The Seaside: England's Love Affair

(Hardback)

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A vivid journey around England's great seaside resorts, exploring their history and current struggle, and what they reveal about England, from the award-winning author of Love of Country

England's seaside is made up of a striking variety of coastlines including cliffs, coves, pebbled shore, wide sandy beaches, salt marshes, and estuaries cutting deep inland. On these coastal edges England's great holiday resorts grew up, developed in the early eighteenth century originally as spas for medicinal bathing but soon morphing into places of pleasure, entertainment, fantasy and adventure.

Acclaimed writer Madeleine Bunting journeyed clockwise around England from Scarborough to Blackpool to understand the enduring appeal of seaside towns, and what has happened to the golden sands, cold seas and donkey rides of childhood memory. Taking in some forty resorts, staying in hotels, caravans and holiday camps, she swims from their beaches and talks to their residents to delve into their landscapes, histories and contemporary plight.

Reviews

I enjoyed this very much. We all have happy seaside memories , and even though Bunting, too, finds the reason for our resorts' decline in in the fact that they were beaten to the sunburned pound and Kiss Me Quick Hat by the Costa This or That, I'd very much like her to be taken at her word and employed to revive their fortunes. Gauleiter Bunting has an authentic whiff of whelk about it' -- Jeremy Paxman
A fond exploration of our often conflicted relationship with the British beach resort. Its love for the institution is apparent and tender, but, rather like the country itself, Bunting also finds these locations to be divided and somewhat adrift. Her book makes for a fascinating barometer of the state of the nation right now, in the wake of austerity, Brexit and Covid -- Travis Elborough

Author Bio

Madeleine Bunting was for many years a columnist for the Guardian. She is the author of many non-fiction books, including Labours of Love: The Crisis of Care which was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize, The Plot: A Biography of My Father's English Acre, which won the Portico Prize, and Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey, which was shortlisted for the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize and the Saltire Non-Fiction Book of the Year. She has also written two novels, Island Song and Ceremony of Innocence. She lives in London.