The British Seaside

Question 1

Key points of Virginia Woolf, “Solid Objects”

Answer 1

• Short story, published in Athaeneum 22 Oct. 2020
• Protagonists: John and Charles, two young men; John is running for Parliament
• Outing to an unnamed beach, presumably near London

Question 2

What did John pick on the beach to place on the mantle?

Answer 2

• lump of glass
• star shaped china
• piece of iron

Question 3

The beach (part 1)

Answer 3

• In Western modernity, the beach is regarded as a ‘carefree’ social space, in juxtaposition to the urban space of work, capitalist economy, strict rules of dress and behaviour.
• The beach is associated with childhood and play; adults are licenced to play like children.
• Certain attitudes (“bare, carefree and relaxed “) are construed as ‘natural’ on the beach.
• This is the result of a long historical process
• As Woolf’s short story shows, the dissolution of boundaries between the beach and the city brings trouble.

Question 4

Short history of seaside holidays

Answer 4

• rediscovery of therapeutic value of sea water in mid-17th century: ‘bracing’ air, cold water cures (‘dipping’)
• preservation of privacy and social distance: bathing huts, bathing machines
• The ‘natives’ of the seaside are pushed out and replaced by tourists –> sandcastle replaces the fisherman’s boat
• Decorum needed to be preserved for women –> bathing huts
• Painting: the ‘leisure’ activities done in it are not some we’d do in today’s day, no one but one child is in the water, the water is very minimal in the picture, they’re all on the beach, focus lies on the visitors not the beach
• Scarborough is one of the oldest seaside locations
• 1626: stream of acidic water discovered near Scarborough –> birth of Scarborough Spa, Britain’s first seaside resort

Question 5

Example: Scarborough

Answer 5

• 1626: stream of acidic water discovered near Scarborough —> birth of Scarborough Spa, Britain’s first seaside resort
• popular resort since 1660s; attracted wealthy middle class visitors from London and other towns
• 1844: first purpose-built hotel (Crown Spa Hotel)
• 1845: Scarborough-York railway; significant increase of visitors
• 1880s-First World War: regular destination for The Bass Excursions: special train excursions to the seaside for workers of the Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton brewing firm
• up to 17 trains took 7-10’000 employees and their families from Burton-on- Trent to the seaside (also to Blackpool, Brighton, Great Yarmouth, Liverpool)

Question 6

5 conditions for mass seaside holidays

Answer 6

1. Fast, cheap transport from the population centers was essential.
2. Availability of a regular surplus income which could be saved to cover the cost of an unpaid holiday away from home.
3. Several consecutive days’ agreed holiday were required, with the employer’s toleration if not his full approval.
4. The accessible resorts needed to be capable of responding to working-class demand, by the adaptation of attitudes, amenities, and accommodation to the new opportunities.
5. A related point: a large proportion of the labor force had to prefer the seaside holiday to alternative ways of allocating free time and surplus income, for the time and money available for leisure remained limited, and there were plenty of more immediate gratifications on offer in the industrial towns.

Question 7

When was the Sunbathing cult discovered?

Answer 7

1920

Question 8

The seaside (part 2)

Answer 8

• Seaside holidays in Great Britain have a long history, starting with the discovery of the beneficial effects of sea water and air in the late 17th century.
• Under royal and aristocratic patronage, seaside resorts developed into fashionable places.
• The railway made the seaside accessible to the working class, influencing patterns of leisure (Blackpool).
• Practices (e.g. bathing) changed significantly in the course of time.
• What to wear on the beach has always been strictly regulated, in particular for women.

Question 9

What does John Gillis say about the seaside and shore?

Answer 9

• The beach suggests beginnings and endings but offers no narrative, for the beach has no history and beachgoers have no connection with earlier Homo littoralis. Instead it presents itself as a point of eternal return that promises never to change — a place where nothing ever happens.
• The appeal of the beach lies in the fact that it excludes all that is “workful”. Its relation to nature and history must always be concealed, for it functions in modern culture as a primary place of getting away, of oblivion and forgetting.

Question 10

Constructing the beach

Answer 10

• The beach is regulated in itself (safety notifications etc)
  –> Think: no shoes no shirt no service
• Beaches have been segregated historically.
• The beach suggests beginnings and endings but offers no narrative, for the beach has no history and beachgoers have no connection. Instead it presents itself as a point of eternal return that promises never to change — a place where nothing ever happens.
• A primary place of getting away, of oblivion and forgetting.

Question 11

The seaside (part 3)

Answer 11

• The seaside is a social construction.
• Often, it is construed as pure nature, outside history, unchanging,
  eternal.
• The exclusion of work (fishing industry, servicing the beach) is the precondition to this idealising and often nostalgic picture.
• In fact, the seaside is heavily partitioned and regulated: rules of access, behaviour, practices, dress codes, etc.
• Historically, beaches have been segregated, excluding various groups such as vagrants, the poor, Jews, People of Colour, and others.

Question 12

Rob Shields “Places on the Margin”

Answer 12

Mention ‘beach’ and people immediately tend to think not just of an empirical datum – a sandy area between water and land caused by deposition, longshore drift, and so on — but also of a particular kind of place, peopled by individuals acting in a specific manner and engaging in predictable routines. What’s more, these practices (the odd culture of sunbathing, the tradition of sandcastles, and so on) make up a specific ensemble of practices. We learn that bare, carefree and relaxed are not only appropriate but also natural attitudes and behaviours for a beach. This naturalness derives from attitudes towards specific spaces such as a beach. Through a process of labelling, sites and zones associated with particular activities become characterised as being appropriate for exactly those types of activities.