I have many happy memories of my childhood trips to the seaside, it was common practice for our family to pack the car with blankets and a picnic and set off from South London to the Kent coast on a Saturday morning trilling in unison 'Oh I do like to be beside the seaside'.
A trip to the seaside was a communal affair, families travelled with other families, children would play all day, swimming, building sandcastles and rock pooling, whilst mums and dads, aunties and uncles and grandparents sat on deckchairs drinking tea from flasks.
I was at Sinah Warren holiday camp again this week and got chatting with a lovely man in his late seventies and between us we did a lot of reminiscing about those traditional, British, seaside holidays. We spoke about family structure and how the extended family link has been severed, years ago families lived in close proximity to one another and socialised together, nowadays families are dispersed all over the UK and abroad.
According to statistics 11 per cent of children have never been to a UK beach, 36 per cent have never made sandcastles and half have missed out on rock pooling!
The most noticeable and well established trend in British family life has been the decline of the nuclear family. Almost half of children are now born outside marriage, against only 1 in 10 a generation ago. Rising divorce rates - fewer marriages - mothers playing a less dominant role in their children's lives due to work commitments, have all contributed to the change in family structure.
Our wish for more in the way of material wealth has meant that family life has suffered the stresses and strains that result from a highly industrialised world. Technology, which advanced rapidly after the war, also contributed to the change in family life. As the chap I was talking to pointed out, prior to TV extended families gathered at the weekends to play card games or musical instruments, most homes still had a piano, however, by the late 1950s many families had a 'telly' and consequently people started to stay in to 'watch the box.'
We are now a society absorbed in our own insular digital worlds, I rarely meet a friend for a chat nowadays without them picking up their smartphone at every ping of an incoming message, their eyes constantly darting back and forth to their screen, unable to resist checking their Facebook, Twitter or text messages. I rarely feel I have anyones full attention these days, there seems to be an urgency amongst people to inform everyone that they're having a great time, rather than actually having a great time! I have been stopped mid sentence because a friend has to respond to a text or take a call, I've sat like a lemon listening to banal conversation which surely could have waited? I use social media as much as the next person but I draw the line at stopping someone mid flow to respond to an inconsequential text, I often wonder how people got on before the mobile phone, I quess we just lived in the moment.
Unfortunately the art of conversation seems to be dying, I suspect that if families are still going on car journeys to the seaside they won't be singing songs or playing I spy, more likely the children will be glued to their smartphones.
One tradition which has remained strong is the quintessential English summer drink: Pimm's. Pimm a farmer's son from Kent, invented the drink which was a gin based drink containing a secret mixture of herbs and liqueurs, as an aid to digestion. It began selling commercially in 1859 and has become a staple drink at the Wimbledon tennis tournament, the Chelsea flower show and the Henley royal regatta.
Pimm's
Recipe
1 large jug, add as much ice as you like
Pour 1 part Pimm's, 1 part gin with 3 parts lemonade, over ice
Add mint leaves, thin cucumber slices, orange slices and strawberries
'Everyday we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognise: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the curious eyes of a child - our own two eyes...
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Vietnamese monk
Abandon your smartphone for a day and live in the moment!
Love Donna xxxxxxx
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