactly as I remember it.

The past is another country, yes, and imo in a lot of ways a better one.

DH's family used to go to Pontins in 1970s and apparently children were left alone in the chalets in the evenings whilst parents went to entertainment. Staff used to patrol and if they heard crying an announcement would be made "Crying child in Chalet 27" ....

That's right ducky My parents were super cautious and would never have done that if there'd been any suggestion that there were problems with it so it must have worked out OK.

I've mentioned the "chalet patrol" at work and my younger colleagues swung between utter disbelief and outright horror.
Admittedly it's always been rather dodgy, but post Madeleine McCann it seems incomprehensible that our parents ever considered it

You don't have to go back as far as the 70s for total listening services, I had holidays in 2 different UK hotels in the early 2000s and it was a normal part of life. Despite MM the risk of such services is exactly the same as it always was, the world didn't instantly become a more dangerous place because of one sad incident.

Butlins used to have picture of health competitions in the early 1980s where you would wear a swimsuit. I came second a couple of times in it between the ages of 4 and 7

The children were playing in the sea, all just wearing trunks regardless of being boys or girls...

Eh? That's ok. We do that now don't we? They are just children.