As part of Skip the Queue’s mini-series celebrating 90 years of BALPPA, Laura Baxter is joined by Gary Smart BEM, Chairman of Harbour Park in Littlehampton, to reflect on a lifetime in the UK attractions industry. Gary shares the story of his family’s journey from the circus to the seaside, the transformation of the park into Harbour Park, and the challenges of running an independent coastal attraction. Gary also talks about his decades of involvement with BALPPA, how the industry has changed, and what it takes to build an attraction that can be passed on to the next generation.
In this episode of Skip the Queue, Laura Baxter is joined by Gary Smart, chairman of Harbour Park in Littlehampton and a man who has spent his entire working life in this industry.
The park opened in 1932, built by Billy Butlin on the site of an old fort and windmill. In 1977 it was bought by the Billy Smart circus family, and in 1994 Gary led the redevelopment that turned Smart's Amusement Park into the Harbour Park we know today - sat right on the beach, next to a working harbour, and free to walk into.
Gary has served the wider industry through BALPPA and IAAPA, and was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to leisure parks and tourism. His sons now run the park day to day. This year he also received BALPPA’s Lifetime Membership Award.
They talk about what's changed across four decades, what stubbornly hasn't, and what it takes for a small independent seaside park to still be standing.
This episode is part of our mini-series marking 90 years of BALPPA, looking at the people and businesses shaping the UK attractions industry.
Show references:
Our Guest Host in partnership with BALPPA:
Laura Baxter - Founder of YourCMO
BALPPA - https://www.balppa.org/
Our Guest:
Gary Smart — Chairman, Harbour Park
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Merac. We provide attractions with the tools and expertise to create world-class digital interactions. Very simply, we're here to rehumanise commerce. Your guest host is Laura Baxter.
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Credits:
Written by Laura Baxter (YourCMO)
Edited by Steve Folland
Produced by Emily Burrows and Sami Entwistle (Plaster)
Gary Smart: Surrounded by animals, surrounded by enormous characters from every single walk of life. People literally did run away to join the circus.
Laura Baxter: In this episode of Skip the Queue, we're joined by Gary Smart, chairman of Harbour Park in Littlehampton and a man who has spent his entire life working in the industry.
Gary Smart: You start work pretty much as soon as you go. Your mum and dad's doing it, your cousin's doing it, your uncles are doing it, and you just get, you know, stuck in.
Laura Baxter: The park opened in 1932, built by Billy Butlin on the site of an old fort and windmill. In 1977, it was bought by the Billy Smart Circus family. And in 1997, Gary led the redevelopment and created the Harbour Park that we know today. Sat right on the beach next to a working harbour and free to walk into.
Gary Smart: I have a lot in common with farmers. We want the right type of weather at the right time to maximise everything.
Laura Baxter: Gary has served the Boyd industry through BALPPA and IAAPA and was awarded the British Empire Medal for services to leisure, parks and tourism. This year, he also received BALPPA's lifetime membership award. We talk about what's changed across the four decades, what hasn't, and what it takes for a small, independent seaside park to still be standing today.
Gary Smart: Don't be frightened of change. Things run their course. You can put an ice skate rink in and it does five good years and then it goes down. Okay, time to change. Try to put something else in. Never be frightened of change.
Laura Baxter: Welcome to Skip the Queue, the podcast where you get to meet some of the incredible people working in the visitor attractions. Brought to you by Merac. This episode is part of our mini series marking 90 years of BALPPA, looking at the people and businesses shaping the UK attractions industry. I'm your host, Laura Baxter.
Gary Smart: It was a privileged upbringing. It was like living permanently on film set, surrounded by animals, surrounded by enormous characters from every single walk of life. People literally did run away to join the circus and it was a huge operation. Our big top, which was Canvas, held 6,000 people. We were moving that every week, sometimes for three days in a smaller town. We had three shows on a Saturday and two during the week, and so we had to move it on a Saturday night. We spent Sunday building it up. We would then open, as we say, the zoo side of things.
Gary Smart: The elephants and the big parades we put on would come from the train station, which took a lot of our animals, and it would be like the Pied Piper would then come from the train station with 20 elephants and, you know, the whole Cecil B DeMille thing and would arrive at the site, thousands of people would see this huge blue big top, which of course was. It was very good for ticket sales, let alone all the pre publicity that we've been doing. And that's how it was. We went, we embraced television, we had 20 million viewers, we linked up with the BBC, we did three or four shows a year with them for many years. It was a great association and of course along the way, a big organisation like that cannot actually work without teams of people.
Gary Smart: And you know, one of the very first things you ever learn, and I learned it as a young lad and you start work pretty much as soon as you go book. I mean, it sounds odd now but you do. Your mum and dad's doing it, your cousin's doing it, your uncles are doing it and it just get, you know, stuck in and whether it's selling ice creams or balloons and that sort of thing, and you have to take on teams of sellers where you were at the town and you very quickly learn who could do it and who couldn't. And you very quickly learn to put the right people in the right positions, even though they were only casuals and they were so willing to work as well in those days.
Gary Smart: And we used to put signs outside the site, you know, casual labour wanted 6am on a Sunday morning to come and if you can work hard and then you'd get a pound and a free ticket to see the circus. And they worked jolly hard to do that. So enormous lessons, learning about team building, watching my father on the marketing side, how we would bill a town and how you would get the bills up or what time of year that they should be out two weeks before, and then going out to check that they'd been put up, just a whole thing. It was like, you know, an apprenticeship.
Laura Baxter: What an extraordinary apprenticeship. Imagine if something like that was on offer for today's generation of education leavers. Because like you say, the amount of skills, life skills that it teaches you, sheer work ethic alone, I just think must be absolutely extraordinary.
Gary Smart: It was very hard work. But, you know, in those days, it wasn't long after the war, the 50s and the early 60s, everybody did work hard, they expected to work hard. You know, everybody had been in the forces, they were disciplined and that's how it was. Everybody mucked in. But I learned things from people that, you know, how to stitch canvas, how to splice a rope, how to pull out the tent, how to keep it up in a storm, which is like a Gigantic sailing ship, because you've got two miles square of canvas and, you know, we once brought the fire brigade in to water it down in Swansea because that tightens up the canvas and you have to keep it tight in a storm. A slack tent soon gets blown away.
Laura Baxter: Amazing. Wow. What an incredible history and upbringing already. So you're in a travelling circus, but the family buys the park in 1977. What was the plan there to kind of anchor down to one location?
Gary Smart: Well, before that, I have to take you how we actually came off the road. We bought a large estate not far from where our winter quarters was in Winkfield, and it was owned by the Dodge car motor people. And my father, watching him, had this idea and he drove it forward and opened what became Windsor Safari Park, which is now Legoland. And then we came off of Tor. It was opened in '68, '69, and then I came off tour in '71 and I was put in charge up in the dolphin area.
Gary Smart: I had to learn under a supervisor there and then later on put in charge of animals, working under, you know, a head gamekeeper and all the family was working at it and it was a phenomenal success and it was a big part and we didn't have to move it every week, which was, you know, quite something. But it was sort of learning. And as we're going along, I had a wonderful relationship with a zoo vet called David Taylor, who unfortunately has passed on now, who took me under his wing and just taught me an enormous amount. And eventually what happened? The park had to be sold due to family politics, unfortunately. And so that's how, in '77, we then went down, I say we, my brother and sister and I came down to Little Hampton.
Gary Smart: You know, if you think about it was in the middle of winter and we'd been used to sort of living in Windsor and Winkfield and the safari park and all the sort of excitement that goes with that. And I arrive in a seaside town, Littlehampton, dead of winter. Not the greatest of places, I have to say, that would endure you to stay. But I had to knuckle down. We had purchased it from the rank organisation that owned Butlins at that time. And it had been a Butlins amusement park and a store for all of the. They called them camps in those days, the holiday centres. And I set about sort of getting to grips with it. You know, everything was painted pink and blue. The batlin's pink and blue, as they say.
Gary Smart: It was a very different kettle of fish and I had to sort of learn on the job very quickly. But my experience on the circus stood me in very good stead and I then, you know, had a small team around me and I then started building teams. The first season was a huge learning curve, you know, and it was just like night and day. All of a sudden you're sort of on your own and you might see somebody on the prom, you might not that day. And then all of a sudden, you know, you open at Easter and you had thousands of people coming down. And of course a lot of coach travel in those days as well wasn't rare to see 50 or 60 coaches pulling in. So it was quite something.
Laura Baxter: In that time then between '77 when it was purchased and then we've got quite a big gap until you develop it into the Harbour Park we know today. So before that development, what did it look like? Did you catch carry on running it similar to Butlins?
Gary Smart: For the first year, yes, I had one or two of the crew that had been there prior and it must have been a huge change for them working for a public company and then all of a sudden working for a family company. It was basically infrastructure was worn out. We had a lot of people renting concessionaires, you know, operating a few rides and amusement arcades and midways and that sort of thing. And it was just sort of finding my feet of like who was in the zoo. And it wasn't until sort of '79 that I started to make changes. In those days we're called Smart Amusements and I noticed that we got. We were pretty much, it was 18 to 24 year olds.
Gary Smart: We had a lot of scooter problems in the summer, you know, with the people coming down in those days that the pubs are closing at 2 o' clock and so, you know, you knew, come half off to three o' clock they would be rolling out and. And all the fun that comes with that. Which led me while to think about things. We bought a new ride and we started taking back some of the concessions and then I started looking at the customer base and I sort of went to IAAPA in 1980 and I then met Jeffrey Thompson, who had been known to me and others, and he sort of introduced me to BALPPA and sort of suggested that, you know, where I should go and what I should see.
Gary Smart: And in those days, of course it was. A lot of the attractions were run by families. There weren't very many big companies involved. There was a big company called trust house '40s that had places that would bring in family companies who would run the rides and concessions, so as to speak. So, you know, it was a very different place in those days. But we then started and I changed the name in sort of late '80s to smart amusement park to reflect. It was not just an amusement arcade, there was more to it. I brought in live entertainment. I started using the circus skills, I updated stuff but still we had to paint everything. I didn't always paint it pink and blue, I didn't particularly like those colours. But you had this sort of fresh coat of paint hides a multitude of sins.
Laura Baxter: Absolutely.
Gary Smart: It was more sort of. I had to go deeper into it and I realised I wasn't going to do it all in one go. So it was kind of a process of slowly going forward, building a team of people. I had a few people that came to join me from the Windsor Safari Park when that sold. I'm a mechanic and a front house manager. Of course we had to do all that on the circus, so we were aware of all those disciplines. And then sort of by, I think it was '97, I realised we were going to bite the bullet. We were going to go for it and change it into Harbour Park and that meant knocking down the great big building that was on it and actually making the new building a much smaller building because they could go in and not spend a penny.
Gary Smart: They would just come in out of the ray and just sit there from the coaches. And I thought, well, if you've got a smaller building and they're going to come in and they're going to have to buy something, they have to buy a drink, they're going to have to go in the arcades. And that's how Harper Park came along. And along with some of those decisions was the changing of equipment. It was a big decision to take the roller coaster out. But by then of course you had bigger parks. Chessington had gone through a major change, Thorpe Park was on the horizon, Alton Towers had come along and they'd put the corkscrew in. And so things are changing. And of course little park on the Seaside wasn't ever going to compete with that.
Gary Smart: So I had to consider, well, what have I got, they haven't? And we've got the sea, we've got the beach and we had the river working harbour. So we majored on that and that's how the park got its name, because we did have the harbour there, you know, here if you look at the infrastructure works involved with the harbour, you can go to some international destination attractions now, we had it already and we didn't have to pay for it to be there, you know, people watching the ships come up and down and that sort of thing. And of course the beach. So that's what led us to Harbour Park. But of course, along the way I got sidetracked.
Gary Smart: I took on the leader at Worthing, which is like basically a short pier, and they dropped a tank into it and opened it up as a swimming pool. Previously, when it had first been built in the early 20s, it had just been a platform for entertainment over the sea. So I took that and made it into a family entertainment centre, listed building and all. So that taught me a great deal about, you know, working with conservation officers. And I got the budget wrong because whenever you deal with a listed building, you've got to go up by 25% minimum. Yeah. And that's what we did. But then also in '93, the family decided we would take out a theatre circus with 1250 seats. So I then got heavily involved in that and indeed took it out. So it was a kind of like, you know, other things were distracting me.
Gary Smart: I thoroughly enjoyed my BALPPA work. I got a place on BALPPA in 1981 on the board and I stayed on there until a year or two ago. And it was great to be with people, you know, John Collins, I've said Jeffrey Thompson, Eric Hughes, Jimmy Jones from Yarmouth, Jimmy Botton from Skegness and Alfred Kadona from Scotland. These were wonderful characters. You could not help but learn from them. And of course I'd meet them on trips abroad to IAAPA. And this is how I got involved with IAAPA. You know, I on the board twice, on the executive committee twice, and it was just a process of opening up my horizons as to what's possible. And even if you go somewhere and bring one idea back, this is what Geoffrey Thompson used to tell me.
Gary Smart: And I'd be on trips with Geoffrey, going down to the west country sometimes, and he said, "Oh, pull up here. I haven't seen that set of dodgy before. And this is a fun fair that's on the side." And he taught me, you can learn something from anyone of how to do things. And he always had a notebook with him and just made a note about something he'd seen. So I had some great mentors and BALPPA was the vehicle for learning and for getting involved with that. And I offer on a larger scale, when you go to America and you go to the workshops there, I'd frequently come back probably one or two ideas that I could put into action and the trip would pay for itself 10 times over. And it was the excitement and enthusiasm was infectious.
Laura Baxter: Well, I was going to ask what. What has kept you coming back to BALPPA all of these years? But it sounds like that's exactly it. It's the knowledge, the ability to learn and just the inspiration of the people and the places that you get to engage with.
Gary Smart: I mean, and it still goes on to this day. I mean, there are challenges, of course, for being a small park. I mean, we've now, we've gone away now the big corporations are involved far more than ever before. There are still family companies, you know, that are there. You mentioned the Mancy's at Paultons Park, which do a great job. That's again, Blackpool Pleasure Beach still going. That's a family company, which is great to see. And we, you know, we all sort of look at each other and try to raise the bar. It's always about raising the standard. And we have challenges which affect us all to a lesser and greater degree. Government challenges, bureaucracy, you know, and I think this is one of the things that BALPPA was always good at, was lobbying.
Gary Smart: And we would go and meet a minister and ministers always used to say to us, we like to see the people it actually affects. I just said, well, we're the ones you're putting your hand in the pocket for. Yeah. And of course, I had some great teachers there.
Laura Baxter: Yeah, fantastic. Yeah. I think the network. But the knowledge within that network is. It's priceless, really, that experience across the industry and nationally, globally. Like I say, everybody has challenges on varying scales, but nine times out of 10, if you're going through something, there's probably nine times out of 10, someone in BALPPA that's been through it or has even got the outcome and the solution to it for you, because they've lived it themselves. And that's absolutely extraordinary to lean on a network like that.
Gary Smart: I mean, it's great. When you've got a problem, you know, and they say, well, so. And so, you know, I had, you know, he had a problem like that, or she did something like that. And so you'd phone them up, or if they didn't know, you'd phone up a few friends and they, yes, phone this one, I know, you know, in Soviet. And I think that was enormously important and I think still is.
Laura Baxter: What has been the biggest challenge to stay an independent seaside family park, because the seaside alone brings its other challenges with it as well from location, what are the big challenges and how have you guys managed to overcome them and still be standing and busy today?
Gary Smart: Well, it's a work in progress. Government presents challenges and we've had quite a few come along in the last couple of years. Of course, the two things that never change, that have always affected us right back from when we were running the circus and safari park and the nightclubs and the bars and all of those things we used to do was the weather and school holidays. They are the two biggest effects that have on the business that largely you cannot control much. I know I was on the county council and I was talking to councillors there and I said, do you realise that we only operate on a six week season?
Gary Smart: When I talk to people I know in America, for example, where they have 12 weeks and other countries that have equally at that sort of same time, I say our season is six weeks and some county councillors are saying you have it in your power to extend them by three days. That makes an enormous difference tourism business in your county. They just didn't, they couldn't comprehend what those challenges, why, you know, that they could do that and how it would make such a difference. And I still now bang that drum and I think also the weather and where we are makes a big, you know, a big difference. Our maintenance bills are very high near the coast, the salt air and of course these peaks and troughs that you can do very little about.
Gary Smart: So right now we're making hay because the sun is shining, you know, but we're like farmers. I have a lot in common with farmers. We want the right type of weather at the right time to maximise everything. One of my mantras to my sons who took over the business now and are running it, and I go along sometime and we have our weekly cash flow and management meetings and I always say to them, "Keep an eye on the expenses because if you don't keep an eye on them, you can really get into trouble so quickly."And now it's very difficult for new people coming along. I remember when the work Health and Safety came out in 1974, I was charged with writing the safety procedures for the safari path. All this big new acts coming out in '74 wasn't there before that?
Gary Smart: When you talk to people now, they don't know what it was like before. And of course right up there with the Health and Safety is now HR and all the processes. And I say frequently to my sons and to others who are in the business who have just come into it, be careful you don't get driven by processes too much. Don't lose that entrepreneurial spirit, that idea, you know, believe in yourself and if you believe in a project, see it through and learn from the mistakes and, you know, the person's not been born that hasn't made a mistake, but you need to be careful not to get bogged down and drowned in bureaucratic red tape.
Laura Baxter: Yeah, it's definitely another challenge within the industry, isn't it? There is a lot of it now, rightly so in some places, but, yeah, it's another thing to contend with. And I think you've actually summarised it lovely there. Because we work in such a joyful, creative, entrepreneurial industry. Our industry is literally selling fun, isn't it? It's selling memories to then have that restricted, as much as it possibly can be. We don't want to lose sight of that core product, which is just to produce wonderful memories for our families.
Gary Smart: And that's right. And I have heard several times people come up with a great idea and I've heard, I've been in the same room when people say, "Yeah, well, we've got a rule that prevents from doing that. Or have you thought this is not." And that's where I say, "If your idea holds water and if you've already done the pros and cons yourself and you still believe in it, then see it through." And it takes a lot of doing. Believe in yourself and see it through.
Laura Baxter: And you've mentioned your sons, obviously, run the park day to day now. How is that to hand over something that you've invested your entire career and life into? Are you somebody that found that quite an easy move to do, or did you kind of want to keep hold of little bits of it along the way?
Gary Smart: It's a difficult process, I have to say. It's made a little bit easier, I think, because it's my family. And although I never dreamt my family would come in to the business, one was going to be a teacher, the other one was in the army. But they both then sort of came to me and then talked about or interviewed me really about coming into the business. I was wondering about, you know, what's going to happen to the future here, you know, because I can't keep going on with this. And I had a pretty good team. And so it was a gradual process. But remember being a family business, they were brought up working holidays and bank holidays. They saw me having to work six and seven days a week. So it was a sort of a natural.
Gary Smart: The work ethic was there right from the beginning. And it's a gradual process of handing over. I will be truthful, I think Covid helped that hasten along somewhat. Never happened in my lifetime. I remember asking my father, who was 96, you ever had this? He said, even in the war, Gary, we never closed. Quite something. When you talk to somebody that went through the war and they had a big top to put the dodgyms under during the bombing, they never closed. And then here we are being closed. So they did take to it. It was a gradual process. They knew the business and I knew it was in good hands. I know that they now own and run it and I come along once a week or when asked to come in, and we sit there.
Gary Smart: My role now is to advise and I have to accept the fact that sometimes my advice will not be taken, but at least it's been given. I'm kind of like the canary in the mine.
Laura Baxter: That is a phenomenal analogy. I absolutely love that. Now I'm picturing you in yellow feathers, Gary. I want to talk specifically about Harbour Park, because for me and for most of us, Brits, a UK seaside pier park is, it's just ingrained in British culture, certainly for a huge chunk of generations. It was your family holiday growing up. That's kind of what you did. You went down to the seaside and you had these amazing bucket and spade holidays with the donkey rides and there was always a pair and some amusements and if you were lucky, a couple of goes on some rides as well. That landscape has changed hugely now in terms of the staycation, as they now call it, and the UK holiday market. Yet all of these piers are still around and they're still going.
Laura Baxter: When we think of yourselves, we think of South End Adventure Island, Brighton Palace Pier. What is it about your locations and your parks that has meant you have withstood that test of time and that real shift in audience and demographic and changes to how people spend their leisure time?
Gary Smart: People like to go as a family, particularly young family, to the seaside, particularly when it's warm. And it's been a great British tradition. In fact, we put our Union Jack everywhere we can because we are selling tradition. I've got people coming back because their grandparents bought them and now they're bringing their kids and it's a tradition. And of course, as we've gone forward, so technology has changed. We've had to change the ride offerings. We've had to look very carefully at the demographics. Who are we appealing to? We're a small outfit, so we can't appeal for such a broad base anymore. So it's mum, dad and 12 and unders. That's firmly our base. And of course they still like it. The weather, of course is key and the school holidays is key. But this is true for all the others in the business as well.
Gary Smart: As clever as we like to think we are with marketing and all the tools we now have at our disposal, with the, you know, the social media and all the great stuff we have, those two factors affect us greatly and exercise our minds. But we do have a great loyalty from customers. They keep coming back, they like what we've got on offer.
Laura Baxter: I think one of the most powerful things that I think we as Brits and particularly seaside sounds do particularly well is actually we lean into nostalgia. We don't try and over modernise it or really reinvent the wheel. We lean into what we know lives in people's happy memories and let them recreate that rather than trying to become something we're not. As you said earlier, you're not one of the big corporate giants, you're not trying to be. You lean into your own strengths and actually what that can produce as a special day out for families.
Gary Smart: That's true. And again, it's important to have a team. You're always team building. I go back to the circus days. It's all about your team of people.
Laura Baxter: I think our industry attracts some of the best characters, as you said. Again, I think probably down to the nature of the products that we sell, but there are just some phenomenal minds in this industry. Really innovative, creative, entrepreneurial, fantastic people. I kind of get excited every year to see what announcements of new are coming out across the attractions industry. What new concoction is somebody thought of be that an event, a themed land, a ride, whatever it might be. We really do see some of the best examples in this industry.
Gary Smart: That's true. And as a smaller park, you have to look around and think, how can I take an element of that and incorporate it? Don't be frightened of change. Things run their course. You know, you can put an ice skate ring in and it does five good years and then it goes down. Okay, time to change, try to put something else in. Never be frightened of change and adapt, which is almost like the survival book, Adapt and Survive really for small parts particularly. I mean, our coach trade was a big part of it. That has fallen off alarmingly now, but we now have far more people coming in their own cars, you know, and you know, you've got to look at your spend per heads and I look.
Gary Smart: It never ceases to amaze me the scientific sort of study that goes into where, "Oh, where can we get more out of that per cap or how can we do that? Oh no, we won't advertise there because we only got this back on there." It's far more scientific now, far more evidential based than ever was in my beginnings. When I looked, we used to look at my father doing the advertising and the free press and all of the stuff we used to do. It's come a long way. Of course, there was no Internet in those days and how that's changed enormously. Everybody's got the power of the internet to their fingertips. There's no such thing as a secret anymore. Everybody's got a telegraph, everybody's got a camera and it's great, you know. That's the way it is.
Laura Baxter: Yeah, absolutely. And like I say, as long as you adapt, then you'll survive. It's the ones that are probably scared of change that perhaps may not be around in the future. I'd like to get some words of wisdom. So if you had a young operator today, what is the one thing you would tell them about how to survive business for the long haul?
Gary Smart: Believe in yourself, believe in your ideas and build a good team.
Laura Baxter: Nice and simple. But again, it all comes back to people, doesn't it? And I think we always say this, that our guests never know the breadth of what goes into opening the doors for them each day. And it's always a phenomenal team that's behind the scenes that's helped make that happen. So yeah, I think building the right team around you is probably one of the most important things you can do.
Gary Smart: I mean, even Disney had a great team. I mean he was a great person and he believed in himself and but he had to have a team with him. No one person can make this happen. Even the people that operate the rides, they're important team members. Somebody can go away with a bad impression of your park because they haven't been dealt with properly.
Laura Baxter: Well, Gary, thank you so much for joining us today. What an incredible story. From circus to safari to now amusement park on the pier. Are you, are you officially retired now from business?
Gary Smart: Semi.
Laura Baxter: Semi retired. How are you finding that?
Gary Smart: Actually, I'm quite okay with it. I was ready. There's no two ways about that. I was ready. Obviously I see the challenges coming along, I hear the challenges coming along. It's a bit of frustration and you know, particularly with political lobbying. I think perhaps the industry perhaps needs to take a second look at how they're actually doing that because it's really hurting business now, these government decisions, and it's through no fault of the businesses, but we're seen as a bit of a cash cow. And I think that, you know, there's only a limit, there's only so much one's got. At the end of the day, we have to make a profit, we're selling fun, but if we don't make a profit, we won't be there.
Laura Baxter: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, I totally agree. It is wonderful to have you, one of BALPPA's long serving members. As we said, you've got the lifetime membership award, I believe, the first to receive it as well. What does that mean to you?
Gary Smart: Means a great deal. After some 45 years being involved with BALPPA, it was an enormous surprise and rather humbling.
Laura Baxter: Wonderful. And you're not going anywhere anytime soon, are you? You're still going to stay involved?
Gary Smart: God willing.
Laura Baxter: Gary, thank you so much for joining us on this very special BALPPA episode of Skip the Queue. An incredible story and one that we're absolutely privileged to have on record. So thank you so much for joining us today.
Gary Smart: Thank you.
Laura Baxter: This episode was written by Laura Baxter, edited by Steve Folland and produced by Emily Burrows and Sami Entwistle from Plaster, as well as Wenalyn from Skip the Queue HQ.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please like, share and comment on the episode in your podcast app Apple Podcasts, Spotify. It all helps to spread the word about us and the amazing attractions we work with. Be sure to visit skipthequeue.fm for this episode's transcripts and listen to the rest of the season so far. Once again, I've been your host, Laura Baxter, and I'll see you next time.