Notes

British Seaside Holiday
The thing that impressed us most whilst doing the study for this book was not how different holidays in the inter-war years were from today, but how similar. It came as a surprise to learn, for example, that the Bank Holiday traffic jam was nothing new. Rows upon rows of vintage cars (of course these were not vintage then, but very ordinary), bumper to bumper, going nowhere were a familiar sight on major routes into most of the big seaside towns from the 'thirties onwards. Sunbathing were only available in the 'twenties and that most important holiday fashion accessory, the couple of sunglasses, was common by the 'thirties.

There are differences of course. One man who found his Austin Seven boxed in by other parked cars along Bournemouth's Undercliff Drive, simply picked it up by the trunk bumper and pulled it out in to the road! The main differences come in style, taste and in technology. We do not now like swimming outdoors in the cold - in the 'twenties it had been recommended, even yet in Winter. No gentleman would go on holiday wearing a striped blazer and no lady would think beach pajamas and rubber bathing hats were the height of fashion. The aeroplane and the private car have replaced the train and the motor bus as the principal method of transport to the holiday destination. The main aim of the summertime holiday though, have not changed. As the Official Guide to Hastings and St Leonards put it in 1925:

"It is our pleasure whenever we take a holiday to provide our moods and our tastes the rein. We feel free through our whole being once we step from the train, and as soon as we leave the station we become truly ourselves and tastes that have had to be suppressed, and dreams which have been restricted to golden moments snatched from duty are released. get more info are resolved to do once we please, and all we ask of the city we have been visiting is that it shall have something for each inclination."

The language is obviously period, and you also could read 'plane for train, however the meaning is timeless. We continue holiday to escape our daily routine. To "give our moods and tastes the rein" to do what we please, not what we must do.

The annual holiday by the ocean did not, of course, begin in the inter-war years. It could trace its roots dating back to 1626 when Mrs Farrow first discovered a spring at Scarborough. The popular habit of taking spa waters for medicinal purposes was then brought to the seaside. It was only a short step for the doctors of your day to recommend taking seawater and sea bathing. Drinking sea water was thought, conveniently enough for the medical profession and the first boarding house keepers, to cure gout. Bathing in the sea was a general pick-me-up. The initial bathers were nude and men and women bathed together. It took nineteenth century prudity, coupled with equally nineteenth century commercialism to introduce the bathing machine.

The inter-war years were the time when an annual holiday was first enjoyed by many people. Prior to the First World War, it was little more when compared to a dream or perhaps a once in an eternity experience for many. It had been according to J A R Pimlott, among the first historians of the British seaside holiday, "... overlooked as a luxury that could be enjoyed at a particular level of income, but which there is no special hardship in going without". By the end of the 'thirties, the annual holiday was the norm for fifteen million people. The true breakthrough came in 1938 when the "Holidays with Pay Act" became law. All industrial workers were eligible for at least one week's paid holiday a year. Although this seems comprehensive, there have been still some groups excluded from the legislation - farm workers, domestic servants and shop workers, for instance.

It might then seem that only right at the end the 'thirties were holidays enjoyed by people in good sized quantities. This was false. By the time the legislation came in effect many trade unions had negotiated private handles employers for annual holidays. A lot more could take unpaid leave. In the Lancashire cotton towns as soon as the eighteen eighties, workers were given a week off unpaid as the mill machinery was serviced. Many of them managed to visit the seaside in that week. In 1935, the authors of "The Survey of London Life and Labour" remarked that "An annual summer holiday is today overlooked by way of a large and increasing amount of Londoners". Unfortunately there are few statistics to back up anecdotal evidence about numbers before 1938, but the feeling of a gradual upsurge in the numbers taking holidays throughout the whole of the inter-war period is given.

The inter-war period was enough time in which many of the basic elements of a modern lifestyle became possible for the very first time for significant amounts of people. Although the two decades are coloured by the depression and unprecedented degrees of unemployment, for most people the 'twenties and particularly the 'thirties gave them their first taste of affluence. This is a time of great contrasts. For millions of people working in what are referred to as the old staple industries of coal mining, shipbuilding, steel, and cotton it had been a period of great misery. The other side of the 'thirties coin, however, was the booming light manufacturing sector based around London and the Midlands. For those in secure jobs in the brand new industries of automobile manufacture, electricity and electrical goods and the service sector, life was becoming better. Contrary to the backdrop of the Depression were the beginnings of the prosperity which was only to arrived at full fruition in the post-war years. Indeed for those with the abilities to work in the brand new industries, life was very good by pre-First World War standards. Many what we now take for granted was available, for the very first time, to those not exclusively drawn from the wealthy in society.

Private car ownership increased dramatically. In 1914 there were only 140,000 motor vehicles of most types on the roads. By 1930, t here have been 1.5 million and by 1939, 3 million, 2 million which were private cars. This is still only a fraction of the numbers of today, but a least it was a significant part of the right direction.

Home ownership showed a far more dramatic increase. Before check here of the most wealthy between the middle classes still rented homes. Property ownership was still concentrated in the hands of a little minority of wealthy landowners. Between 1920 and 1939, 2.5 million new homes were built for private sale and an additional 1.5 million for council tenants. By the end of the 'thirties a basic semi-detached house could possibly be bought for 450 pounds - bit more than double the cost of a new car. With mortgages only 4.5%, it is not surprising that many people from the professions, the lower management grades and the skilled working classes took the opportunity to become home owners. At no other amount of time in our history was housing so affordable as in this the initial housing boom fifty years prior to the nineteen eighties.

Most of the new homes would have been wired for electricity, but at the start of the period (1920) only 1 in seventeen was. By 1930, it was one in three and by 1939 two in three. As well as lighting, electricity could be used to power a host of new consumer goods such as for example radios, gramophones, vacuum cleaners, washing machines and electric irons. Indeed by the end of the 'thirties a lot of the electrical goods that we use today could be bought in a few form. Some such as television, were still only for the wealthy.

One of these new products, the radio, had significant effects on society itself. No longer were rural communities totally separate and insular. The most recent news and sports like the FA Cup final or tennis from Wimbledon could be heard in even the most remote village. You did not even have to have electricity, a crystal set would do. Life in Britain had changed forever.

To find out more about Sun, Sea and Sand and the fantastic British Seaside Holiday go to http://www.seasidehistory.co.uk
Website: https://te.legra.ph/British-Seaside-Holiday-06-09-4