Info

Technical info

Full transcript below.

Headphones recommended.

Duration: 36 minutes.

The audio is available for download.

Accompanying images by Ian Howorth.

You can share your memories using the submit form on the website. We will publish these on the @itswherewego Instagram.

Look through the postcards of written memories from the audiences of previous live performances.

About itswherewego.com

itswherewego.com is an audiovisual performative archive of memories about the seaside in and around the UK. These are stories of nostalgia and loss, but also of community and hope. This performance explores our communal understanding of these unique spaces and their potential for shared experience.

itswherewego.com is an online adaptation of It’s Where We Go, our 2016 site-specific performance exploring the seaside and nostalgia, performed at Coastival Festival, North Yorkshire; Herne Bay Festival, Kent; and Tenby Arts Festival, Pembrokeshire. We gave each audience member an audio device and encouraged them to take a walk along the seafront. Then we invited them to contribute their memories on postcards.

In early 2021, when live performances could not take place in line with COVID-19 restrictions, we adapted this performance to make it accessible to a wider audience online. We collaborated with photographer Ian Howorth, whose work explores memory, emotion and nostalgia, to add to the stories and help frame these seaside experiences as you listen to them.

We hope the themes in this performance will speak to you, especially during these challenging times, and bring you a little bit of light and hope. Listening to this performance now is about remembering what we once had, and the people we shared those experiences with.

In time, we can share new moments and create more memories. The seaside will be there for us.

Credits

Created by Tiffany Murphy and Olivia Lamont Bishop, with Hannah Fisher.
In collaboration with photographer Ian Howorth // @ihoworth.

Thank you to Filippo Bertetto, Ed Sharp and our 25 participants.

Media enquiries

For full press release, images and quotes, please use our press kit or get in touch.

Back to itswherewego.com

Transcript

Adam 1: Um, I grew up in Scarborough, um, I lived in Burniston to begin with.

Marcus: Uh, I grew up in Seaview on the Isle of Wight.

Jack: I grew up in Penarth, in South Wales.

Jodie: I grew up in Ilford.

Andrew: Eastbourne.

Tina: I grew up in a town called Well.

Musaab: I was born in Syria.

Micheal: A small little village called Mumbles, in Swansea.

Izzy: Brazil, in Sao Paulo.

(Sounds of footsteps on pebbles fade in)

(Sounds of waves and seabirds fade in)

Rory: Born in Canterbury—lived in Whitstable until I was 22.

Adam 2 (overlap): I’m from Canterbury, my grandparents lived in Hythe.

Tiffany: Whitstable, that's a seaside town—

Rory: That's correct yeah, one of the best.

Tiffany: One the best! And you're in Herne Bay now as well?

Rory: Yeah, Herne Bay now. Yeah, that's alright, that's up there as well.

Adam 3: Uh, so I grew up in Whitstable.

Dom: Herne Bay.

Adam 3: I lived in Herne Bay for a period of time when I was at school.

Hannah: Thurrock in Essex and was about a sort of, you know, half an hour trip away from Southend-on-Sea.

Marcel: I'm from Southend-on-Sea!

Ebony: I'm from, well, we're both from Folkestone actually.

Antonia: We're both from Folkestone, yeah, but you're from—

Ebony: I live in Hythe, Sandgate, the posh bit.

Antonia: Seabrook, yeah.

Vickie: I'm from London, but I moved to Cornwall 20-odd years ago. To be near the sea and to be near the coast. Although, now I'm here, I never really go there.

(Pebble walk and waves continue)

Rory: Would I leave?

Tiffany: Leave the seaside?

Charlotte: Think about what a lovely afternoon we’ve had today.

Rory: Oh you’re so right—going on this afternoon, definitely not. We’ve had a lovely day.

Tiffany: What did you do today?

Rory: Oh, we had a lovely day—um—

Charlotte: Well, what were we going to do? 

Rory: We were going to go see Santa Claus and the reindeers, which were out on Herne Bay pier. But when we got there, because it was a little bit windy and maybe a little bit drizzly, they shut the whole place down. So we went to the arcades, which was just on the seafront. And it was magic, wasn’t it? Absolutely magic, yeah. Lovely day. Really lovely day.

Marcus: Unusual about the British and their seasides and their tea rooms and their roller coasters on the pier, are their piers. Um, obviously built because of the tide, so the ships that used to take the passengers around would have to come to a place where there was water, so that's why they built piers.

Vickie: Yeah Southend had a pier, and it had a train! You went on the train down the pier and that was fantastic. It was a mile long. It was the longest pier in England.

Jodie: From being a baby, I have vivid recollections of being about three years old at the beach until we were about 15.

(Rory overlap): Really lovely day.

Jodie: Yeah, quite a while, yeah! We never ever went abroad, and we we would go on holiday every year. Sometimes we would go with friends, like mum-and-dad's friends would come with us, we'd go in big groups but mainly it was just me, my mum, dad and sister.

Alex: I’d always go to the seaside with grandad it was like a grandad day out thing.

(Waves increase)

(Jodie overlap): Yeah, quite a while, yeah! We never ever went abroad and we would go on holiday every year, sometimes we’d go in big groups but...

(Vickie overlap): Yeah, Southend had a pier, and it had a train! You went on the train down the pier…

(Alex overlap): It was like a grandad day out thing.

(Waves decrease and continue in background + pebble beach walk)

Musaab: I have a lot of memories with the seaside, but I can talk about the most interesting three memories.

Adam 1: Personally, I don't like sand. I don't like sand. No, because you, it just gets everywhere! Like especially if you go in the sea, you're in the sea. You get wet and the only way to go is back onto the beach and then you get covered in sand again so you want to go back into the water and then…

Micheal: Just going there and relaxing, but what you used to do is that you sort of just turn up and go down the beach or something. But then when you've got your shack on the hill, you can sort of—you feel a little lofty and look out. Um, what's great is that the hut next door used to be, um, owned by the Crabbs! So, uh, the Crabb family used to live next door uh so that was fun, you know, going to Langland ‘with the crabs’.

Alan: You know, you look at the piers in Brighton and Eastbourne and those sort of places, I think they were really built for the London, the London and Southeast day-tripper.

Adam 3: In Whitstable we call them DFLs, which is ‘Down from Londons’.

Rory: What did you say?

Charlotte: You can’t do that!

Rory: Oh, ‘no conferring’.

Vickie: Southend-on-Sea was the seaside resort for the east end of London.

Charlotte: It doesn’t have to be Whitstable like I just said—

Rory: CRABS! A lot of dead crabs—

(Laughter)

Rory: Dead crabs on the, on the—

Charlotte: Pinching. (laughter)

Rory: When the tide went out, a lot of shells, a lot of dead crab shells.

(Micheal overlap): So the Crabb family used to live next door, so that was fun.

Tiffany: That’s interesting, it’s not exactly an image that many, you know—

Rory: But I am just going from my childhood—

Tiffany: No, it’s nice! You don’t see postcards with dead crabs—

Rory: And, you know, I’d always lose a trainer. Because you had to go into the sea with your trainers on because your feet would get cut up, and I’d always lose one of my favourite trainers—

(Anthony overlap): I do have a fear of crabs (pause) biting my legs.

Rory: Puma king astro turfs!

Tiffany: That could have been—yeah, alright—so, you’ve got crabs. Were there three things..?

(laughter)

Tiffany: Oh no! I—(laughter)

Rory: Very good, Tiff. (laughter) Riddled.

Adam 2: We used to go crab fishing as kids. Like, we’d go up to Whitstable. You get your fishing pole. And it was a big deal—you’d put it in your bucket, and you’d walk down. Um, I never knew what the end game was with crabs. Like, presumably you just let them out the end. But I was with a friend, and we just took one crab out and we put it on the beach and we just started bashing it with rocks!

(Rory overlap): Dead crabs on the, on the—when the tide goes out a lot of shells, a lot of dead crab shells.

Adam 2: And I don’t know why we did that, we were kids! You know, it was nothing to us. We were just kind of like ‘look what happened’, you know.

(Rory overlap): What did you say?

(Charlotte overlap): You can’t do that!

Alex: Once I had a very traumatic incident where I was eating a sausage—a battered sausage, actually, if you must know—and a seagull flew in and stole it from me and started stabbing me in the head with its beak and I was incredibly traumatised.

Jack: Not so much we didn't really take that many trips to the seaside outside of Penarth. Um, we took one trip to Tenby and it was very nice. I think we went to the Gower in Swansea a few times as well.

(Arcade sounds fade in. Sounds of machines, music, hubbub)

Tina: Yeah, we used to go there, we used to um go to Skegness and get the brightly-coloured shovels and little castle things that you fill the sand with and build sandcastles by the beach. Yeah and there was a Panda’s Palace in Skegness that we used to go to a lot as a kid. Well I have, um, different experiences of the British seaside in the sense that like theres Skegness. Which is, it's a very much like a seaside town and it's a bit tacky and, uh, there's arcades everywhere, um, and then I used to go to Gibraltar Point a lot…

Vickie: All the arcades, you know the arcades with machines that you can go and spend your money on all playing loud music. With all, um, plastic toys to win and stuffed animals and then one where you put your 2p-pieces in and slip them along—

Olivia: And you always think you're gonna win.

Vickie: And the grabber machine! Where you put your money in and tried to grab a—oh, I don't know—a gold watch or a £10 note on a block or something.

Alex: Which is actually superglued in place.

Vickie: Well, yeah!

(Arcade sounds fade out)

(Pebble walk, waves and seabirds continue in background)

Izzy: I used to come out of my flat and walk for about two minutes and I'd be on the beach. Um, but it wasn't a very nice beach. So, I would walk to the right and walk down and I’d have to jump a few, um, walls because you're not really supposed to be walking there. But I used to do it anyway. And I used to just sit down and just listen to music and just be there and it was really nice.

(Rory overlap): Really lovely day.

(Nostalgic music)

Irene: I grew up in Bolton; a Lancashire mill town. So, a day trip to the seaside was exciting. The day came; all necessities packed which, of course, included bucket and spade, ball and, of course, a picnic. Ready for off, the journey starts and we make our way to the railway station. No cars in those days.

Two-and-a-half hours later, shoes and socks abandoned. I was running along this lovely beach, breathing in the wonderful sea air, and then splashing about in the sea. What a great feeling that was! Eventually, in need of refreshment, picnic time and, maybe, an ice cream or a donkey ride.

And then my dad would help me build a sandcastle, which I would decorate with paper flags, shells or stones, or anything I could find. What a wonderful day we’re having! All too soon, it was time to leave for home. We had a train to catch. We had enjoyed our day by the sea.

Those are childhood memories, growing up in the 30s. Now, decades later, I live by the sea, in Southport, and it means as much to me as in those carefree days. I now get peace and tranquility in a gentle stroll; watching the birds or merely sitting, looking out to sea and appreciating lovely sunsets.

(Nostalgic music fades out)

Micheal: What was great about it was that I always remember that you had sort of a base and that you had—it was, it was just a great family holiday—

(Vickie overlap): It was your archetypal English beach holiday.

Micheal: You'd go down there, even though we were very close and lived and it was regular, it still felt like going away. It still felt like you were going somewhere special. 

(Vickie overlap): And the kids absolutely loved it.

Micheal: Even if you were just going up the hill, but you'd go up the hill and down again and then you'd be somewhere to relax.

(Micheal overlap): Just going there and relaxing, although what you used to do—

Andrew: Fun, danger and adventure. (pause) Well, when one lad nearly drowned—yeah.

Tiffany: What happened?

Andrew: He got swept out to sea by the waves. When you get swept out to sea by the waves, you have to swim with the waves—not to the beach. You have to swim with the waves when it's rough, because we always used to go in when it was rough. Yeah, um, and he ended up going down about 12 piers, which is about a mile long out to sea. And we had to get him back in by forming a chain, as he couldn’t fight the waves.

Roos: It is also the sea that made me experience the strength of nature for the first time. Um, because I almost drowned when I was a child. A huge wave had swept me under the water and I can still remember my brother's hand pulling me back up, and that was a very powerful experience.

Marcel: We managed, we just managed to get to the Mulberry harbour because the way that the levels work is that sometimes you could be walking out on the beach and the next time you could be neck high in water. Um, and you don't quite know what you're going to hit, so we managed to get out there, but then we were exhausted by the time we got there. And of course, we had to come back. And as we were coming back, uh, my friend Kevin nearly drowned. My brother picked him up and piggy-backed him.

(Musaab overlap): I took him to the shore and I carried him on my shoulders.

Marcel: But after about half an hour of swimming, we thought we were swimming one direction—but, actually, we were swimming in the other direction because the currents were carrying us down to Shoeburyness. And just when we thought we were all about to dip underwater, for real, the magical orange boat came and picked us up and it was the RNLI.

And they picked us up and they took us to the lifeboat tower and gave us blankets and some hot drinks. And when we calmed down finally, they put us in the Land Rover and took us back to where our parents were—who were understandably fraught, we’d been gone for hours. And I don’t think we actually told them where we were going, that was probably a bad idea.

Izzie: We used to borrow one of our friends’ caravans and it looked out over Mother Ivey’s Bay. We could see the lifeboat house, and when the lights look around like everyone would come to watch at the cliff. It was a real, like, thing that always happened every time you heard those kind of things. So the lifeboat goes out—

(Marcel overlap): The magical orange boat.

Izzie: And then you hear the siren and then everyone that goes and stands around the cliff so that they like, watch it go out. And I think often it was just like a drill, but it might be that they were going out to actually do something.

(Waves increase)

(Voices: Andrew, Roos, Musaab, Marcel echo and loop)

(Waves decrease) 

(Pebble walk continues with waves in background)

Anthony: But also, I do have a fear of crabs (pause) biting my legs. But, generally, I've lots of love for the sea and swimming and… But there was one story that was really quite sad, I thought, because it was—I was a child, and I used to go to this, um, beach in Sligo called Rosses Point, which was quite upper middle class. And quite, um, kind of like a secluded area in Ireland, for a certain type of person uh, where my family lived—my uncles and aunts. Also, um, they used to have this, what they used to call, ‘the iron man’. And he was this sort of iron statue, floating out the coast, and he would float from different parts of that area, the sea.

So one day you'd see him over, you know, at this side of the cliff and then the other time you'd see him over there. So basically he was this sort of iron figure that was just sort of lost at sea, and he was quite famous. I can't remember whether it was because he had died, or his son had died or something like that, but he was constantly looking for his son.

But I remember believing or feeling that he was real and alive, and he was just stuck there on the side of the ocean. And it really stuck with me, and every year I would kind of go back. But when I went back home to school one day and I was in upper—lower infants?—higher infants, which is like, I was about six maybe or seven. And I went to my teacher and said ‘oh, the iron man is living, he's living, he’s on the side of the sea, the cliff, and he's looking for his son’. And she just said ‘that's utter nonsense’, and that was it.

Musaab: The third experience or memory is, that when I was young, when I was a young child, I have seen a movie. Robin Hood movie. And in that movie, there is a story about how the French, the French army, attacked Britain through the North Sea. And I like that movie so much, I liked how Robin Hood protected England, as the story says. And the battle was on the beach of the North Sea.

So my dream, one of my dreams actually, was to see the North Sea or to touch the water of that sea. So, when I came to the Netherlands, to Holland, the first sea I saw is the North Sea and it was amazing. That moment, with Roos, I touched the water of that sea. Actually, it was amazing. I can't describe that feeling. But because one of my dreams became true, and that's so good and brilliant for me.

Ebony: This is gonna sound really like mental but, I think some people bond more with the sea than others, right? Yeah, I don't think I was one of them people because, still now I'm like ‘English sea, really?’ I'm gonna go there once a year. Ruby, on the other hand, she'll go swimming once a week—come rain or shine. She doesn't care how cold it is. She's just like ‘it's there, I'm gonna do it’ and she enjoys that? And I think that's really mental. But some people just find it more, I don't know, they get more from it.

Antonia: They get more from it, yeah.

Izzie: Just like the feeling of being in the sea. Being in the water, swimming in the waves, like salty hair afterwards and stuff, that's just like a great feeling that I always miss, I think.

Adam 3: Like, if I can I try and go like—if I go home, I go to the beach. If I go home, the first thing I do is grab my dog and I go to the beach.

Tiffany: To Herne Bay?

Adam 3: Yeah.

Roos: I have always associated the sea with breathing. And whenever I'm there, I feel so in harmony with the rhythm of nature. If I inhale and exhale, it is in tune with—and the coming and the going of the waves—and, for me, creates such a sense of space and freedom and reflection.

(Arcade sounds fade in. Sounds of machines, music, hubbub)

(Musaab overlap): I took him to the shore and I carried him on my shoulders.

(Roos overlap): I have always associated the sea with breathing and whenever I'm there I feel so in harmony with the rhythm of nature.

(Musaab overlap): It was a peaceful evening and it will stay forever in my heart and mind.

Adam 3: It's a pretty big thing, if you bring someone that's not necessarily from a port town. Like, people that aren't used to that really, really sort of fresh fish smell. People that don't know it, they hate it. Nine times out of ten, they think it's the most disgusting thing in the world. But then people that have grown up with it their whole life, like, I love the smell of fresh fish.

(Vickie overlap): Cockles and mussels and whelks and winkles with my dad. The stench was unbelievable!

Hannah: You know that kind of that particular smell of the seaside—

(Adam 3 overlap): I love the smell of fresh fish.

Hannah: It's so singular. It's not something you can replicate. It's not something that anyone would understand if they don't have that ingrained in them.

Adam 3: You know, it's a weird feeling like, it's a very nostalgic thing of like—it's almost like picking up an old video game or whatever, and you're like ‘oh, I remember this and it's still fun now!’

(Arcades fade out)

(Pebble walk continues)

(Waves continue)

Musaab: The second memory is when I was 17 years old, my family and me were on a vacation to the sea in the summer. So, on the first day of the vacation, I went to the end of the sandy shore. Then, I walked through the rocky shore and I walked forward till I reached a point with no human beings. Just sea, beautiful animals and peace. And it was quiet but the sound of the waves.

I felt too much happiness there, and peace with my soul. So all I wanted to do is to thank Allah, to thank God, and I prayed. While my head was touching the ground I was talking to God. I can dream of that for years and years.

Marcus: Uh, there's something magical about walking along the low tide line away from the shore away from everybody it gives you that—

(Hannah overlap): It was completely empty.

Marcus: —peace and that space.

Hannah: It's a really weird place to be sad is the seaside. Because, for most people—myself included—it holds a lot of positive memories, and things you associate with family and joy and laughter and things like that. And then to be like mind-numbingly depressed, it's so weird.

It was my first real real loss, like—actually, you know when I first started university, actually my grandfather died and that was the kind of—the first proper—the first funeral I'd ever been to I can remember. Um, and then my mum died—and so, it meant that third year, for me, was this weird kind of mix of really happy memories, you know. And this kind of like severe depression I kind of fell into.

I remember, because I lived really close to the beach in third year. I remember going down to the seafront, and there'd be a particular space near the Clock Cafe, where there was a wall down the front. And you could, it was just wide enough to lie down on. I remember going down there, just lying down for like two hours, and just listening to music, watching the seagulls overhead and like looking out in the blue water. And then after I'm done there, I’d move further down and go to Holbeck. I might get like a Dr Pepper, or something, from the Clock Cafe on my way. And I'd walk down this hill, then I'd climb up and sit there for like another hour and look at this completely open—it looked over onto the harbour a little bit and onto the castle, but then most of it was just—open water. And I’d just go and sit there for ages, and, kind of like, let the wind buff it around me. And do that.

And I think, you know, it's a real serene kind of memory. But it came from a place of complete and utter loss, you know, this kind of, this loneliness that I was feeling. This kind of sadness that I didn't really know how to tell to the people around me, and I didn't know how to communicate to myself. So, I would just go. Go to this place that was completely empty. Because that’s what I was feeling at the time. This complete lack of emotion. This complete and utter void. And being able to see that in the ocean and the sea and—fundamentally, I could be completely on my own, which is how I felt that year.

(Sounds of waves increase)

(Pebble walk continue) 

(Waves continue in background)

Adam 3: At the same time, it feels a lot more lonely when you're by yourself in the city than when you are by yourself at home. I don't know what it is. It's kind of bizarre like, I prefer to be alone at home, close to the coast, than alone in this city, if that makes sense.

Ebony: Nah, I haven't bonded with the sea. Going back to what I said before. I don’t know if Tone has—

Antonia: Actually, I've always felt quite a lonely feeling looking out at the sea. I think it's just very—when it's grey, and it’s the same grey, it's just like very lonely.

Ebony: It's so strange, like being from Folkestone, and then bringing people that we've met that aren't from that area to that place. Or showing them photographs or talking about the area. Because people are like ‘it's beautiful, oh my God like, I can't believe that's where you grew up’. And your initial thing is to be like ‘nah, what you talking about?’, and then you just think actually, maybe we just have this negative image of it because one we lived there when it was more deprived. And, two, you are just a moody person when you're a teenager. Like, you have a negative outlook.

Like, our housemate is on holiday to Folkestone this weekend, it is mental. She was going to go to Barcelona! (laughter) And couldn't quite afford it, so what was next on Google? Folkestone. (laughter)

Adam 3: Herne Bay is pretty good anyway because I mean we, well, we had a massive pier. The pier is still there. You can visit the pier, it's pretty great. But it used to have, uh roller skating—

Adam 2: Yeah, I went to a few roller skating parties there—

Tiffany: I used to do that as a kid as well—

Adam 3: So they had like a big rollerskating rink, which had like basketball hoops. And they had, I remember they had squash courts there as well, and all this other stuff. It was basically a sports centre, but just over the sea very slightly. And then, I don't know why, but they basically just destroyed the whole building. But now the pier is literally like, it's got, it's, it's nothing like—

Tiffany: It has these, like, little shacks with paintings or something.

Adam 3: Ha, yeah, so like I was kind of curious. Because I was like ‘Oh where's the pier gone?’ and everyone was like ‘Oh the pier's still there’, but there's just nothing there any more except for these pretty weird shops. So they have these kind of like, beach hut based shops that are now on the pier—the pier that used to be the pier, but is now just not the pier. And it’s like, ‘Buy this painting of the pier I did’, and you’re like ‘Cool, how much is that then?’—‘Oh it's like £200’—I don’t know, I don’t remember the prices. But it's like oh cool, well that's ridiculous obviously.

Tiffany: So, these things aren't really designed for the people that live there?

Adam 3: No, of course not. They're designed for people that maybe visit Herne Bay, which they don't because Herne Bay isn't Whitstable. Whitstable gets the tourists, and they make money from tourists and that's a well-known thing.

Alex: I don't like faded British sea towns either.

Olivia: Why?

Alex: I mean, they look Victorian. They were built in the Victorian era, and I think a lot of people who love them are like, ‘wish we still lived in the Victorian era’ and ‘Rule Britannia’ and all the rest of it.

Adam 1: Buildings have changed, changed like shops. I’d be like ‘oh, that usually wasn't there, that's new’. Uh, people tend to be the same, mainly, but like there's always the places that you would go to and that have never changed. But, yet, it's nice to see new life being brought into the town.

Adam 3: But in Whitstable there's this sort of like this sheen, this faux gloss that they've put over it because of the amount of money that has been pumped into Whitstable. Which is absolutely ridiculous in some places. And yeah, like on the face of it—if you visit for a couple of days, you'll be like ‘wow, it's this picturesque town’. But, if you spend a decent amount of time there, you'll realise that: no, that's just some weird facade they've got. Whereas all these people that lived there before that were struggling for money, and all this crime, and like stabbings and things that happened, are still happening now.

Ebony: Folkestone is quite a unique seaside—well, no, it's not unique actually, most seaside towns are going through this—in that it was actually very run-down and deprived about ten years ago, because it lost a lot of industry. And in the last five, six—well, ten years actually—it's gone through a process of regeneration. It's still only like halfway through it, so it's still got massive faults. But every time we go home from living away, it's changed in some way. And so yeah, we do talk about it a lot. Because we'll be like ‘Oh God, imagine if we had that when we were young, maybe we wouldn't have got that 16 bus on Friday to go meet up with people in Canterbury’ or whatever, um. And also it's kind of like, it's really nice and good, but sometimes you worry that the people that are from there aren't appreciating it—well not, not that they're not appreciating it, they're not getting much from it—

Tiffany: That it’s not necessarily for them?

Ebony: No. So, I mean—

Antonia: It's interesting because the high street from when we lived there is absolutely crap. Like, it's probably like—I'd say—like, 50% closed-down shops.

Ebony: Oh yeah, boarded-up shops.

Antonia: Which is really bad, because like those shops employ loads of people. And I can imagine if you were like our age there, or like younger like 18, 16, if you were trying to get a job it would probably be really difficult.

Ebony: Well, it's one of two choices, people either work in Asda or Saga right?

Antonia: Yeah, exactly, so from that point of view—it's not good. And I think that's why people move away. But, in terms of like, there being like, creative things to do that would attract like, young, kind of hip, people—that's getting quite good.

Ebony: Yeah, it's always on the up. And a lot of the things that are happening there are really amazing. But whether they're being broadcast to everyone, and whether they're something everyone can enjoy, is a different thing.

Antonia: Yeah, I mean these like these kind of like, these like kooky art things, they're not for everyone.

(Adam 3 overlap): These kind of like, beach hut based shops that are now on the pier—the pier that used to be the pier, but is now just not the pier.

Adam 1: No, it's still Scarborough. Whatever happens it's still Scarborough, yeah.

Ebony: I don't know, it's a weird thing, innit. Because, you say you have nothing to do—but, in reality, we probably had so much that we could have done.

Antonia: Yeah, now I’m thinking about it—

Ebony: Like, if we wanted to go out drinking we could go to the beach and drink there. And there'd be no one to tell us off. Or like, in the day, we could, like, cycle. But, at the time, it just seems miserable. Yeah, I don't know why.

Adam 3: So yeah, yeah, as a young person with a relatively poor family, we spent a lot of time at the beach. Because it’s where you could go and not spend any money, and have good fun throwing stones and that.

(Jack overlap): Skimming stones and such.

Antonia: Yeah, the beach is where everyone went to party. Yeah, I think that's quite typical isn't it. So that’s some good mems.

(Voices overlap)

(Laughter)

(Arcade sounds fade in, machines, hubbub)

(Music: ‘Sweets for my Sweet’, from an arcade machine)

Marcus: Go to the beach. It's one of the most fantastic places and refreshing places you could go. If you're angry and you're sad, or you're happy or you want to remember people. Go to the beach. Take time to walk along that beach. You’ll be refreshed.

Vickie: And, at lunchtime, they'd all go off and buy pasties in the little shop on the other side. And it was, you know, your archetypal English beach holiday.

Marcus: I miss the smell of the sea. I miss the tides. I miss walking along the beach. Early in the morning, or late at night, I miss the winter days when it's really crisp and cold when the sky is blue and the sea is sparkling. I miss the summer too, when it's full of people and the village swells.

Jodie: They’re all really happy memories, all of them.

Adam 1: Playing crazy golf on the, the North side the, the newer one.

Vickie: And the kids absolutely loved it.

Jodie: Because you were with your mum and dad. And it was awesome. And my parents are awesome.

Dom: Probably playing on jet skis as kids with my brothers. Having a jet ski each, and going out as far as we were kind of allowed to go. And yeah, just racing each other and having a good time.

Jack: When I think back to my happiest memory as my child, there's not many of them that really involve the seaside.

Dom: Ice cream—

Andrew: Fun, danger—

Dom: Fun fairs, children, sunbathing, just having fun.

Andrew: —And adventure.

Jack: I think it was the people I was with at the time, rather than the setting, that informed the memory.

Vickie: All stalls along the seafront selling cockles and mussels and jellied eels. Hot doughnuts straight out of the fat, oh it was just divine, uh, candy floss stalls, all that.

Izzy: I remember, um, swimming in the pool completely drunk! And it was one of the best experiences in my life.

Alex: Can you believe that she thought that I wouldn’t let her speak?

Adam 1: Oh, and welcoming Santa! And he’d do ‘the parade of the boys’ every year. (laughter)

Izzy: But it's, it's different in the way that some people appreciate it more here. Because, especially in the summer, because when it's hot people appreciate it more. Because in Brazil, it's always hot. People always have the beach, they always have that sunny place they can go and relax. And here, when the sun comes out and people go to the beach and the kids are out, it's just—everyone's smiling, and it’s just a joy.

(Arcade, hubbub, laughter sounds fade)

(Music fades)

(Pebble walk and waves continue)

Marcus: The sunrise and sunsets are a place of a romance when you're in your teens. And when you're with somebody, again it's romantic because you can walk on the beach with that partner and share that moment with them. In your older years, you can sit and look out over the sea and watch the sunrise and sunsets. The sea is a very busy place. People that go down to the beach and look out out of the water sometimes don't actually see what's going on. They just look at the horizon and turn away again. If you stand for a moment and look out you'll be surprised what you can see.

(Pebble walk stops)

(Waves continue)

Roos: The sun rising above the sea. I think it represents this cycle or circle of light and dark and this infinity of the sea. It’s continuous rhythm and seemingly endless horizon. I think this will always remain the most hopeful thing for me, knowing that the night must end and the sun will rise. Thank you.

(Waves continue)

Musaab: And yes, it was terrible that day. Four hours of being in the sea. I think actually, for me, I'm afraid. But I was afraid for the people—for the children and the women that were with me. But actually, I was a little bit, I was a little bit afraid of the sea.

But later, when we sailed, it was quiet and peaceful. So I loved the sea more and more, because it gave me more hope. And I think if my future will become good, that's—actually, there is many reasons—but one of those reasons is because of the sea. Because the sea was calm and it was peaceful.

So, thanks for the sea.

(Waves increase)

(Sound of waves crashing for 40 seconds)

(Waves continue)

Puppeteer (faintly): Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it's time for the star of the show! Old red nose himself, the one the only Mr Punch—

(Music, faint: ‘I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside’, accordion sounds, Punch and Judy puppet voices)

(Song and puppet voices fade)

(Waves fade to stop)

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