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Books: Review - A new lease of life for the British seaside - Wish You Were Here: England on Sea. By Travis Elborough.
Published: 05 August 2010
by DAN CARRIER
IT is not surprising that author Travis Elborough chose the British seaside as the subject for his next book. There are, as he puts it, “11,072.76 miles of damp, frequently unforgiving coastline and a climate that swathes everything in drear halftones for large parts of the year”.
Previously, he wrote the definitive biographies of the Routemaster bus and the LP record: both culturally defining objects of post-war Britain.
And as “that coastline and that weather are the things that define us above all else”, the sea, and those towns that hug the land next to it, were a worthy topic for him to chronicle as he works his way through those places and objects that are key to defining our times.
Highgate-based Travis grew up in Worthing and says his early adulthood was marked by a need to escape what he felt was the suffocating atmosphere of living in a downbeat seaside town.
Having toured from Skegness to Polzeath, and considered everything from the early growth of seaside resorts through to their bucket and spade heyday, Travis believes that a new era is dawning for those wind-bitten coastal resorts whose names once meant holiday delights to Victorian and Edwardian workers.
“At the moment, I’d argue that many seaside resorts – especially those within commuting distance of London – are going through a process of gentrification,” he says. “And with the arrival of new art galleries, festivals and designer cafés at places like Hastings, Folkestone, Margate and Littlehampton, we are seeing a kind of return to the rather more rarefied amusements that seaside resorts provided their first and usually well-to-do, if ailing, visitors in the 18th and early 19th century.”
While Travis recognises that for local economies investment is crucial, he fears that the very essence of our seaside resorts could be consumed by posh second-homers buying properties along the Kent coast.
“A certain degree of decay can add to the romantic glamour of our seaside towns,” he says.
“And yet historically seaside towns were at the forefront of modernity, from the birth of romanticism and introduction of electricity to the sleek streamlined and modernist coastal buildings of the inter-war period.
“However, I fear that in this ‘Shoreditching’ of the south coast, some of the quirkier gems and eccentric coastal emporiums will be lost.”
Travis is dead against the idea that the gradual and quaint demise of our Victorian seaside “playgrounds” is inevitable, or that to save them you need something sparkly and fresh.
“Look at the De La Warr Pavillion in Bexhill,” he says. “It was a wreck for decades and now has lively series of events and exhibition.
“Southwold’s quirky pier arcade, with vintage and new machines, is another example of taking something classic and giving it a contemporary twist.”
So will this be a boom time for the seaside?
A new pier has been built in Weston-Super-Mare, after the previous one was wrecked by fire in 2008, and the economics of getting it to pay its way are staggering – but this also illustrates the faith shown by the owners that people are going back to the beach.
“The new pier is a great leap of faith,” says Travis.
“But the figures released a couple of weeks ago about the holidaying habits of Britons look encouraging for seaside towns.
“Last year the number of holidays abroad dropped and this year an additional five million holidays are expected to be taken in the UK. I’d argue that the whole cheap flight thing ended up making foreign travel as easy and therefore, perhaps correspondingly, as banal, as sending an email around the world.”
But whatever the future holds for our seaside towns, the past is secured. Travis’s book sparkles like the sun on a breaking wave.
The author has confirmed his ability to find a quirky piece of social history and make it as appealing as a seaside ice-cream on an August day.
• Wish You Were Here: England on Sea. By Travis Elborough. Sceptre, £14.99
TRAVIS'S TOP SIX SEASIDE ATTRACTIONS:
• Alonzi’s Harbour Bar on the South Sands, Scarborough: A post-war temple to ice-cream sundaes and frothy coffee in chrome and formica.
• Donkey Ride, Skegness: The sands at Skegness are home to John Nuttall’s donkeys – voted the best in Britain last year.
• Donkey Ride, Skegness: The sands at Skegness are home to John Nuttall’s donkeys – voted the best in Britain last year.
• The Dome Cinema, Worthing: Recently restored, this fine fleapit of a picture palace provided the backdrop to the film Wish You Were Here, which provided Travis’s book with its title.
• The Shell Grotto, Margate: No trip to Margate is complete without taking in the Shell Grotto, a bizarre subterranean lair coated with shells discovered in the 1830s.
• The Pinball Museum, Ramsgate: A newish addition to the excitements of Ramsgate, this museum allows all would-be Tommys to play a mean pinball.
• Eastbourne Pier: Another Eugenius Birch pier, Eastbourne’s still sports a Victorian camera obscura.
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