Seaside

Robert Robinson visits the seaside town of Ilfacombe in Devon in the winter during the economic recession of the early 1980s and paints a bleak picture. He returns in the summer to see it transformed by the holidaymakers. Fundamentally this documentary gives a great snapshot of holidaying in Britain at a time of dismal economic news and industrial strife. The tourist industry in Ilfracombe was competing with the so-called holiday abroad and at home with a poorer Britain.

Seaside locations banked on a regular return of visitors, the usual suspects doing the usual things whose fidelity to a resort for summer vacation kept the tourist wheels turning. Younger generations had their heads turned by cheap air travel and a shrinking world but the average older British tourist and working family were happy year in year out in the same resort with regular home comforts of TV, fish and chips and cake. Home ownership was on the increase and retirees could sell up and move to the coast. Seaside resorts have regenerated somewhat and offer minibreaks throughout the year and staggered holidays have overtaken the great getaways of yesteryear when everyone turned up at the coast all at once.