:) :) I'm new so I don't know if this has been done before but I had to ask if anyone had the same vivid memories of their arrival day at the seaside for a week's holiday. Sixty years on, I can still remember the wonderful sights and smells of the day that had been looked forward to for so long.
I still remember the smell of the carriage as we climbed in at the Midland station and, as soon as we arrived and the carriage door opened, the smell of the salt sea air.Everybody eagerly awaited the first glimpse of the sea around the next corner as we lugged our cases to our hotel. Then the first trip from the hotel to the sands and a stop at the little shop to get a bucket and spade and maybe a spinner to hold in the wind. And don't look at the post cards with the fat lady and the little boy (all that meat and no potatoes) on them. If you were lucky you couldn't sleep the first night for the pain from your sunburn or maybe it was indigestion from the all the crisps,winkles, and a whole stick of rock eaten before tea.
I don't think there has been another experience in my life which has stuck with me so vividly for so many years.

have no sense of smell!! but clearly remember the seaside holidays - Bridlington, Isle of Wight and Cornwall/Devon - always by train (except the last one when we finally had a car). The wonderful rythm of the train (must be why I still love train travel SO much!) Mum's thermos of orange juice and home made bacon and egg sandwiches. Trying to sleep on the overnight train down south - fog bound, trying to get to the Isle of Wight. Dressing up for dinner in the dining room. Sun burn and - worse - windburn! Wonderful doughnuts at Yarmouth - never tasted the same since!. Rubber buckets and spades, rubber rings, sand castles, paper flags. Pin ball machines, lucky dips, crazy golf, donkey rides, deck chairs. Oh for the simple pleasures.

I remember in the early/mid 60s my dad took us to Filey,I was only a small boy but I vividly recall the smell and a full week of wandering around with sand between your toes regardless of how much mum rinsed them off!!even on the trip home and for ages after the floor in the back of my dads car was sandy!!happy days.:)

Helbco, I don't have much sense of smell anymore but strangely I can still remember those smells. You reminded me of another - the smell and feel of the donkeys as you climbed on.
And , thinking of the dining room, wasn't it strange that, as you walked back from the beach and looked in other hotel windows, they all had the same thing for tea on a given day.

Back in 1961 I got posted to a RN Air Station in Malta for two years with my wife and year old son along. Coming back home to the UK two years later very bronzed to our favorite place Cornwall and on the beach two afternoons out of three. You'd think that we'd get bored with it. Well, my son had never experinced the kind of fun Blackpool and its like could be, so I decided to take him to Brighton for a week. It was a total disaster. He hated the pebble beaches, the cold water, the food. Some guy noting the Cornwall sticker on our mini wanted to know what the heck we were doing in Brighton. I told him I loved the place, whch I did, but my kid never did.

Buck, it was never cold at the seaside - it might be "bracing" but never cold.
Off topic: On the City Hall Dance thread I asked about Bob Stanley but nobody gave me an answer. Did you know anything about him?

Buck, it was never cold at the seaside - it might be "bracing" but never cold.
Off topic: On the City Hall Dance thread I asked about Bob Stanley but nobody gave me an answer. Did you know anything about him?Yes, I knew him quite well. He was, I believe a member of the Stanley tool making family and quite rich. He was famous for always having a bunch of gorgeous blondes in black dresses at the City Hall dances. He always drove an American car, at the time I knew him his car was a red Hudson with white wall tires. He was quite likeable but somewhat arrogant at times. Of course, we were all jealous of him, except the girls. I don't know if the Stanley Corporation of New Britain, Connecticut has any connections, but they are toolmakers so maybe so.

Buck, I am goung to reply on the City Hall Dance thread.

My first memories of the seaside were a day trip with school/church in the mid 1950s. We went to Cleethorpes - by coach I think.

I have no particular smelly memories but it was bracing and even rained! We had all made flags to decorate our sand castles with and I got upset when the sea knocked mine down and the flags got wet!

Such a long time ago - it must have made an impression - I went on to become a marine biologist!

I never lost my love of the sea either, Tellina, if I had known what a Marine Biologist was when I was a lad I might have become one. The best I could do was join the Navy but I always jump at the chance to go to the beach.

I was keen to be a fisherman but my dad wanted me to get "a proper job". Must admit I've enjoyed it over the years!

I never lost my love of the sea either, Tellina, if I had known what a Marine Biologist was when I was a lad I might have become one. The best I could do was join the Navy but I always jump at the chance to go to the beach.I don't think any of us old sailors ever lose our love of the sea, except, of course sometimes in the bay of biscay or pentland firth. I visited a good ex navy pal in Toronto some years ago, and we went aboard a WW2 RCN destroyer moored in the harbour. While the kids ran around working the AA guns, Ron and I sat on a bollard on the quarter deck and said we could do one more trip. The wives would have loved that,,,not. He visited me in CT, thought I was dead lucky only 30 miles from the coast. I said " What about Lake Ontario? " He said it's not the same. He's right, it smells funny.

My first memories of seaside holidays was of Blackpool during the war. My father who was in the RAF had an aunt who owned a boarding house so Mum and I went to stay there. It was a bit grim really, the beach was covered in barbed wire entanglements and nothing much in the way of entertainments was open. Or at least that is the story they told me.

Something must have been right though because I have had a love affair with the sea ever since. I am fortunate in that, during my RAF service, I spent 3 years in Cyprus and 3 years in Malta. I also spent two years at Kinloss on the Moray Firth.

Still can't leave it alone - I now have a static caravan on the North Norfolk coast.

day trips 2 skeggy and alike.. fantastico.. digging big holes in the sand!

Blackpool before the war,so many people on the beach I got lost. A trip to Scarborough during the war my cousin and I on the beach, a boatman announcing a trip round the fry-gate (figate), he said to us "come on lads get onboard" our reply was "wot for nowt" , "aye for nowt" he replied. A good trip it was too.

was never into Blackpool.

I wasn't into Blackpool as a young kid- the tide went out too far and too many people but it was great after you discovered beer and lasses. You had to be rugged to go from Sheffield on a trip to see the illuminations at Blackpool, back the same night then go to work next morning

My first memories of seaside holidays was of Blackpool during the war. My father who was in the RAF had an aunt who owned a boarding house so Mum and I went to stay there. It was a bit grim really, the beach was covered in barbed wire entanglements and nothing much in the way of entertainments was open. Or at least that is the story they told me.

Something must have been right though because I have had a love affair with the sea ever since. I am fortunate in that, during my RAF service, I spent 3 years in Cyprus and 3 years in Malta. I also spent two years at Kinloss on the Moray Firth.

Still can't leave it alone - I now have a static caravan on the North Norfolk coast.I spent a couple of years living in Malta too, as well as many visits while at sea. I was also at Lossiemouth when it was still an RNAS.