History Of English Beach Resorts

Blackpool built its famous tower and earned itself the title “Paris of the north.” The guest house, complete along with the redoubtable Brit landlady, was built to house folks during their stay. Pre-second world war, the holiday camp, the most famous being Butlins, was developed, offering the Brit working class holidaymaker a communal setting, with lodgings, catering and entertainment all on one site.

Britain’s unbalanced climate, joined with the development of mass air travel in the past 40 years saw something of a decline in the acclaim for the states holiday resort. The average Briton is actually now more certain to jet off to sunnier climes instead of spend their annual vacation in their own country. From time to time depression and a fall in the value of sterling has seen this trend arrested. But British resorts are now depending increasingly on the development of entertainments, including theatres and theatres, and in particular night life for the clubbing generation though the admiration for visiting the coast and staying at one of the wondeful caravan holiday parks is just as high as it was in the halycon days of the 1950s.

English Seaside Vacations In The Nineteen Fifties

The typical seaside vacation in the United Kingdom in the 1950s was quite different from those enjoyed today. Admittedly, there was the same wish to lounge on the beaches, paddle in the sea and revel in the entertainments as there is today, but the the past half century saw large changes in tastes and expectancies.

A far larger share of Britons enjoyed their holidays in their home country than they do today. In the Nineteen Fifties inexpensive global flights had not been introduced and the massive vacation resorts of the Mediterranean and beyond magnets for modern sun-seeking Brits had not been developed. For their summer vacations the British inclined to visit the resorts in their own area , such as Blackpool for northerners and Brighton for people living in the south. A visit to Torquay in the south west for someone living in Yorkshire would be seen as exotic.

Staying in a hotel or vacation park, now very popular with holidaymakers in Great Britain, would be unknown, particularly to working class families in the Nineteen Fifties. Holiday lodgings were far more austere. Hotels were only affordable for the well off, so most families stayed in bed and breakfasts, which folklore tells us were owned by stringent unsmiling landladies. Caravan sites were available, but really not like the luxury holiday parks of today. Washing and toilet facilities were basic and communal. Caravans were nothing like the modern static static caravan complete with mod cons. They were cramped, little, and lacked a WC. And as for the modern log cabin, the most you could expect in the Nineteen Fifties was a small prefabricated chalet, with only marginally better facilities than the static caravans of the period.

The English beach holiday of the 1950s was extraordinarily much a communal affair. Families travelled, along with other families, to the seaside on coaches or trains. A nice example of the communal side of the British vacation of the period were the vacation camps, Butlins and Pontins being the most famous. Sophisticated they may not have been, but they continue to gave great enjoyment to millions.