What really makes a brilliant beach holiday? Hot sun? White sand? Bath-warm sea? Maybe. But a truly great beach holiday is all about the heart, and British beaches have it in spades. I remember when my own school holidays stretched beyond infinity and I could think of no words greater than: .
This coastal frenzy was but 10 miles from my village and, to my child brain, nowhere was better. There were sand and sea, of course (albeit sludgier than the Med-like postcards would have you believe). But it wasn’t so much the beach.
It was the multi-layered smell: salt-sweet, chip fry, horse-and-carriage poo. The penny slots and Derby race machines. The way you could see the waves through the planks of Britannia Pier, where Jim Davidson was always on the theatre bill ( , in 2024).
The hypnotic doughnut machines plopping globs into hot oil that sizzled into sugary deliciousness. The wax works so brilliantly bad you couldn’t tell Sean Connery from Daley Thompson. The wonder of watching the Hippodrome’s circus ring fill with water and synchronised swimmers.
The Pleasure Beach’s wooden roller-coaster, which has been scaring riders since 1932 (though, back then I didn’t know it was vintage, just that it felt like it might fall apart). Like many I grew older and more cynical. Home was naff.
Greece and Spain were the cool places to be. But now, older still, I’ve changed my mind again. Unashamed nostalgia seems just the ticket.
It’s time to re-embrace the British seaside in all i.