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Friday 4 May 2018

"Oh, I Do LikeTo Be Beside the Seaside!" - Sepia Saturday

A happy group of people enjoying the seaside, smile  at us from this week's Sepia Saturday prompt photograph, which looks to be taken in the 1920's. I have the ideal match below. .


On the left, wearing the cloche hat is my husband's Great Aunt Pat, beside her daughter Annette - with unknown friends. Judging by the fashions and the age of Annette,  it  was most likely  taken in the late 1920's  on the beach at Margat in Kent,  where the family lived.

I am a Blackpudlian - born in the famous north west seaside resort of Blackpool, Lancashire,  famed for its golden beaches and its tower. Modelled on the Eiffel Tower and built in 1894, Blackpool Tower  rises to 520 feet - facts drummed into us at school. 
 
 A surprisingly empty Blackpool beach with the Central Pier and the famous Tower in the background.
The earliest picture of me enjoying the beach.  I reckon this was taken June 1945, as my father here was in uniform.   I know that he had leave between marking VE Day in Germany and then being posted to the Far East. 


Toddling along with my father. 


Our own family holidays were taken in Bournemouth on the south coast of England, where a great friend of my mother ran a small hotel. All the ingredients of  traditional 1950's seaside fun were there - setting up deckchairs, playing  on the beach, making sandcastles, eating icecreams  taking donkey rides, exploring rock pools. 

 
 With my mother.  Every summer she made me a new sun dress and I remember this one in green and white  polka dots, with shoulder straps on my dress and a bolero to go over it.  
                 
it must be a photographic quirk that Dad appears so sunburnt in the photograph above, because he did not lead a particularly outdoor life to get that brown.  
 

Digging holes with my brother.    You can tell this must be the 1950’s - those were the days before the anti-smoking  campaigns and  my father is happy to enjoy his cigarette, long before he ditched the habit.  Goodness knows why I  was I wearing a hated rubber swimming cap, as I could barely swim at this stage?    I suppose to keep dry my long hair which was  usually in plaits.   

A happy picture of my brother  looking very natty in his knitted bathing suit and sunhat.

Digging down to Australia?  


 
Little Gloria, here is   engrossed in something in the sand but keeping a firm hand on that big ball!   c.1935.   
 

 My daughter  (in the middle) enjoying a donkey ride on Blackpool beach. This was taken in Blackpool in the school  October half term holiday, so not exactly summery.

Daughter  and her cousin with their dogs on the beach  at South Shields, County Durham, with Marsden Rock in the background. 

 
 A beautiful, peaceful beach to ourselves amidst the wonderful scenery on the Isle of Iona, looking across to the Isle of Mull in the Scottish West Highlands. 
 
Our dog enjoying the water on Mull, with the ferry to Iona in the background. 

And if you cannot get to the beach, why not enjoy some sandy moments  at home?  Granddaughter having fun in her sand pit.     


 

 Finally join in the  seaside fun, with this popular music hall song from 1907 - "Oh I do Like to be Beside the Seaside".

Video for song oh i do like to be beside the seaside

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers  
to share their family history and memories through photographs.


 

Click HERE to head off to the beach with  other Sepia Saturday bloggers. 


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6 comments:

  1. Great beach photos over a long span of time. My favorite is of you with your dad in uniform. Love your ending in the sand pit.

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  2. Is there anyone in Britain who DOESN't have photos like this of the family at the seaside? So many donkeys, so many mud flats, so little sunshine! :-)

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  3. Wonderful pictures, all. But my favorite has to be you running alongside your Dad on the beach with such a happy smile as you look up to him. :)

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  4. A lovely collection of photographs and obviously happy memories.

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  5. Oh what a great bunch of beach and family fun outings. Loved having hand sewn sundresses, which I'd forgoten until I saw yours!

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  6. Thank you all for your kind comments. To Mike - yes we do get some sunshine here - it is just very unpredictable and unreliable!

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