Going to the seaside around 1950-1955

I was fortunate enough to have been born in the Channel Islands. My Mum & I could walk to the beach and I spent a large part of my childhood playing on those wonderful beaches. Knitted bathers which sagged alarmingly when wet, tomato sandwiches made with local butter and eaten hungrily with sandy fingers, rockpooling and building sandcastles. On the steep climb home we would stop at the little kiosk and I would have a pineapple ice cream cornet. A flavour that seems to have disappeared, more's the pity. Happy days.

I remember one particular Sunday School trip to Whitley Bay. We sat on the coach in the car park, watching the lightning flashing over the sea, and the torrential rain pouring down.
During a break in the rain we went to the Spanish City, and when it started raining again we went to the swimming pool and sat and watched the swimmers. Worst day trip ever.

We, as a family, had one week at the seaside every year. We used to go for the last week of the school summer holidays. Our favourite destination was Scarborough. We went to the Peasholm Pantry for lunch every day, my little sister insisted on egg and chips every time. The only time we went to Blackpool the weather was so miserable that the council put the illuminations on early to try to make the holidaymakers feel a bit better.

Always Blackpool for us! Staying in a little "boarding house" as we called it then, and the meal each night was usually ham and salad!

We had lots of day trips to the sea in the 50s. I remember my awful, stretchy home-knitted swimsuit and the freezing cold sea. I always had to wear a strapped rubber swim cap that hurt the hair when it was pulled on.
I loved Margate because it had donkeys and the older version of Dreamland. My parents had deckchairs and we sat on the sand, I learnt to swim at school in 1951 so then I enjoyed swimming in the sea. We also went to Westgate and Broadstairs. Once my dad hired a dinghy and we had a go at rowing it. Lunch was sandwiches on the beach and my parents had a flask of tea.
Marydoll those pictures are so sweet!!

Thank you for the lovely photos Marydoll

Standing on the station waiting for the Rhyl train, big whoosh of fear as the Glasgow to London express thundered through. Sitting on our suitcases in the crowded train corridor, jiggling with excitement. Arriving at long last and making a dive for the "Sunny" bus, it's open-topped ride a must whatever the weather! The seaside smell of ozone, fish and chips and doughnuts all mingled together promising delights to come. Over the bridge at Kimnel Bay to Towyn and our Nan's tiny caravan, somehow big enough for all seven of us like Popeye's tent. The pop of the gas mantle, the jet of fresh cold water from the stand pipe hitting the white enamel bucket ready for the essential cup of tea, the first long trek to the beach miles away over sand dunes, the railway line and breakwaters. We didn't care, we were on our holidays. Complete bliss until seven days later we were back on the train with Pa only having a ha'penny left in his pocket. Such very happy days!

We went to Elie on the train when I was very young so have very few memories of it except being scared of walking past the engine in the station in case it blew up, and meeting friends of my parents' whose daughter was my age. My swimsuit, which must have stretched as it lasted for years, wasn't knitted, but ruched like Marydoll's in the lovely photo.

We used to go to Worthing. Only a week of course, I remember the excitement when my father finally got 2 weeks holiday! We would travel by coach or train until my father bought a car when I was 10. We would stay in a boarding house "near the sea" in other words a very long walk there and back carrying all our stuff. We would stop off at Woolworths and stock up on sunglasses, suncream, rubber beach shoes and swimming hats. A lot of time was spent sheltering from the wind, huddled by a groyne on the pebbly beach. Fortunately there was a cafe on the promenade where we could get cups of tea. Things improved in the 60s with a playground and a swimming pool and we were able to afford a beach hut where we could make a picnic lunch and get out of the rain.

Marydoll, you haven`t changed a bit! Oh the joys of a touring caravan, we had to sell ours 8 years ago, I still miss it.

Another fan here of The Fortnight in September.
Luckily we didn't have knitted swimsuits, but oh yes, yes to the cold Suffolk coast. Compulsory tomato soup and ginger biscuits after swimming, goody goody, but not goody at all was the compulsory French cricket afterwards. No playing in the sea when the tide was going out.

Just going to the seaside any seaside ,warts and all, after the years of war when a seaside holiday had been out of the question

We had more than one holiday at Walton on the Naze - safe sandy beach but always at the quieter end - and when a bit older I remember being taken to see a play at the Frinton theatre (Frinton was close by but reputedly comparatively toffee-nosed.)
On stage we saw a very young Jane Asher.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202202/medium-906948-03-02-2011-095738.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202202/medium-800209-03-02-2011-095738-3.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202202/medium-216878-03-02-2011-102739-1.jpg

Saltcoats, Ayrshire 1957

My mother’s family were all in Southampton and we used to visit regularly at weekends and for a week in the summer holidays. Dad used to drive us from the Midlands and we always stopped for sandwiches in Savernake forest, close to a lovely church. The week was spent visiting my mother’s four sisters and one brother and we had day trips to Bournemouth, Highcliffe and once to The Isle Of Wight which was very exciting. Sadly we never had a camera so there are no photographs of those days but my cousin and I often talk fondly about them.

Waving to other car drivers on the road (as there weren’t very many), and acknowledging the RAC patrolman’s salute as he passed on his motorcycle.

We went to Hayling Island every year until I was about 10 when we started staying in hotels. In Hayling Island though we rented a large white bungalow very near the beach where mum and dad, and me and my two siblings would stay along with my grandparents. After we left my two aunts and their children would turn up - sometimes we overlapped. I remember the best ever icecream bought from a beach vendor and visiting Portsmouth to look round the Victory. We would stay on the beach all day except for lunch which mum and grandmother would cook back at the bungalow. Dad had a little Ford car which we always piled in. The first thing we did when we arrived at the holilday bungalow was go off and buy new buckets, spades and sunhats. A few years ago OH and I drove down to have a look at my childhood holiday destination. It was stuck in the 50s and the sandy beach had been pebbled over!

Stopping at the roadside several times between London & Brighton to let the car radiator “cool down”.

Coming home in the evening, sleepy & sunburnt, with the car backfiring all the way down Streatham Hill.

Happy memories.

I grew up in the North East and back in the days the beaches near to us were all covered in sea coal. My lasting memory is going there with my dad and our dog, Bruce. Building a bonfire and sitting on rocks to have a picnic. It was a fair walk from our house which we did now and again on a Sunday afternoon. My mam was wise and stayed at home with a cuppa and a book. Lovely memories.

I lived in Twickenham in Middlesex and remember going to Swanage, West Wittering and to my grandparents in Leigh on Sea. I don't think my grandparents ever took me down to the seafront - I do remember going to the golf club with Uncle Charles, their neighbour!

I remember the Bude Seapool from my childhood. Would love to go back there. I had a red white and blue knitted costume!
I still love sea swimming.

Marmight, at about 11 my dh was sent to stay on his own with an elderly relative in Bude, while his mother was having/recovering from a hysterectomy.

He went every day to the beach on his own - we were commenting not long ago on how that would hardly ever be allowed nowadays. He was a strong swimmer by that age but even so….

Although we rarely go now, since no longer have friends in N Devon, he’s still fond of Bude and is a friend of the lovely big sea pool, which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed swimming in. (Dh prefers the sea.)

My first holiday was to a B&B in Westgate when I was two and my brother was a baby. I don't remember the beach but do remember the train journey and the verandas on the shops there.
Most years we visited relatives in Southport and Blackpool.
When I was five we went to the Mull of Kintyre - my first flight.

I remember a holiday in Bude around 1954 with my Mum, Aunt & cousins. They had a clinker dinghy which was fun. My Mum spent hours body surfing on a hired wooden board. We all wore knitted ‘swim’ suits. Mine had a Fair isle pattern on the bib and drooped to the knees when wet. My Dad appeared half way through the holiday in his army uniform. He’d been at an officer’s training camp nearby. The beach was definitely not his thing - too much sand infiltrating everything. ?. My children grew up by the sea and spent hours on the beach and footling about in boats. Ive inherited my Dad’s dislike of sand. I used to sweep up a dustpan full from the kids and the dog after every beach visit

Floriel

There is a marvellous novel by R C Sherriff called A Fortnight in September about an English family’s holiday in Bognor in the 1930s. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Sounds brilliant - thank you for that!

I enjoyed my fifties childhood Kent beach experiences so much, that, thirty years later I moved there .