As we hailed the first truly hot day of summer, spent in the workshop, I was thrilled to find a whole website of poems about the seaside, another about Blackpool. While many summed up the author’s connection with the seaside, alien to mine, others summed it up perfectly.
And of course, I forgot to bookmark the page, forgot to note the authors in my excitement but after a lot of retracing - voila - the tip of a monstrous iceberg.
Meryl Brailsford - Oh To be In The Sea
My great love is the sea
To stroll across the sand
The squelch between your toes
Is like no other
Leaving a trail of footprints
Only to be washed away in the next high tide.
To crash through the waves
Firstly on the tips of your toes
Till you acclimatize to the frothy sea
Then diving beneath the waves
All worries leaving as you emerge
From the depths of the ocean.
The feeling of an out of body lightness
Floating without purpose
As the seaweed floats on by
For a moment in time you’re
At one with the sea’s ceaseless emotion.
The sense of catharsis, for me, either walking on the sand, or strolling into the sea, is almost verbatim, as described above. Washing away footprints, like you never existed or passed this way, a snapchat for the real world! The beach, the seaside in general always brings me a sense of calm, clarity and happiness.
John Edward Smallshaw - West Coast ‘66
Fleetwood was good
but not as good as
Blackpool and her golden mile
Blackpool made us children smile
Fleetwood gave us fish but
Blackpool made us wish the
day would never end.
I love both destinations. Very different but very traditional seaside resorts. Blackpool still thrives while Fleetwood feels like the retired older parent of the NW British seaside resort. It has a dignity and a suggestion of just how much it used to be able to boast. Aside from the fishing industry, the seafront suggests it was probably more exclusive.
It’s not as showy, not as brash, not as vulgar as Blackpool can be but it’s no less honest. Anton Snert describes Blackpool as the Fylde’s ugly wart! I guess he should have visited Fleetwood instead!
Anne Billinge - Off to the seaside
Off to the seaside we all go
Sit in beach huts all in a row
Bucket and spade and ice cream
Dive in the sea - oh how we scream.
My design ideas are leaning more and more to the sheer enjoyment of the seaside and less towards coastal erosion, landscape, the impact of man on coastal features. I remain committed to the colours, textures and shapes therein, but want to extend this to reflect human interactions and emotions, and paraphernalia associated with a day at the beach.
Matthew Holloway - A Day at the Beach
The sun reflections danced in the sea
Seagulls squawked overhead
children laughed and played in the tide
running back and forth to picnics
it was a busy day and plenty on offer
the crowd moved along in a steady pace
finding places to sit and rest
some read while others watched
a few did nothing at all but lay there
all beneath a clear blue sky
beautiful and vast almost endless
a gentle wind eased the heat of day
rolling from the sea over sands
ice cream and cold drinks on order
applied to chill the rest
it was a beautiful postcard day.
I took to Facebook and Instagram to canvas opinion as to why people like, or don’t like the seaside.
It was mainly women who answered the question, which is a bit frustrating as I would have liked to hear what men think but the likes were:
beach combing
swimming in the sea
rock pools
sea caves
water activities
fish and chips
the sound of the sea
the smell of ozone
the changing colours of the sea
hot sand
warm rocks
the view
the kitschness of British resorts
a sense of freedom and space
waves
looking out to sea
the sense of calm and peace it evokes
people watching
stormy skies over the sea
the sound of gulls
the light
cliffs
sand castles - building your own Mont St Michel !
how powerful it feels
the feeling of sun, salt and sand on skin
Interestingly in the dislikes, the overwhelming response was a crowded beach. Others disliked sand getting everywhere or simply that a day at the beach is just boring.
Most people mentioned the sound of the waves, or the view to the horizon, interesting how the sea itself played a huge part in response.
For me it’s different depending on whether you’re at the seaside in the UK or at the seaside abroad, but it’s always about picking up pebbles, watching the sea, listening, skimming stones, swimming, lying on the sand, building a sand castle, basically all of the above!
I always find that happiness abounds at the beach. Children invariably squeal with delight. Parents have a laugh. Dogs adore it. I love the colours, be they bright beach huts, or muted, weathered boardwalks.
I love the timelessness of the seaside. I am a child there. I still think it’s fabulous to dig a hole and wait for the water to appear, to watch as the hole gets bigger and bigger as the sides cave in. I still like to jump waves, to go on a pedalo, to fly a kite, to have ice cream. I suppose the seaside just makes me feel alive.
So now to turn all that into work.