Going to the seaside around 1950-1955

I can’t remember it well as I was a toddler, but I have lots of photos taken at Hoylake, New Brighton, Southport, West
Kirkby and many other places. I still love the seaside

Tinned mandarin oranges and piles of sandwiches. We would go to Southend every Sunday and spend the day on the beach. We lived in flat with no garden. We got there early and would leave about 3.00 to avoid the traffic. When the tide went out there was miles of mud. Holidays at Clifftonville where when the tide went out there was a pool of sea water. We had a beach chalet and every year the same people would rent. All my my parents friends knew we were there and there would be enough people to field two teams for cricket! Poor mum had to buy a very large enamel teapot.

Jaxjacky when the children were small we lived near the New Forest and would often take our children to Lepe beach. They loved it ?

I have been sorting through photos and found one of me, aged about six, in my knitted swimsuit. I can still feel the horrible claggy feel of it when it was wet! However, I am smiling
Whoever thought it was a good idea? Somewhere in my stash is an old knitting pattern for one

I remember a couple of holidays in Nanna’s caravan in Blackpool, and a few days camping in a tent in Morecambe. Other than that it was day trips to Blackpool with Sunday school on the steam train, which I absolutely loved

I was born and lived until I was 17 on Firth of Clyde. I learnt to swim in the huge pools left by the retreating tide and in my teens, enjoyed long, solitary walks with the dog. The south side of the town had a long promenade, more imposing houses, and a flatter beach. I preferred our north side, which had rocks and rock pools, fun to explore at low tide. 63 years later, I still miss it.

Two days every year, one with the Chapel and one with the Miners Club. To Barry Island or Porthcawl. Lunch in a hotel for the children , parents waited outside. Punch and Judy , a donkey ride and the fair on the way back to the train.

My paternal granny lived in a coastguard cottage at Lepe on the south coast. We spent our summers there, I learnt to swim in the sea and remember being mortified one day when my dad went swimming in his y fronts.

We had a week in Blackpool in 1950, then again in 1955, other than that we went to Cleethorpes, Scarborough or Whitby on day trips with various pubs/clubs, sometimes by train, sometimes coach.
I remember the knitted bathing costume, very revealing when wet and droopy, lol!
Loved Cleethorpes, we always went on a Sunday, they had "Sunshine corner" on the beach, where we`d sing hymns and listen to bible stories. I used to get told off for sneaking off to go on the swingboats along the beach.
Wasn`t keen on Whitby, it always seemed dirty, there were some kiddie swings and slide on the beach, right in front of a sign which said "Danger, falling cliffs"!
Our Blackpool holiday was at the same boarding house each time, on Chapel Street, near the railway bridge, my mother bought all our food and they cooked it for us. Anybody remember the Fairyland ride on the corner of Chapel Street and the sea front? We loved it.

born in north london, we had one day a year trip to Southend-on-sea .we went on a train ride along the pier and into the Kursall amusements, a fish and chip dinner.....It was organised by London Transport that my father worked as a bus driver for... the coach trip was annual for families..
My father also took us six children to Buckingham palace, Tower of London and museums as of course it was free transport on buses and the tube trains as he worked for the company,
moved to the coast in my 20s and feel very fortunate to walk along the beach frequently

My first holiday memories are from the late 50s but very similar.

We lived on the North East coast but would travel over to Blackpool or Morecambe every year. And every year my mam would say it was very nice but not a patch on “our” coast!

I was born and lived beside the sea. Not a resort much more industrial.
Picked up from school to go on the "Shore". Passed works that still smelled of chemicals from the war .
Endless" miles ",of shilles [shingle] to get to the sea if the tide was out.Hobbling over them in a rushed bathing suit and a rubber hat with chin strap.
Only to be shouted out as the sea came back in with a rip tide.
Best tea cake tomato sandwiches, pop and a packet of crisps.
A tired trudge home with other families.Sand in sandles making blisters Flowers with bugs in them that we had to throw away.
Family tea with dad who wished he had been with us. Utter Bliss

...sit and eat them ....

Floriel - it is indeed a brilliant book!

I had two grannies: one was London Granny and the other Seaside Granny.

The latter lived in a small fishing village in Devon called Lympstone. When my brother and I were quite small we used to be allowed to walk down to the village together to the little station and take the train to Exmouth where we would spend the day. We would swim, play on the beach, enjoy the boating pool and the wonderful play park where you could hire a little car or bike and drive round the "roads" which had traffic signs and zebra crossings. And we would go on the mini-train ride. We loved it!!!

Lympstone was a very special place to us where we had lots of freedom - we would walk down to the village shop and choose sweets, then wind our way through the fishermen's cottages to the harbour and sit and them.

We would walk home for massive meals cooked by my tiny granny - she weighed in at about 5.5 stone but her meals were for giants. I remember piles of roast potatoes glistening with fat in her posh Royal Doulton serving dishes, delicious stodgy puddings with custard - brilliant!

And I remember the grandmother clock that now stands in my hallway, and how it used to chime its way through the night and wake me up.

I also remember being terrified of the kitchen, because it was there that my grandfather committed suicide in the gas oven - I would dash my way through because I thought his ghost was there.

Off at a tangent here, but there was an old lady in my mother’s care home who happily told me just about every time I went that her mum and dad and grandma and granddad were coming soon, and they were all going to the seaside together.

Unlike many of them (it was a dementia-only care home) she always seemed so happy in her sunlit childhood idyll.

I so often wished that my poor mother could be happy in a sunlit childhood idyll of her own. ?

Two weeks on the Clyde coast at Glasgow Fair Fortnight. Nylon bobble swimsuit My widowed Aunt always came with us. My Mum and Dad rented rooms in a family home - pretty normal in those days.
First glimpse of the sparkling sea always a highlight ! Wonderful to have my hard working Dad free for the only two weeks in the year he had away from a factory floor.
The destinations varied. Prestwick Ayr , Saltcoats were three of the favourites.
I remember being very impressed that we could get a direct train from our local station to wherever we wanted to go ! I realise now ,of course , that British Rail ( was it called that in the 50s ? ) Put on special trains for the hordes.
Happy carefree days.

We went by train when I was small - so exciting to watch for the first glimpse of the sea. And the sea-smell! Probably largely seaweed but I still love it, ditto the cry of the gulls.

We always had a beach hut for all the paraphernalia of 4 kids, plus a retreat for when it rained. Always a rented house, never a hotel or B&B, usually with one or other grandmother and sometimes an aunt, too.

We were always at a ‘quiet’ end of the beach, not near the pier, which of course I loved - noisy and gaudy and trashy! Luckily one GM shared my feelings and would take me now and then. Looking back, I dare say money was the reason my folks shunned it - especially with 4 children who’d all want rides - spare cash was never a given until I was considerably older.

I still remember one funny old house we stayed at - it was called Winker’s Cot, only to be re-christened immediately by my father as Widdler’s Pot!

I was born in 1953, my earliest memories are of sleeping in what we called the Hut at Mudeford with my sisters at the other end of the bed, foot to feet. I must have been about 3.
We had a bungalow at New Milton too so used to spend all of Easter, half term and summer holidays there when we were at primary school.
I remember sand in the sandwiches, going in the sea however cold or rough it was and going to Christchurch to feed the swans and have a pony ride.
Such innocent, carefree times.

Callistemon21

Changing on the beach out of my knitted swimsuit (!), then walking from the beach through the park where there were red squirrels then going to Bobby's Department Store for a Knickerbcker Glory and watching mannequins walk amongst the tables to model the clothes for sale in the store.

Was that Bournemouth Callistemon?

Very exciting, being with my parents all the time instead of them always working. With my extended family, not much money but wonderful days. We had some quite run down accommodation , which mom scrubbed out, some better ones but it didn’t bother us as children, just the sand and the sea was enough.

My father was keen on taking cine films – if anyone can remember what they were. I still have one – black and white – taken when I was about two in the early 1950s. I had been playing in the sea and returned to my parents on the beach. My mother removed my swimsuit and dried my body. At which point I ran back into the sea stark naked, filmed, with much amusement by my Dad.

We had no car so the ccasional day out to the seaside by bus and train. Mum and dad hired deck chairs while we kids played in the sand, made castles, and decorated them with shells and pebbles. When dad was in a good mood he would lie flat and allow us to bury him in sand. That didnt happen often.

When we were older we went for a week in a chalet or caravan in N Wales. As a real treat we would have one fish and ships meal in a beach front cafe. We kids always wanted to make chip butties but were never allowed to as my mother thought it was "common". We spent out time walking along the sea wall and playing on the pinball machines in the amusement arcades.

I don’t remember having one much before I was 10, 1960. I didn’t feel left out as I didn’t know anything different. We had a garden or I took my little brother to the local park 10 minutes walk away.

I seen to recall that we had to leave the boarding house after breakfast and return for evening meal, whatever the weather. We couldn't afford lots of cafes, so we sheltered out of the rain on the front, in our pacamacs. I loved burying my Dad on the sand. We decorated
Sand castles with shells and little paper flags. I loved the sea, they'd make me come out blue with cold. The sandwich had sand in them! Happy days.

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.