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Beside the Seaside
Awash with atmospheric pictures, this charming album captures the very essence of summers by the warm sand between the toes, sun glinting brilliantly from a true blue sky, windswept beach chairs, sunburned beauties, towel-wrapped children, lovers in a sandy embrace. Each chapter draws on an individual theme of the British working life, architecture, fairs and concessions, bathing beauties, illuminated piers and promenades, glitzy pleasure domes. Novelist Joseph Connolly--a droll chronicler of British custom--tells the stories behind the photos, drawing out the romance, the excitement, the hilarious eccentricity of it all. Wish you were there? You almost are.
Hardcover
First published May 13, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
September 14, 2023
I have always enjoyed Joseph Connolly's books whatever the subject and this is another to add to the list. He always adds a touch of humour to his books and he continues that ideal as he gives us the tangy flavour of the seaside. And Joe Cornish's brilliantly atmospheric photography augments the text to perfection.
It is good to see after the miserable middle months of the year (I refuse to use the descriptive season word as it didn't exist this year!) that Connolly captures the very essence of summers with the blue skies, golden sand, holiday makers in swim wear and crowded beaches. There is little sign of the persistent rain of this year with the only dampness as 'proof positive that just occasionally (!!!) during the course of the summer seaside holiday, the sun declines to put in an appearance' being a gentleman and lady chatting at the entrance to an unnamed pier in 1953 with a very damp, from what would have been recent rain, pavement shimmering in the background. And as for the gale force winds of this year a lady rests huddled in top coat on a deckchair at Bournemouth in 1954, 'one of the worst summers the resort recorded'.
Candy floss is in evidence in an excellent photograph of two ladies, noted as being twins (and they do look alike), who are strolling past the Grand Theatre in Blackpool in 1955 with posters of Arthur Askey, who was almost an annual visitor for the season shows in my youth, advertising 'a new comedy' entitled 'Love and Kisses'. And, as perhaps can be expected Blackpool features regularly throughout the book with one slight error in a lengthy caption that describes Blackpool Tower as having been opened in 1888 but it was only completed in 1894.
Filleted Fish and Chips at two shillings and threepence with Boiled Ham and Chips at three shillings and sixpence plus other delicacies (!) are advertised on Bradbury's board in Scarborough in 1952 while bandstands predominate at other resorts, most notably with a brilliant double-page spread of of a packed Scarborough, where at one time it was popularly decreed of the resort 'if you both drank the mineral water and bathed in the salty sea your health would be boundless for just about ever'!
There are photographs of beach architecture with the beautifully maintained beach huts at Southwold, Suffolk, particularly impressive as are those at Wells-next-the-Sea , Norfolk, that are built on stilts to cope with the vagaries of the tides; they very much recall the general design of the 19th century bathing machines, which Connolly states 'were the forerunners of the beach hut'.
There are plenty of other photographs of resorts throughout Britain that sum up the essence of the pleasure generation after generation has derived from being by the sea. Long may it continue should sunny weather reappear in future in those middle months of the year!
It is good to see after the miserable middle months of the year (I refuse to use the descriptive season word as it didn't exist this year!) that Connolly captures the very essence of summers with the blue skies, golden sand, holiday makers in swim wear and crowded beaches. There is little sign of the persistent rain of this year with the only dampness as 'proof positive that just occasionally (!!!) during the course of the summer seaside holiday, the sun declines to put in an appearance' being a gentleman and lady chatting at the entrance to an unnamed pier in 1953 with a very damp, from what would have been recent rain, pavement shimmering in the background. And as for the gale force winds of this year a lady rests huddled in top coat on a deckchair at Bournemouth in 1954, 'one of the worst summers the resort recorded'.
Candy floss is in evidence in an excellent photograph of two ladies, noted as being twins (and they do look alike), who are strolling past the Grand Theatre in Blackpool in 1955 with posters of Arthur Askey, who was almost an annual visitor for the season shows in my youth, advertising 'a new comedy' entitled 'Love and Kisses'. And, as perhaps can be expected Blackpool features regularly throughout the book with one slight error in a lengthy caption that describes Blackpool Tower as having been opened in 1888 but it was only completed in 1894.
Filleted Fish and Chips at two shillings and threepence with Boiled Ham and Chips at three shillings and sixpence plus other delicacies (!) are advertised on Bradbury's board in Scarborough in 1952 while bandstands predominate at other resorts, most notably with a brilliant double-page spread of of a packed Scarborough, where at one time it was popularly decreed of the resort 'if you both drank the mineral water and bathed in the salty sea your health would be boundless for just about ever'!
There are photographs of beach architecture with the beautifully maintained beach huts at Southwold, Suffolk, particularly impressive as are those at Wells-next-the-Sea , Norfolk, that are built on stilts to cope with the vagaries of the tides; they very much recall the general design of the 19th century bathing machines, which Connolly states 'were the forerunners of the beach hut'.
There are plenty of other photographs of resorts throughout Britain that sum up the essence of the pleasure generation after generation has derived from being by the sea. Long may it continue should sunny weather reappear in future in those middle months of the year!
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review