Britons still do like to be beside the seaside
The changing tides of coastal towns
In 1936 an enterprising businessman lit upon a way to make the British seaside even more of an endurance test. To icy seas, leaden skies and average annual temperatures of 10°C, Billy Butlin added low, wooden huts to house holidaymakers; a Tannoy system to rouse them each morning; and stringent rules to confine them to those huts by 11.15pm. Butlin, observed the author Bill Bryson, had repackaged “the prisoner-of-war camp as holiday, and, this being Britain, people loved it.”
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Ebb and flow”
Britain June 10th 2023
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- Children’s centres in Britain are crammed again
- How grassroots schemes are helping England’s non-white cricketers
- The fading charms of Britain’s historic cinemas
- Britons still do like to be beside the seaside
- British politics is littered with fake taboos
From the June 10th 2023 edition
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