The Seaside: England's Love Affair Hardcover – 4 May 2023

Take Madeleine Bunting with you when you visit the seaside anywhere in England. She will provide you with engaging conversation, explaining why you are there, what it means, and to whom you owe the tradition.Other reviewers have misunderstood the purpose of a travelogue. Some have not fully considered the nature of a love affair. Has anyone ever fallen out of love with the seaside? Does love end because the beloved has aged or put on weight? What Madeleine Bunting’s love affair means to her can resonate with that of the reader if the latter listens carefully. Does the lover not have a fascination with the beloved?Take the time and place that is most momentous to her. Along with her mother and sister, she washes up like flotsam and jetsam as a child in Brighton after being uprooted from the north of England by her parents’ broken marriage.Her reminiscences of growing up there are an iridescent pool of the human spirit, shimmering with inventiveness, courage and adventure. Is it surprising if such an uprooted person should be attracted to the idea that humanity is being redefined by the coast, as is discussed in the epilogue?Arriving in Worthing to research her book, she is overcome with a wave of nostalgia. The ancient Greeks thought of nostalgia as gratitude. Any reader can find their sympathies blossoming in fellow-feeling for their own treasures of memory.In the discussion of nostalgia with reference to Brighton in the epilogue, there is no acknowledgment of gratitude. If gratitude is love, what does it mean if it is absent? The very last words she writes is of love.Madeleine Bunting confesses her uncertainty as to how to respond to the dedications on the wooden benches that are donated in memory of the deceased that can be found in seaside resorts. In seaside gardens these memorials can be found touchingly embellished with ribbons, little angel charms, and children’s toy windmills.She writes how the coast became to be regarded as the place of an indeterminate state between two distinct things. The large Victorian cemeteries that were constructed in the mid 19th century were designed as parks where people could promenade on Sundays among their deceased relatives. It follows that the seaside is now just such a place. Between the formed and the formless; between the known and unknown, the beloved dead are memorialised as they once were in consecrated ground. Some benches even feature containers for flowers that are usually set in gravestones.In his Narnia stories, C S Lewis has Aslan’s Father titled as the Emperor-over-the-Sea. He is never seen. He is only referred to mysteriously by the laws inscribed on throne and sceptre (themselves the names of ranks of angels in Christianity). His title locates his presence out at sea. The sea formless as in the absence of graven images in the Jerusalem Temple. At the same time his title indicates that he can be reached by a voyage, as when a ship is unmoored from its harbour.So it is at the seaside, a place redolent of all the homely affections performed by those who visit, that the beloved deceased are brought in memory to the shore of the Eternal, and in doing so the bereaved receive peace from the Consolation of All Sorrows.'When morning was come, Jesus stood on the shore.' (John xxi.4).Madeleine Bunting returns repeatedly to discuss the behaviour of people visiting the seaside. She quotes various writers who have mocked and scoffed at the conventional lives of the Victorians and Edwardians that were overturned in these resorts.Yet these mockers and scoffers, these artists and novelists, were only the most notable among many people who preferred American liberty to the liberty of English self-restraint. In the two World Wars great tides of American power washed away the cliffs of British political independence and filled in the rock pools where little English creatures lived in delicate arrangement in their own environmental conditions.And doesn’t poor Eric Gill now look very primly English when set against the gift shops of the present-day resorts with their greetings cards that bear swear words that would have got an Edwardian arrested. His specious argument that his formulae of words that were epigrammatic allusions to impropriety were in the mind of the reader looks blushingly demure when set against the card games now on sale in the seafront shops that teach the purchaser how to swear in the language of every country in the world.This book is a worthy purchase as a tribute to a mode of recreation that has been exported worldwide. If the reader follows Madeleine Bunting’s example of roving adventurousness and keen observation, they can be rewarded likewise. Carefully gilded with hindsight, such memories that these discoveries and rediscoveries evoke are a form of veneration. Like the waves that cannot be held, they must be kissed in honour as they break over us. And like her, our last word will be love.

When the English think if the seaside, they think of sun, sea and ice cream. Of summer holidays, arcade games, fish and chips, and family run B&Bs. This book captures some of that vision, but only as a passing dream which has been replaced by deprivation and neglect.An interesting read if you are interested in the politics and effects of longterm neglect and social change, but not if you're more interested in reflecting on past memories of Blackpool. If you are looking for the latter then unfortunately you will be disappointed by this book.

In this beautifully written book, Madeline Bunting offers part travelogue, part social and cultural history of the English seaside. In a welcome contrast to Paul Theroux's classic but acerbic view of the English coast in "The Kingdom By The Sea" (which the author references) Bunting not only shines a light on the urgent challenges facing many English seaside towns, but reminds us why they are a source of enduring fascination and popularity in the first place.

I've spent a lot of time in coastal resorts so was looking forward to this unusual book. Unfortunately it was a dismal read and I ended up flick reading many of the chapters. The author was particularly unkind about Weston-super-Mare and failed to notice its thriving art and live music scene.

Very well written book, if unavoidably a little sad, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not sure what the answers are for fading resorts.

This book covers a wide range. It includes the history of the seaside and the gradual decline of the seaside resorts. It is well-researched and informative.I live in Worthing and apart from the few kind words about Worthing in the book it is very interesting to read about the image of the seaside in literature and how this corresponds to the reality now.

This cogently written impassioned book should be required reading for all MPs representing coastal resorts as investment in infrastructure projects is all very well but it has to go hand in hand with improving health and education inequalities as well as alleviating poverty and deprivation.The author cites places where the arts have been used to stimulate regeneration such as the Turner Contemporary Arts Gallery in Margate. The danger is though that it can lead to the gentrification of certain areas of coastal towns whilst not addressing the deeply entrenched social divisions. Using the arts can be beneficial but it has to have a broad appeal and not just cater to the middle and high brow middle classes.Skegness has the annual SO Festival which is great but that is only for two days a year. If the levelling up funding is used wisely to redevelop the foreshore then the hope is that it will bring long term benefits to the whole community but there is much work to be done for that to happen.

The book was a disappointment as soon as I opened it. Cheap paper, all text with no pictures. I was expecting photographs of each resort in it's hey day and the sort of book to have on your coffee table. I live in Gt. Yarmouth and it's not even in the book! I sent it back the same day.

BOOKSetc. dispatched this excellent book to me ahead of the expected delivery date! Better service, by far, from the UK than domestic carriers.