Camp manager Jeffrey Fairbrother spends his working life dealing with people - but Simon just wants to get away from it all. 

"I just love to escape to a friend's farm in the French Alps," he says. 

"Last year  I crashed out for four glorious weeks just resting in his peaceful vineyards, drinking wine and eating toast and pate. I don't like crowds, and would rather be with people I know, getting brown beside a private pool rather than a public beach. 

"Some evenings we'd drive down to the coast and have marvellous meals, looking out over the Mediterranean. 

"That's as far from Maplins as you can get!" 
 

Paul Shane

The man who plays Maplin's resident comic Ted Bovis always takes his holidays lying down. He can usually be found flat on his back in his Scarborough garden, somewhere among the weeds. 

"That's because I'm terrified of flying - and hate weeding," he says. 

"Years ago I flew to the Shetlands in something more like a paraffin budgie than a plane. It took off on its knees and it had a thatched propellor. I never thought I'd get out alive - and the experience put me off for life." 

Paul's had no better luck with other forms of transport. 

"Last year we thought we really would try to get away and so the wife and I took a coach to the south of France. 

"It was agony. Doris and I clambered out 24 hours later, both looking like the elephant man. All our limbs had swollen up and we could only shamble about. 

"I'd love to go to the Bahamas. That's a spot I want to lie all over. But it's a long flight - and a long way to walk back if anything goes wrong." 

So if you want to find Paul and Doris, try home first.

It's no surprise that the girl who plays amorous Gladys Pugh likes putting herself about a bit. 

"I like an active holiday, know what I mean?" she says. 

"I've got ants in my pants. Can't sit still for five minutes at a time. 

"I've got to be doing things. You know, climbing mountains, swimming in the sea, chattering to anyone who'll listen." 

For the last two years Ruth and husband John have shot off to Tenerife in March to get the sun. 

"I love the sun - it's so rejuvenating." says Ruth. 

"John insists we stay in a hotel because he says I work so hard I need a complete rest. 

"Secretly, though I'd rather like to do some cooking and I wouldn't mind a self-catering holiday in the Canaries next time. 

"I'd love to travel to the Far East - India, Singapore, Hong Kong - fascinating places. 

"But John did all that in the army, and he's not keen. 

"I think he's a bit afraid his past will catch up with him if I start poking around too closely out there!" 
 

Barry Howard

The man behind ballroom dancer Barry Stuart-Hargreaves says he goes wild on holidays. 

"I really do, it's all so invigorating!" 

And he's full of his great new holiday discovery - Florida. 

"I was so fed up with Spanish holiday hotels," he says. "The constant sounds of drills and hammering as new buildings shoot up all the time." 

"But the very thought of America terrified me. I'd imagined them brash and loud-mouthed, while I'm such a typical Englishman. Then I tried it. 

"Florida is just magic and the American people are really beautifully kind. I toured the Everglades, saw the alligators - and ordered myself a matching handbag and shoes. 

"Best of all I discovered Disney World. That really is a place for all children over the age of 30 - and I just squeeze into that category. 

"I tried all the rides and want to go on them all again. There is so much to wonder at, you can't take it all in at once. A bit like my performance in the show, dear."

Dotty chalet maid Peggy is a fixture at Maplins, but Su likes to get right away from the british seaside. 

"I can't swim so I don't spend any time in the sea," she says. 

"For the last two years I've travelled with a friend in Crete. We've gone walking in the mountains, meeting the Greeks who are ever so friendly. It was magic. 

"There was plenty of nightlife too. I like a bit of a dance but, most of all, I like to chat into the small hours and drink some of the old village wine." 

"Maplins could do with a bit more of that. Get the old knobbly knees really knocking that would." 
 

Tony & David Webb

The real-life twins share the same interests - and that includes holidays. 

Tony, married to a Finnish girl, takes his wife and two small children to an island summer home on a Finnish lake. 

"There's nowhere like it in the world," he says. 

"The silence is so immense, you can hear people talking a mile away." 

Brother David, who lives only a mile away from Tony's Suffolk home, also takes his two kids to Finland. 

But they try to avoid both taking their holidays at the same time!