Description
Book SynopsisFrom a bag of chips to cod confit: a tour of twenty English seaside resorts What is it about the English seaside that drives us in our millions to stroll the promenades of the plethora of resorts we have in this country? How can we understand the allure of the gaudy and raucous funfair, sand in our toes and fish and chips in our hands. Or is it, in the words of Charles Dickens, the ocean that draws us in ‘winking in the sunlight like a drowsy lion’. When the author discovered that his home town had come bottom in a ‘Which?’ review of the best to worst seaside resorts in the UK, not once, or twice, but for three years on the trot, it spurred him on to go on his own tour of these resorts. He finds a wealth of fascinating histories, eccentricities and English quirkiness, mixed up with deep-seated problems of poverty, poor health and uncertain futures. But he also discovers that our resorts are diverse places, reinvigorated by creative thinking, new entrepreneurship and fresh investment. Our English seaside resorts are alive and well, carefully curating their brands and images, seeking out new ideas and funding and using the skills and abilities of their residents to drive changes with local impact. This book will encourage you to make your own visits and learn a little about the seaside resort, a curiously English creation that we all inspired, abandoned and then re-discovered.
Table of ContentsChapter One: I do like to be beside the seaside 9 Chapter Two: Skegness: the return 30 Chapter Three: Hunstanton: Sunny Hunny, home of tennis and brutalism 46 Chapter Four: Blakeney and Wells-next-the-Sea: ancient ports to modern picturesque 61 Chapter Five: Cromer: lifeboats, crabs and the end of the pier show 77 Chapter Six: Exmouth: a little bit of everything 89 Chapter Seven: Sidmouth and Beer: Devon’s finest 101 Chapter Eight: Bridlington and Filey: lobsters, Dad’s Army and Billy Butlin 115 Chapter Nine: Lymington and Southsea: salt, sailors, seawater baths and a suburb by the sea 129 Chapter Ten: Bamburgh and Spittal: an astonishing castle and the last beach in England 148 Chapter Eleven: Folkestone and Hastings: entrepreneurship on the south coast 163 Chapter Twelve: Weymouth and Weston-super-Mare: lost opportunities by the finest of bays 186 Chapter Thirteen: Newquay and St Mawes: surf’s up and so are prices 208 Chapter Fourteen: Save our seaside 224 Bibliography 235 Also by this author 252
