Nicola here talking about the summer holidays and the history of being beside the seaside. It’s the time of year in England when the schools are on holiday and as most people still aren’t able to travel abroad because of pandemic regulations, lots and lots of people are taking their holidays at home, particularly at the coast. The English weather being what it is, this is a risky occupation but a downpour of rain isn’t enough to put the hardy holidaymaker off! I can remember childhood holidays when the beach was so wet with rain coming down as well as the tide coming in that my sandcastles set like cement!
When I was a child (and I know that line makes me sound ancient) we took all our holidays at home, sometimes at the coast and sometimes in the countryside. Coming from Yorkshire, our favoured seaside resort was Scarborough on the east coast but we also visited family in Morecambe. In the 1920s and 30s my grandparents had been amongst the working-class crowds from Bradford who had taken their fortnight’s holiday at Morecambe. Here are my family enjoying an outing to the seaside in 1938!