Sandie Shaw

 Memories of seaside holidays are fresh in my mind.

This is usually the case on the darkest and coldest of winter nights. I may also have been the victim of the relentlessly brash or vaguely aspirational advertisements for that tailor made summer vacation where kids and their parents get on swimmingly. After all it is on a fully inclusive basis (gratuities excluded).

I grew up as part of a large family, even by baby-boomer standards, five kids under the age of 14 so the most efficient logistical approach to the main summer holidays was to stay within the UK, well more specifically  England and Scotland to explore and sample the delights of the phenomena that was the day trip to, or a longer stay at, the seaside in a bed and breakfast, under canvas or in a static caravan.

Standard family equipment for seasiding included a wind-break, mallet, travel rug, hamper, pair of ancient wood wormy candy-stripe canvas deck chairs, plenty of assorted Tupperware, buckets, spades, kite and a cricket bat. For many years I was under the impression that we were Spanish by descent on the basis that the brittle weave of the wind break appeared to represent their National colours. The wind break was quite an event to get into position as by its very name it was only brought into action in a stiff breeze.The whole exercise took on the appearance of the launch of a brightly coloured fantastical hang glider to carry a whole family out of the country.  Hammering the uprights into soft sand was fairly ineffective so other methods were deployed including guy ropes, large sea-cobbles (dependant on the local geological conditions) or large cofferdam construction. My father was responsible for the physical siting of our gawdy encampment which took a lot of skill. It was essential to be within sight of the paddling zone of the beach for supervision of five children of varying swimming competency and water sense, but yet at sufficient distance, if the tide was on the turn, to give a good few hours of enjoyment before being at risk of being inundated by the rising tide. We were not alone in our quest to take the beach and by early morning on a day of reasonable British weather we soon found ourselves in a vast temporary settlement. Some posher families had small Camping-Gaz stoves for a brew-up.

The elite of the beach-set had the luxury of a small timber hut in a long ranked brightly painted terrace of similar on the nearby Promenade but still had to use the same Public Loo's as the rest of us, so no real social advantage there.

In my childhood we lived in Suffolk, within a short sweaty drive on the vinyl seats of the unventilated VW Variant Estate to the seaside. Hunstanton was frequently visited as a family or with relatives and friends. The beach faced north onto the vast tidal expanse of The Wash so on some days, although we were at the seaside, there was a chance that we would never actually see the sea apart from a slight mirage-type heat haze some two to three miles in the distance. The stranded water pools were a shallow, safe and warm place to play but became a bit minging later on in the day on account of the stagnant conditions and, I suspect, impromptu use as a childs' toilet.

I have a very strong memory on two counts from Hunstanton. The first was a large second world war amphibious DUKW or Duck which ran pleasure trips out to find the tide-line. The second was witnessing a fight between two women on the beach for the affections, I think, of the driver of the DUKW, who was after all quite a cool dude.

Nicer beaches were to be found further south along the Suffolk coast. We took a chalet one year at Overstrand near Cromer and for the first time Gran came with us. Our cousins lived in Newquay in Cornwall and we often holidayed in the area. A proper seaside experience with crashing waves, whole families in wet suits, amusements, donkey rides, cliffs and caves.

Our family then moved to Lincolnshire and the nearest seaside was the delightful Cleethorpes. The town is often the target of ridicule and I can fully understand why. Lets face it. It is not really a seaside town but on an estuary with an easterly view onto Spurn Point and two offshore, and now very rusty-red military forts.As in Hunstanton the tide went out a long way , a very long way. This did cause a few problems. If we set up our base on the narrow sandy strip beach we had to walk through alternate terrain of water pools and increasingly thick and gloopy mud in order to reach the  shallows. The tide line always had white scummy foam deposits, floating detergent bottles and a band of sawdust in suspension. Not the best conditions to attempt to wash the caked gunk off our legs. We rarely spent much time paddling close to the busy shipping lane because we knew that the return to our welcome beach towels would be very unpleasant in the accumulation of a fresh coating of mud. That was Cleethorpes.

Our family move to East Yorkshire introduced us to many new and delightful seaside experiences including a short drive to the really proper attractions of Scarborough, Robin Hoods Bay, Whitby and Staithes.

If I was asked to name my top beaches I would definitely include two in Scotland. With my own family unit we had booked a very late weeks holiday on the Isle of Skye. The beach at Tarskavaig on the west side was idyllic. A broad sweep of a bay with views  to the Cuillin Mountains and out to the ring of islands of Canna, Rum and Eigg in the pounding Atlantic breakers. It was unseasonably warm for early september. The shallow bay waters were warm and glinting in the late summer sun. A very rare combination of conditions indeed on an island where average rainfall has been documented at seven feet. Paddling with my wife and, at that time, two small daughters, we were mystified by a movement in the shallow raised ribs of sand under our feet, a tickling sensation and a flurry of the fine white grained sand. It took some time to concentrate on what was causing the minor disturbance until a small flat, flounder fish revealed itself as one of hundreds basking in the bay.

The second strong candidate for beach of a lifetime was more difficult to find. I had read about the place and was pretty certain that I could find it. At the very start of an anticipated 11 hour drive from the west coast of Scotland to our home we pulled over between the single track road and the sand dunes. Progress through the shifting sands was difficult, two steps forward and one back, but we eventually broke through the dunes and emerged onto the whitest, purest sandy beach in the world. It was deserted. It could have been an ordinary beach but it was the actual one featuring in the 1983 film Local Hero. We stood for a few moments, collecting sand unwittingly in our socks and shoes. 

It was a magical experience.