As George Formby once said, it
turned out nice again. Yesterday’s blog about Skegness was quite negative in
tone and it shouldn’t have been really as we had a lovely time once the sun
came out. The train left Skegness station at quarter past six and we were back
on home turf at half eight. Thankfully the under class element weren’t on the
train home so I was able to let the sea air, good food and Guinness do its work
and allow me to sleep all the way home. It was one of the best sleeps I have
had, I don’t sleep that well at home but I wasn’t thinking about work for a
change. When I was a baby my dad used to put me in the car and drive me around
the block a couple of times to get me to sleep, this has obviously had an
effect on me because whenever I am in any mode of transport I fall asleep.
It was nice to see the place
again as despite not being happy at school I do have happy memories of the
place and the small circle of friends I made, most of whom I am still in touch
with. Very little exists of the life we enjoyed as carefree teenagers, although
I was glad to see that the Tower Cinema (and arcade) is still there. However
they no longer have the Wonderboy cabinet game, a game I was (though I say so
myself) brilliant at. The pub scene isn’t something I have clear memories of as
I left Skegness at seventeen and have only sporadically returned; we used to go
to TC’s, a nightclub with a very relaxed attitude to the concept a legal
drinking age. That was our Saturday night place to drink, dance, and attempt to
pull a young lady although a snog and a grope was pretty much all we achieved
90% of the time.
Skegness has never pretended to
be anything other than a tacky, kiss-me-quick, saucy postcard tacky seaside
resort, and that is what I love about it. I have no idea how so many shops
selling buckets and spades and assorted novelty items keep going, but it is
nice to see that they do. The holiday in England suffered a decline as it
became more affordable to travel abroad, but the two factors of financial
belt-tightening and environmental awareness have made people stay at home a bit
more, thus creating the awful word ‘staycation’. If this is the way ahead then
something needs doing to give the British seaside holiday a kick up the pants.
There aren’t as many hotels for a start, although some towns have succumbed to
the dreaded situation of having a Premier Inn
or Travelodge for the idiots to stay in. We need more traditional hotels of the
sort we associate with seaside holidays; breakfast in the dining room, dinner served
between six and nine followed by the bar open until the last person has gone to
bed, a packed lunch service, a television room that you need to book a timeslot
for (get rid of televisions in every room as it has killed the social element
to some extent), and a mail service. Health and safety should be abolished so
that cafes are allowed to serve ‘a pot of tea for the beach’, prices should be
brought down to allow families to eat out, buy souvenirs, take in a show (the
concept of the ‘summer season’ is still there if you look hard enough), and
enjoy attractions such as the funfair.
When I lived in Skegness there
wasn’t a chain eatery to be seen; now they have KFC, Burger King and McDonalds competing
with the traditional fish and chips, seafront cafes, doughnuts and candy floss.
There’s also a smattering of coffee chains and a Subway polluting the main
street. It’s either a sign of the financial times or a sign of dumbing down
that means that Lumley Road (the main street that runs down from the clock tower)
now has far more charity shops and cheap shops than before, and has even
managed to lose its branch of Marks and Spencer, so locals have to travel
further afield for their once a year tin-of-biscuits pilgrimage.
Supermarket-wise, Tesco , Iceland
I once wrote an article about how
to transform the rundown forgotten resorts back to their original seaside
splendour, and used Redcar as an example. The
trouble with Redcar is that the people don’t
want to make any effort and are happy to live with their crumbling
surroundings. Places like Skegness, Great Yarmouth, Blackpool
and the like, the higher up the ladder end of the seaside resort, could pull it
off and regain that greatness if they put the work in. We could once again
enjoy ice-cream, a stick of rock, a bag of chips, a Punch and Judy show, a
deckchair on the beach, a day at the funfair, and a relaxing Sunday afternoon
on the lawn listening to a brass band. All brass bands should start learning
how to play tiddley omm pom pom in
readiness.
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