Devonshire ezine Spring 19

WE DO LIKE TO BE BESIDE OUR SEASIDES ...continued
Rock of sages
Everyone became a sucker for
‘seaside pink’ lettered rock, which
seems to have been invented in the
1840s - probably at Morecombe.
It began by featuring, not place
names but ‘cheeky phrases’ such
as KISS ME QUICK and SQUEEZE
ME SLOWLY. It didn’t take long for
these immortal lines to find their
way onto hats and along ribboned
‘favours’ worn on the lapel but it
was another thirty years before the
penny dropped and enterprising
seaside towns, in their wisdom,
thought to put their names down
the middle.
Appetites for change
There is nothing new about fast
food - cheap and tasty things that
could be be eaten on the hoof,
strolling along the prom.
popularity in Devon by train-riding
London holiday makers.
The commercial ice cream cone we
know today was introduced into
Britain by an Italian in Manchester
in 1902 and soon found universal
appeal around our seasides. This
cornet also sounded the funeral
note of the so-called ‘penny ice’ as
it also triggered a genetic change
in our nation’s seagulls.
The penny ice was bought from
a cart on the promenade, eaten
on the spot from a small glass
dish with a wooden spoon and
the dish returned for washing
up. But whereas the cone was a
great liberator there was a price
to be paid for this new freedom.
Ladies especially, and quite wisely,
between licks held their ice creams
out, as far away from their bodices
and long dresses as possible but in
so doing they provided an open
invitation to every passing seagull
to come and get it.
Postcards from
the edge
The ‘new’ seasides, with their free
and easy approach to life away from
the shackles of routine, broke down
the rigid ideas of Victorian and
Edwardian propriety and decorum.
The prim and proper moved on
(or sought each others company
abroad) whilst left to their own
devices on the beach, under the
pier or who knows elsewhere ‘the
remainers’ developed a bright and
breezy, slap ‘n tickle approach to
holiday fun that resulted, inevitably
in the cheeky seaside postcard.
Some 16 million of these were
bought and posted in the 1930s,
the hey day of gagsters and artists
like the immortal Donald McGill
flourished and for the academically
minded seeking enlightenment
there is a museum dedicated to
some of his naughtier creations at
saucyseasidepostcards.com
Most popular of seaside foods of
course was fish, especially fish
and chips. The dish (or rather the
newspaper-wrapped meal) came
into being circa 1850 via the
culinary skills of a Jewish immigrant
to the East End of London, one
Joseph Malin. Londoners brought
their fondness for this with them,
along with whelks, winkles, cockles,
mussels and - inevitably, jellied
eels - this time an 18th century
invention and again brought into
Today, 117 years and ten and more
generations of seagull later (they
can live up to 15 years) it would
probably take counselling sessions
of some kind amongst the die-hard
birds to break them of this inherent
opportunism.
Jane Austen versus
Mark Sheridan
We’ve come a long way at the
seaside here in the West Country
since Jane Austen dried herself
off in a bathing machine in Lyme
Regis and wrote (with some unusual
spelling) to her sister, Cassandra:
“The Bathing was so delightful this
146 CONTENTS COUNTRYSIDE VISIT
FOOD & DRINK
THINGS TO DO