Margate, Kent
I have just finished reading "The Seaside" by Madeleine Bunting. It is not a novel. It is an affectionate but searching investigation of modern English seaside resorts with reference to history, poverty and regeneration projects. The book was very well-researched as the bibliography and notes testify but of course Madeleine Bunting also visited the resorts and talked to many people.
You might say that the English invented the seaside resort and out on the periphery of our island there are numerous distinctive seaside towns. They range from big, noisy resorts like Blackpool, Lancashire to smaller and more dignified coastal towns like Aldeburgh in Suffolk and Hornsea, Yorkshire.
There are not many English seaside resorts that I have not visited and partly for that reason, I found "The Seaside" pretty engaging.
Skegness, Lincolnshire
I guess that the heyday of the English seaside resort was between the two world wars. Working people flocked there in their holidays, staying in boarding houses and cheap hotels. There were theatres, pubs, pleasure gardens, amusement arcades and of course the inevitable fish and chips.
You could buy sticks of pink rock and cowboy hats with "Kiss Me Quick" printed on the front because at the seaside you could let your hair down, away from the usual restrictions of real life back in our industrial inland towns and cities. In English summers, the people filled our seaside resorts to bursting point.
It's not like that today. Nowadays, most of the bigger seaside resorts are struggling. They contain hidden poverty, drug addiction, common health problems and low life expectancy. Many of the old boarding houses were turned into "Homes of Multiple Occupancy" long ago. The inland English working class now pay for holidays in the sun - flying to Spain and Greece. Vacations that their grandparents could never have imagined taking.
I think the following extract from the book neatly sums up Madeleine Bunting's analysis:-
It's hard to make sense of the paradoxes of the English seaside resort: our
deep affection and appreciation alongside the neglect, decline and deprivation.
A place of second chances and last chances; a place for some to realise
their most cherished dreams and for others to find despair. (p321)
Fisherman resting on the beach at Hornsea, Yorkshire
It's so sad that these towns have now fallen out of favour. I've been to Hastings, Eastbourne, and Bexhill on Sea, and enjoyed walking along the beaches.
ReplyDeleteHastings is addressed in the book - an intense pocket of poverty exists there.
DeleteWe lived for many years down on the West Sussex coast in what was once a popular retirement destination town. Sadly, at around the time we left, many homeless and/or jobseekers were transferred down from London boroughs as the local authorities had no places left to house them. The first time we returned to visit our ex-next door neighbours, we were shocked to see how many men were just sitting outside on the seaside benches and on the pavements in and around the shopping centre, swigging from bottles wrapped in brown paper and looking generally the worse for wear. There were also obvious signs of a drug problem amongst the younger inhabitants too. Walking around at night was not a comfortable experience. It was sad to see the town's decline.
ReplyDeleteWas that Worthing or perhaps Bognor Regis?
DeleteI wonder whether the seaside, or at least some resorts, will have a resurgence because of cost and climate change.
ReplyDeleteWith climate change it is likely that Sheffield and Shepley will, in the future, become seaside resorts.
DeleteI've visited many British seaside towns and seen some of that deprivation, but even then they're often more pleasant than I expect them to be. I think I've heard so many horror stories that when I find I can enjoy them it's a pleasant surprise. Then again I'm usually not walking around at night.
ReplyDeleteI love Scarborough and Whitby where genuine poverty and connected social issues are present but kind of hidden from view.
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