A knot of racegoers were queueing for the gates to open as the Eastern Festival began yesterday, their sunhats and picnic boxes symbolic of the setting. Brighton has a better view, a touch more glitz and an irresistibly rackety past but it is Yarmouth that invokes the English seaside holiday defined by saucy postcards, slot machines and song-and-dance acts.

Come mid-September, the resort season has closed, along with predictably risqué headline acts such as Jim Davidson and Chubby Brown on Britannia Pier. This festival, though, has its own established attractions. Yesterday, earlycomers in the Lord Nelson Stand were greeted by an appropriate Madness track booming “Welcome to the house of fun ...”

It seemed too much to hope that Talk Of Saafend would win the first race but the odds-on shot obliged smoothly. Just like Southend, Yarmouth is a summer lung for Londoners without the will or the funds for something more glamorous. Scorned by many, such towns still serve a purpose, still find a place in many hearts.

The same can be said of Yarmouth's racecourse, a flat and fair galloping track with a straight mile that acts as a magnet to Newmarket's training legions. “A great track to ride,” Hayley Turner concurred after a steering job on the first winner. “You don't often have many excuses here.”

Back in March, though, Yarmouth found itself held up as a cheapskate place - and the accusers were not referring to the rows of pound stores just off the seafront. Bottom of the merit table created by racing's owners, after a lack of investment in prizemoney, the Easter Monday meeting was targeted for a boycott by trainers.

It was not entirely successful, as one horse was left in the maiden race identified for disruption and his local trainer, Christine Dunnett, duly claimed a walkover. Still, the action drew attention to an undeniable problem. John Gosden, one of training's most articulate spokesmen, called it “lamentable” that Northern Racing, Yarmouth's owner, had allowed the decline to occur - and his was one of the milder comments.

Grudges have plainly not persisted as Gosden, like most of his senior Newmarket colleagues, has runners here this week. In part, this can be credited to a private meeting that took place long after the incandescence of March had abated.

Charlie Moore, Yarmouth's clerk of the course, explained: “We felt it was unfortunate they had chosen to pick on Yarmouth but they had a point to put to us. We met the council of the National Trainers Federation in London and made a commitment to maintain the prize-money levels, even after cuts by the Levy Board. I don't believe there will be a repeat of the situation we had at Easter.”

Certainly not this week, anyway. Northern chooses to save up much of its Yarmouth prize fund for this fixture and today's well-supported card even boasts a £40,000 listed contest. The crowd will be up on yesterday's healthy attendance and tomorrow, with the failsafe theme of Ladies' Day, it will rise again. More than 15,000 are expected over the three days.

All of which is an autumn boon for a town that snoozed through yesterday morning with the air of impending hibernation. There was bowls on the seafront and bingo in the arcades but the carriage-ride horses stood idle and most of the cafés were empty. A billboard named Yarmouth's newest attraction as “Yesterday's World”, which sounded about right.

Right now, though, there is plenty going for places of such evidently low expectation. Elsewhere, Norfolk seems a rich county but four of its biggest country estates are up for sale, one more sign of these troubled times. Yarmouth, with its simple tastes and what its local paper claims as its “maverick spirit”, rises above it all.

Back at the racecourse, the lawns vanished beneath a sea of picnic chairs and rugs. The seafood bar, fish tangily fresh off the boats, did brisk business, and local real ales were served next door. The strongest of them was called Old Habits, which nicely sums up the feel of Yarmouth.