Following on yesterday’s ‘Personal’ what is it about the seaside? Is it a reflection of our psyche in some way or is it an enduring historical trend. How can it be that on the three caravan parks I visited yesterday most renters/owners pay £4000 ground rent a year in static vans that can cost over £40,000 and yet most have no sight of the sea from the vans and none can get down to the beach from the site itself? Yet most would love the experience.
To an extent it is an historical phenomena, sea bathing was first suggested as a natural cure in the 17th and 18th centuries with spas and their ‘healing waters’ following on. Also resorting to the seaside filtered down the class structure, particularly when improved transport made such an indulgence possible.
Is there, however and rocks/pebbles for building, something deeply meaningful in being at the edge, looking out on an essentially alien environment? Prior to the encouragement of sea bathing there seems to be little evidence that people saw the coast positively, often rather as a threatening environment – tides, storms, sea creatures(!) – or an environment to exploit e.g. fishing, sand and rocks/pebbles for building (e.g. the cobble-built cottage walls of Holderness villages).
The picture above shows my father and I on Hunstanton ‘prom’ in the mid 1950s (pier long gone), I think he once took off his shoes and paddled – but I may have imagined it.
Personal – Another hot day but increasingly strong e. wind. Dog Middlegate. Barton bus groceries. Sorting out papers from village studies class of 20 yrs ago. R. later pm, upset as boiler still not repaired (waited in all day).Dog Baysgarth. Started reading C. Hill’s biography of Oliver Cromwell.