Every so often I have to make a pilgrimage to Blackpool, to eat a chip butty
by that sepia sea. Cod and chips for about £4 with mushy peas at an extra
60p, the essential plate of (white) bread and butter thrown in . . . and I,
who’ve eaten in some of the best restaurants all over the world, fall on the
food in ecstasy.
You’ve never tasted cod and chips like those. This is the taste of the British
seaside in all its old-fashioned glory, the gastronomic equivalent of
tucking your dress into your knickers for a paddle, giggling at saucy
postcards, and putting the paper flag atop the highest turret of your
sandcastle.
Blackpool may be tacky, there may be plans to turn the resort into Britain’s
answer to Vegas — theme parks, casinos, glitzy shows — but to me it will
always be the place I first visited at the age of three, with my parents, on
a works outing from Liverpool to see the illuminations along the Golden
Mile. Blackpool’s brash colours by day, and magical fairyland by night, were
painted on the inner eye of my childhood, and I carried its jangle in my
head until I grew up.
Then - remembering my mother’s anxious veto on “Kiss Me Quick” hats (they were
common) - on nostalgic trips back I’d take great pleasure in a pink cowboy
hat trimmed with sequins. When at the seaside, do as the seasiders do - and
in Blackpool you could walk down the Golden Mile in a backless cocktail
frock and silver cowboy boots and nobody would give you a second glance.
The idea of the English seaside holiday is inseparable from the
industrialisation of Britain with its “wakes weeks” for the workers, the
development of the railways, and the craze for sea bathing. In the second
half of the 19th century, tranquil fishing villages such as Scarborough and
Brighton transformed themselves into holiday resorts, and local people
realised that there was money to be made.
In 1875 the local Blackpool newspaper summed up the appeal: “This is a place
where people expect to have a jolly, care-for-nothing scamper.” Penny slot
machines in arcades, buckets and spades, blow-up rubber rings and beds,
wind-breaks, deckchairs for hire, crazy golf courses, fairgrounds, candy
floss and sticks of rock . . . so it grew: all the panoply of the British
seaside holiday which is recognised even by those who never experienced the
chilly reality.
I’m writing this on a sunny day, but three days ago it was pouring with rain —
typical of the English summer — so anybody who takes holidays here will know
that travelling light is not an option. You simply have no idea whether you
will need the anorak, the Guernsey sweater and the wellies, in addition to
sunhat, camisole, shorts and flip-flops. Somewhere in my parents’ family
album there’s a picture of me making a sandcastle on the beach at Southport
one long-ago August — stout gabardine mac firmly belted, the hood tied under
my chin against the wind and rain.
When package holidays made foreign travel available to the widest number of
people, unspoilt parts of the Costa del Sol became hideous versions of
Blackpool, British youth burnt themselves to a crisp sleeping off the
hangover in Faliraki, while middle-class families invested in second homes
in Tuscany and the Dordogne, wanting — no, needing — to be sure of the
weather.
Yet does that mean their children are deprived of the bucket-and-spade
holiday? That they will never know the joy of spending a whole day on a
beach, when sandwiches squashy with mayonnaise are seasoned with sand and in
bed at night you can still feel the sensation of sand under your feet? I
believe that children thrive on English summer seaside holidays — and they
deserve to sample this part of our heritage at least once.
My own children liked nothing better than our holidays in Dittisham on the
River Dart in South Devon, when whole mornings could be filled putting bits
of bacon on crabbing lines, pulling up the squirming creatures with excited
squeals, dropping them in buckets and counting competitively — before
emptying them back into the murky depths by the pontoon. Boring? Never! And
despite the seductions of artificial nonsense such as PlayStations and other
gizmos, children still squeal, “Buy us crabbing lines!” and do the same
thing, every summer.
We took our children to France and Italy, too, but they preferred Devon — or
Bournemouth with their grandparents when they were tiny. Bournemouth has
seven miles of golden sand, and sand is paradise for children. Do you
remember digging a tunnel, just for the pleasure of watching the incoming
tide fill it? Racing down sand dunes or doing leaps from the top, knowing
the sand would cushion you? Watching a rock pool for hours, in
fascination/squeaky horror, lest a squirmy, crawly sea creature wave a
feeler in your direction? Or what about dodging waves at Mousehole or
Southwold when summer blows up a storm? The changing British weather turns
holidays into an adventure.
If foreign travel broadens the mind, seaside holidays at home can certainly
feed the soul. No, you don’t go to Blackpool for that, but to any of the
nooks and crannies of these beautiful islands — north, south, east or west —
where there are little cottages to be rented or small hotels to be booked,
and the air is clean, blowing in from the sea. I have travelled all over the
majestic United States, and surveyed Australia’s Red Centre from the top of
Uluru, and sat in silence waiting for chimps in a Ugandan forest, and yet a
recent sunset walk on the cliffs at Lulworth Cove made my heart contract
with unalloyed happiness. Lying on the stony beach at Durdle Door, I found
myself wondering why that small hissing rush of stones as the sea pulls in
and back still has the power to mesmerise, bringing utter peace.
The seaside is in our blood. We are an island people; even in the heartlands
of a small country the sea is never far away. I love the sense that we could
throw a couple of bags into the car and arrive at Weston-super-Mare in one
hour, Weymouth in two, Cornwall in three hours, Brighton in four — and so
on. It’s all there, with no airport queues, no lost luggage.
Yes, we have clogged roads at peak times, but time your travel sensibly and
the journey can be as pleasant as the arrival — listening to Radio 4 as the
dog sticks her head out the window, as dogs will. Perhaps it’s all about
nostalgia. We love to be beside the sea because it reminds us that some
things — the best things — never change, and that’s why each year families
create a new golden age of sandy memories, just as they always did.
A WHITER WASH: JUST HOW CLEAN IS YOUR BEACH?
Blue Flag beaches
Beaches must pass rigorous water cleanliness checks and be well run —
for example, be cleaned daily. Thus, only resort beaches can qualify since
more remote ones lack the necessary facilities. This year 135 beaches and 11
marinas won a Blue Flag in the UK.
Details: 01942 612618, www.encams.org, or www.blueflag.org.
Seaside Awards
These are divided into “resort” and “rural” categories, with “rural”
beaches unlikely to provide as many facilities. In 2006 awards are being
given to 311 beaches in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel
Islands.
Details: 01942 612618, www.seasideawards.org.uk, and in Scotland: www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org.
Good Beach Guide
Run by the Marine Conservation Society, which has the most stringent
water quality tests but takes no account of other factors such as car
parking or litter collection. Its Good Beach Guide carries information on
1,200 beaches (the current edition includes the Republic of Ireland), of
which 505 are recommended in 2006.
Details: 01989 566017, www.goodbeachguide.co.uk.
Green Coast Awards
The Keep Wales Tidy campaign launched these awards in 1999 to
recognise clean beaches in rural areas of Wales. In 2006, there were 50 such
beaches.
Details: 01646 681949, www.keepwalestidy.org.
A similar scheme in the Republic of Ireland, run by An Taisce, the National
Trust for Ireland, made 11 awards in 2005 (www.cleancoastireland.org).
FROM FAIRY FLOSS TO FLIP FLOPS
by Tom Chesshyre
1. More than 250 million portions of fish and chips are eaten
in Britain every year — which works out at 4.23 portions per head of
population.
2. Deckchairs were introduced on P&O liners in the 1880s;
before they came to piers at the end of the 19th century, people would pay a
penny to sit on wooden benches.
3. There are more than 3,000 deckchairs on Brighton beach.
4. The travel website www.deckchair.com was set up by Bob
Geldof (who has since sold his interest).
5. When Blackpool Tower was opened on Whit Sunday, May 14,
1894, admission was sixpence.
6. The escapologist Karl Bartoni and his fiancée were married
while suspended in a cage from the Blackpool Tower in 1982.
7. Candy floss is believed to have been invented in 1897 by
William Morrison and John C. Wharton, American confectioners. Originally it
was called Fairy Floss.
8. Flip-flops were inspired by Japanese straw-soled zori,
which were popular in New Zealand in the 1930s, where they are known as
jandals. In Australia, however, they are called thongs.
9. The modern flip-flop was invented by Maurice Yock and
patented in 1957.
10. In 1817 the first Duke of Wellington instructed his
shoemaker, Hoby of St James Street, London, to modify his boots so that they
would suit long trousers, and a new style of footwear was born — wellies.
