I hadn’t been to Benidorm since I was 11 when I went on a cheap family holiday many years ago. When a mate suggested a spring break I jumped, but not without trepidation. Benidorm, in the south west of Spain, on the Costa Blanca, has been a holiday destination since the 1950s and the ‘glory days’ of Franco. In a café on the promenade there is a huge black-and-white blow-up photograph of the famous front dated 1963 showing sun loungers on the beach.

The resort has long had a reputation as the cheap-as-chips Blackpool in the sun destination for Brits. Lager louts, stags and hens, weekenders looking for a good time.

Sitting on the runway at Edinburgh airport waiting for take-off my flight has a number of parties, my fellow passengers are rowdy but friendly. There’s a party of women in pink-and-tinsel cowboy hats. They make no bones about having a good time, there’s a bloke in wig and velour. I first thought he was in drag but it turned out to be an approximation of Austin Powers.

Before take-off the cabin was noisy with excitement until a female voice over the Tannoy hailed the assembled company with the deathly: “If ye don’t sit down and belt up youse’ll be no going anywhere!” The short flight saw little disruptiveness but on landing in the bus to the hotel I heard the pink-stetsoned cackling ladies sitting behind. “Marie dinna embarrass us, keep your puppies covered!” Marie replied: “They’re better than your bulldogs!” And their compatriots cracked up laughing. As the party left the bus I see they are drinking from Coke cans using penis-shaped straws.

It’s all good-natured fun, with a whiff of the ways goose, the trades fortnight, the Donald McGill saucy seaside postcard and the kiss-me-quick hats. A variation on the latter can be picked up in innumerable souvenir shops in Benidorm. Dayglo tee-shirts are emblazoned with assorted obscene slogans.

Apart from the sunshine Benidorm has two things to commend it (and I don’t mean Marie’s puppies). One is reliable sunshine, the other cheap booze. On the first day, at the hotel pool, I overhear a middle-aged Irish woman approaching her pals and bearing two brimming tumblers of foaming ale: ‘The beer’s only two euros a pint, we can get randan’d every night!’

Another attraction of Benidorm is the huge sandy bay. It’s now surrounded by enormous, high-rise hotels and apartment blocks. One, the Intempo Tower, is in the shape of an elongated letter M and is 47 storeys, 188 meters (618 feet) high. It’s the tallest (and ugliest) building on the skyline.

The town’s long been a favourite with the British as witnessed by the TV sitcom Benidorm. And there’s not much that’s Spanish about it. There may be fish and chips and the full English belly-buster breakfast, curry and kebabs and Thai massage but you’ll be hard-pushed for paella or tapas. It’s also popular, especially in winter, with old people (and their parents).

The town’s wide pavements are flat and well maintained, ideal for the mobility scooters that can be rented by the day or week on almost every street corner. The scooters are meant for those with mobility issues but they are also a great way to get around for the lazy, obese and inebriated. Part of the popularity of the scooters can be put down to ‘the Madge effect’ (a character in TV’s Benidorm who zooms around, puffing a ciggie, on a mobility scooter).

The young stags and hens who roam the streets in packs don’t seem to hook up. Perhaps the horror of upcoming nuptials promotes supportive and celibate solidarity. There are plenty of other distractions. In the stag night zone near my hotel (a modern, minimal place all white and glass) is a pub offering a mechanical bucking bronco, others have karaoke and lacklustre girls in transparent platform heels dancing on high, out of reach crow’s nests. Tribute acts predominate. One describes itself on posters as ‘one man, two legends’, another is a one-man Led Zeppelin, another is solo act doing Michael Jackson and Cher. The true Benidorm legend was the notorious Sticky Vicky, a native Spaniard whose act involved ping-pong balls.

Back at the hotel it’s Elvis night. A guy on a small stage is pounding out ‘Are You Lonely Tonight’ on an electric organ. A huge, muted TV screen is showing the UK weather report: It’s 12 degrees back home with a chance of sleet.