Save the beach

Pubblicata da neil · 664 giornis fa ·

The seaside has always held a warm place in the British heart, dating back centuries before package holidays and cheap flights infiltrated our summer vacations. Indeed trace back to 1839 and you’ll find a letter written by novelist and poet Charlotte Bronte on her pending first trip to a UK beach where she declared; “The idea of seeing the sea – of being near it – watching its change by sunrise, sunset, moonlight and noonday – in calm, perhaps in storm – fills and satisfies my mind. I shall be discontented at nothing.” Over the years, British holiday-makers have experienced a similar thrill and sense of excitement on seeing the seaside, filling their hearts with a sense of escape, romance and freewill.

The emergence of package holidays around the 1970’s and more recently low-cost flights to exotic locations across Europe however began to eclipse the traditional fortnight in Brighton or Cornwall. Suddenly seaside towns became places of pathos and melancholy, their beaches depopulated and their funfairs redundant.

Fast-forward to the 21st century and the British seaside has shown a sign of rebirth. In 2009, visits abroad by UK  residents fell at its fastest rate since the 1970’s, with just over 56 million visits made to destinations outside of the UK – a 15% drop on the previous year. So where are the outstanding 15% (or 10.5 million) people going? Well it seems foreign visitors to the UK favour bustling conurbations like London and Edinburgh, while home-grown seekers of holiday fun have rediscovered the seaside.

Perhaps each trip to the beach represents a chance for children to be free and adults to recapture their youth. One thing’s for certain, if beaches are to continue to hold such a lure for holiday-makers, we must take care of them and preserve their beauty for future generations…