Red coat

Red coat, Redcoat or Redcoats may refer to:

Butlins Redcoats

Redcoat is the name given to frontline staff at Butlins holiday camps in the UK. A Redcoat has duties ranging from adult entertainer or children's entertainer to stewarding.

History

The first Redcoat was Norman Bradford. When Sir Billy Butlin opened his first Butlins in Skegness he realised that his guests were not engaging with activities in the way he had envisioned, most kept to themselves, and others look bored. He asked Norman (who was engaged as an engineer constructing the camp) to take on the duty of entertaining the guests which he did with a series of ice breakers and jokes. By the end of the night the camp was buzzing and the Butlins atmosphere was born.

The same night Butlin decided that for his camp to work he would require an army of people to carry out the same job as Norman, and the role of Redcoat was formed.

Uniform

To make his new army stand out, Butlin asked Norman to purchase a uniform. Norman later returned with a jacket in the camp colours of, blue, primrose yellow and white; however, Butlin found the look to be too authoritarian and decided they should wear red blazers with white lapels and the Redcoat uniform was born. The first uniforms were made by Billie Ditchfield who became one of the first two female Redcoats (the other was Kay Berry).