Going to the seaside around 1950-1955

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Thank you for the lovely photos Marydoll

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!!

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!

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.

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.

Ooo yes. the train ride. I loved it.
We just had a day out mostly to Mablethorpe. Sometimes Clacton, Brighton, Felixstowe when my dad had his summer holiday from work.
When I was 11 and 13 years old we hired a caravan for a week in Sparrows Nest, Lowestoft. Unfortunately we travelled by coach. I get travel sick so not nice.
Love the photo's Marydoll.

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.

I think I heard it on BBC Sounds as an (abridged) audiobook. Was compelling even though nothing happened! I have just looked it up. Unfortunately it is no longer available there.

I was born in 1954 so I don't remember any seaside holidays that early. My mother said I was a very placid baby though and once slept through a whole mealtime on the beach as the "grown-ups" were so involved in their game of Badminton that they forgot all about me.

Later memories consist of the sight and feel of jellyfish, the smell of Nivea sun tan oil (LPF zero) and sand sticking to everything. Our mother had made what she called "tabards" out of two rectangles of towelling to slip on over our wet swimsuits. Scraps of the same cloth were still in the drawer with her dusters when we cleared out the house on her death.

We had a week in Lowestoft every year. Travelled by train (no car in those days). Always stayed in the same self catering flat every year and I remember listening to the sea as I fell asleep. Poor Mum had to do all the food and sent an order ahead for the landlady to get the corner shop to deliver. The last night we had fish and chips from round the corner, such a treat for me as we never had ‘bought’ fish and chips at home but I expect even more so for Mum!
Dad booked a beach hut every year, for the next year on the last day of every holiday. Every day was spent at the beach hut, food having been prepared by Mum. I had a bubbly sort of ‘bathing costume’ as they were called and had so much fun making sandcastles and paddling - I never learned to swim.
Dad went swimming first thing every morning before breakfast which I know worried Mum as at that time he only had partial sight in one eye. Then we had a lovely cooked

Breakfast.
I loved being allowed to play on the amusements machines on the piers and enjoyed choosing a postcard to send to Granny and Grandad.
I was allowed to take my two ‘teenage dolls’ (forerunners of Barbie) and a tiny suitcase of clothes (made by Mum) for them and I expect choosing an outfit for them each morning kept me quiet!
My parents must have saved all year for that holiday. What wonderful memories.

We went to Blackpool and Rhyl several times but then my aunt moved to various nice seaside places with her job and we could go and stay with her in her flat.

We lived in Wirral so there were beaches on our doorstep - West Kirby, Meols, Hoylake, Red Rocks, New Brighton. We often spent holidays with our grandparents, who had retired to Knott-End-on-Sea - so more seaside! I loved collecting shells and looking in rock pools. At Knott End, which was a sort of magic place to my brother and me, I was very keen on the pier (or was that in Fleetwood?), in particular the slot machine that showed a sinister animated scene of The Condemned Cell, complete with hanging. I was the least violent of children, so it was a very strange taste! I was about six or seven.

I only ever remember spending a week at the seaside twice when I was young. One was in Blackpool with my mother and grandmother and a posse of aunties (my father was allergic to my mothers female relatives, so he didn’t come!) - stayed in a boarding house. I hated Blackpool. It wasn’t what the seaside of my childhood dreams was supposed to be! And once when we went camping in a Dormobile to Penmaenmawr on the north Welsh coast. The rest of the time it was freezing day trips to the East Coast of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. I didn’t actually believe that the sea could be blue and not grey until I was eighteen and went away to Cornwall for a week with a friend. We stayed in a country pub near Penzance. I thought the whole area was idyllic.

I had a relative who lived in Kwnt so we had a holiday there several years from 1953 . We always went to Margate and to Dreamland and sat on the beach most days if possible . I had to trwite ina notbook what I did all day and I remember one entry said " had chips and onions twice " I can still picture the restaurants. We went down by train and the train would pass a field near where we lived so the neighbours would wave tea clothes at us . I did not realise then how lucky I was to probably be the only child among the neighbours who got a holiday . My worst memory is of my parents treating everyone to a proper Sunday lunch in a posh hotel . I choose roast beef and it arrived still oozing red . I could not face it .

There were day trips to Canvey Island with extended family, a photos of me (1950) in a very baggy swimsuit makes me laugh.

There were holidays, saved hard for, to damp, uncomfortable caravans always by the sea. Sometimes shared facilities, sometimes a toilet and washbasin of our own in a shed type building next to the van. Often extended family were there too.

I was always in the sea no matter the weather. They were old fashioned seaside holidays, sandcastles, paddling, little boats, burying whoever dared to lie down in the sand. Ice cream a real treat, certainly not daily. Every penny carefully budgeted. When we were able to graduate to a chalet or more modern caravan holiday life became much more comfortable

It gave me a life long love of beaches and the sea, encouraged me to ensure our children had their own seaside magical holidays. Those 1950’s days have left a legacy that my parents couldn’t have foreseen.

1950 - 1955, I was about 4 - 9y. then. We didn't go away for a holiday, but had days out, ( often when it had rained a lot & my father couldn't work on the land!!)
We would have a day at Wicksteed Park, (near Kettering), we would go on the "free" swings & slides, then a real treat, a ride on the little train, the water shute or the boating lake. Another day we would go to Old Hunstanton, Norfolk, for a day on the beach. (also went to Hunstanton on the annual Church outing.)
We would sometimes meet up with various aunts, uncles & cousins on these trips, always taking picnic foods with us.

& where do we choose to go now? Oh yes, to the NW Norfolk coast.!

JackyB

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.

I think I heard it on BBC Sounds as an (abridged) audiobook. Was compelling even though nothing happened! I have just looked it up. Unfortunately it is no longer available there.

I was born in 1954 so I don't remember any seaside holidays that early. My mother said I was a very placid baby though and once slept through a whole mealtime on the beach as the "grown-ups" were so involved in their game of Badminton that they forgot all about me.

Later memories consist of the sight and feel of jellyfish, the smell of Nivea sun tan oil (LPF zero) and sand sticking to everything. Our mother had made what she called "tabards" out of two rectangles of towelling to slip on over our wet swimsuits. Scraps of the same cloth were still in the drawer with her dusters when we cleared out the house on her death.

You can get this on kindle for E9,09. Its "The Fortnight..."

From the age of 6 we lived in a town at the seaside - my dad taught me to swim, from about 7 years old a crowd of us who lived in the same roads would either walk or cycle to the swimming pool, when it opened for the summer in May we all rushed to try to get the newest number of a season ticket. |The schools would issue a booklet giving us one trip to the swimming pool, one donkey ride, one trip on the Duck, etc, a trip to the tennis courts. These tickets were really appreciated.

We didn’t have a car so on a Saturday if the forecast was hot sunshine we would catch a red double decker bus and head to the Ayrshire Coast. (we may have played together Marydoll)
The windbreak would be put up and the picnic blankets spread out while my brother and I built lots of huge sandcastles around our “pitch” to prevent other families from moving into “our” territory.
Boundaries established it was a race to get into the freezing water where our dad tried to teach us to swim. A slightly gritty and very early picnic lunch usually followed the cold “dook” or perhaps just a “chittering bite” then off to the rock pools to fish for crabs and other interesting creatures.
We happily whiled away the time playing with a bat and ball, running races or playing footie with regular sorties into the icy Firth of Clyde. I remember us eating huge amounts of sandwiches as each time we returned to base we always announced we were starving.
Around 5ish we would pack up and head to the bus stop, tired, uncomfortable with sand on sunburnt skin and not really wanting to go home. My brother and I would fall asleep on the bus and if we were lucky our parents would carry us home. As we got bigger we were made to walk home and after a bath with closed eyes we were deposited into our lovely beds to dream about our day at the beach.