22 August - 13 September - The Queen's Theatre

Wish youwere here…The traditional great British seaside holiday has longbeen something of a national institution. There canbe few Britons who don’t have nostalgic memories ofat least one seemingly endless summer fortnightspent enjoying the thrills and delights offered by oneof our seaside resorts.Even the introduction of package tourism to overseasresorts has not contrived to break the link betweenthe Brits and their beaches. Although the seasidebreak took a dip in popularity in the 1970s and1980s, the latest figures show that it is back, partlyhelped by the efforts of coastal areas who havespent enormous amounts of money cleaning up theirbeaches, modernising infrastructure, and creatingnew and enticing attractions.Holidays on prescriptionThe traditional English seaside holiday actuallybegan life not as a vacation or leisure pursuit but asa cure for unpleasant 18th century diseases. Doctorsat the time felt that sea bathing offered medicinalpossibilities, and would prescribe formal therapeuticbathing regimes for patients.Some researchers trace the origins of this practiceback as far as 1626, when a lady called Mrs Farrowfirst discovered a spring at Scarborough. The use ofspa waters for medicinal purposes had been aroundfor millennia - the Romans were big fans andestablished Aqua Sulis (modern-day Bath) for thispurpose. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for seabathing to be recommended as part of the therapeuticpackage. Not only bathing in, but also drinking,seawater was considered beneficial. Interestingly, thefirst bathers would have been nude, and both menand women would have bathed together.Blackpool, 1945: war-weary Britons tired of digging forvictory relax at the seaside and dig for fun insteadworkers (although statutory leave didn’t arrive untilthe 1938 Holidays With Pay Act, which allowed allindustrial workers at least one week’s annual paidleave). The huge increase in visitors spurred seasidetowns to build better and more attractive facilities withall manner of attractions, from fun fairs and lidos(open-air swimming pools) to what-the-butler-sawmachines and high-quality entertainment on the pier.Hotels, guest houses, B&Bs and other types ofboarding houses sprang up in huge numbers. Inmany seaside towns some streets contained nothingbut boarding houses.The beach boomIt was the upper classes that first started enjoying thedelights of the beach holiday. The less wealthy andleisured had to wait until the late 19th century, whichsaw the introduction of bank holidays and theestablishment of extended railway networks, to gettheir turn on the sands. Some towns welcomed theextra visitors as good for business; some, such asBournemouth, tried to prevent the hoi polloi fromarriving en masse, as they thought it would scareaway the wealthy upper-class invalids who regularlycame there.By the turn of the century, longer family trips to theseaside became increasingly common as tradeunions negotiated paid and unpaid holidays forThe best of British: Morecambe and Wise sample the local fare atBlackpool Beach, 1953