JOHN and June (not their real names) met on a dating website. How do I know? Because they told me all about it - through the paper-thin walls - at Butlins in Bognor Regis.

I also now know that June didn't enjoy “the hassles” in Egypt, whereas Vegas was “lovely, you'd like Vegas, John”. June also enjoyed Pompeii, where “you can see how they were before the eruption. Oh, my God, the looks on their faces, John.”

This conversation went on and on. Occasionally John piped up. “I saw a lad peeing off the balcony above us earlier,” he remarked before discussing a previous date: “She couldn't handle her drink. Once she kept on puking. All evening... and in the morning. It was disgusting, June.”

All this was related at 3.15am on a Saturday in a chalet on Barracuda Place on a “We love the 1970s” over-18s “adult break”.

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• Butlins, Bognor Regis, Sussex

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John and June woke me up. I'd been asleep (the only time I really enjoyed Butlins) since midnight. Earlier in the evening I had watched Boney M perform Ma Baker and their catchy No 1 hit Rivers of Babylon.

The show had taken place in a cavernous room full of people dressed as Roman soldiers, schoolgirls, superheroes and African-American disco stars with Afro wigs. People wore T-shirts that said: “Tour Rules Apply”, “Anj - Maid of Honour”, and “Piggy's Stag Do, 2008”.

Sipping wine poured from a tap into smeared plastic glasses, my fellow sufferer and I sat next to a bald best man with an obscenity scrawled across his forehead, and a groom-to-be wearing a shirt covered in graffiti of the “I take it up the ***” variety.

Our table was sticky with spilt drink and covered in empty shot bottles (three for £5). The carpet looked as though someone had been sick on it.

I suppose we should have known what to expect on a “We love the 1970s” break at Butlins, but the sheer scale of the raucousness - and I came with an open mind - was a complete surprise.

So did the “chalet”. I could have booked a room at the fancy on-site Shoreline Hotel (£63pp a night), but I wanted a more real Butlins experience. And boy was it real.

The chalet was in a row of POW-style blocks. It didn't have towels or soap. “You can buy those,” said a “guest relations” woman. And I won't go into the other sounds coming from John and June at 5.30am.

The food was boring. The atmosphere felt threatening. I overheard racist comments from a visitor referring to “the blacks”. Many people seemed drunk.

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