Seaside Treats

We used to visit my granny in Felixstowe Suffolk, a treat would be to go for tea at (damn it’s gone) but it was right on the esplanade, we would sit at the table and have our meal, my memory is of the ice cream for “pudding” just one boule served in a stainless steel dish, the ice cream made the dish so cold it had condensation on.
We also used to have crab from a little hut on the beach, ooh I can smell it now, real fishing a mix of briney water, tar and shellfish. I’m smiling at the memories

We saved spending money all year for our week at the seaside and still didn't have a great deal so it was spent very carefully. We never ate out as it was too expensive, so if we wanted anything extra to eat we had to buy our own. Fortunately I didn't like sugary treats such as doughnuts, candy floss, toffee apples or rock so I didn't want too much. My money was spent on a bag of cockles, sometimes a hot dog, or, my absolute favourite, a velvety, large ripe peach (6d then) from a huge tray on the rock stall. Eating a peach with juice running down my chin was bliss!

Cherrytree, I remember those pineapple tarts..they were big like a flan, and were called Pineapple Creams, or sometimes Top Hats...

I grew up in the west of Scotland, and had no holidays because we were too poor but many day trips to Largs, Ardrossan, or Saltcoats with my gran, and even if it was raining which invariably was we'd still sit in a bus shelter overlooking the beach and the sea , and eat the sandwiches my granny brought. Then she'd treat us to a Pineapple Tart or some ice-cream at a cafe

We didn't have family holidays but on summer evenings Mum would take us down to the banks of the Severn to watch the tide coming up and play on the mud flats. I can still feel the lovely sensation of the soft mud oozing up between my toes.

Then, as a special treat, Mum would produce a packet of Jacob's cream crackers, a box of Dairy Lea cheese triangles and a bottle of Tizer for our picnic. Such happy memories.

Porthcawl South Wales was our haunt. While going around the fair we all enjoyed munching on the freshly cooked doughnuts. I’ve never tasted doughnuts as good.

Oh, gilly thanks for that. I really enjoyed it.
Callistemon, yes, and we all sat around a large, single table for high tea. Everyone was Mr or Mrs.

We used to stay in boarding houses, not hotels, and you had to stay out all day, even if it rained!

youtu.be/wfwQi8L9h8M

Remember this ? The day we went to Bangor

Whitewavemark2, you can still get a Cornish ice cream with a great blob of clotted cream on top in Cornwall. We had one the last time we went to Newquay I think? My treat as a child was always a pot of winkles or cockles. Still prefer savoury to sweet. Lovely

We never went on holiday. Dad was in the RAF and we moved every 2 or 3 years and wherever we went it right out in the sticks. Dad considered going to a new place a holiday in its self. We even had 3 years in Singapore travelling back and forth by ship. We did go out to the various beaches near where we lived and I just loved those little paper flags that you put on top of sand castles.

Has to be a knickerbocker glory !

How lovely Callistemon, we only did day trips to all but I was lucky (not that I thought it at the time) to spend a fortnight each summer on grandparents farm.

My grandmother had me up at the crack of dawn helping with breakfast for my uncles, washing up, making beds, emptying chamber pots ( from the age of six) and collecting eggs from the many hiding places the hens had. I look back with fondness.....

Being allowed to have WHITE bread and butter with our fish'n'chips.

Llandudno was posher than Rhyl, I think!
Or so my mother thought. Rhyl was for day trips, Llandudno and Colwyn Bay for holidays!

Not sure Llandudno was ever that posh Callistemon but certainly they didn’t have bingo and funfairs etc. Whatever, we all seem to have had happy days there.

Doughnuts

Rhyl and Prestatyn
We used to go there too, and Colwyn Bay or Llandudno if we were feeling a bit posh

I don't like wafers; we had an icecream at the seaside last week and it came in a wafer cone; I threw most of the cone away then noticed they had those much nicer biscuit cones in the café, which I do like.

Still get wafers in our tub of ice-cream from the ice-cream man on a Sunday afternoon

Save the ice cream...save the candy floss....and the toffee apples...for me it has to be the stick of rock. We always got one and there were six of us kids! We could choose which colour and mine was always the multi coloured stick! We sat in the back of my dads old rusty van ...on the cushions of the sofa from home, thrown in the back ...and it kept us quiet all the way home. Bliss!

We weren't a well-off family, so our summer treat was one day out in Southport, on the train, and one day at New Brighton, on the ferry from Liverpool, where we lived. I used to love having fish and chips, tea and bread and butter in the little cafe. A couple of rides on the fair, a play on the beach, and a stick of rock to bring home, if we could afford it. I still like a stick of seaside rock, but have to be careful of mi'teeth when I eat it now!
Until recently, the seaside used to come to me. Every autumn the Blackpool donkeys used to arrive at the farm by my house, to spend the winter being pampered by Mary, who owned the farm. When we saw the horsebox arriving we used to dash up the lane to see them unloading. The donkeys used to amble down the ramp, staring in amazement at the green fields. After so long in stables, or walking up and down Blackpool beach it was donkey heaven. Off they would all go, galloping round the field, lying down and kicking and rolling in the lovely freedom of the meadow, before settling down for a good feed of fresh grass.
Sadly, Mary died, and the new owners couldn't be bothered with the donkeys. I just hope that someone equally as kind is looking after them in a different green field.

I had no seaside holiday but the odd day at the seaside on the train [Weston super Mare] with my family or with the Brownies or Sunday school from our church. The train journey was exciting.

I would always have egg and chips and a banana milkshake for dinner...knickerbocker glories were too expensive. Later I would have a choc ice, my favourite, so I didn't feel I'd missed out.

A stop off to buy a new bucket or spade and then hours spent on the sands...with a donkey ride if I was lucky. I was on one once when it galloped off, pretty fast. It was great!

Happy days!

We didn't have holidays, but went on day trips each year on the 'sharra' (charabanc). Living in Manchester our destination was most usually Blackpool, but we also visited 'exotic' (to us) places such as Southport, Morecombe, Rhyl and Prestatyn (usually when my grandparents came with us and were paying). The initial seaside treat was simply seeing the sea - I never forgot the magic of that moment when it was first glimpsed from the coach.

We took either cold buttered toast or jam butties for our picnic lunch and our 'treat' was sharing packets of crisps and biscuits. Sometimes we would have an ice cream if my grandad was with us, but money was always very tight. Mum would get herself a tub of shrimps, cockles or winkles and let us each have a taste.

Carillion01, glad you're enjoying it, I am too! Other people's posts bring back memories of my own. I'm surprised, although I shouldn't be I suppose, at how many seaside memories we all share

Blackpool rock. My auntie Rhoda lived in Blackpool (south shore, she considered it posh) so we'd go there for a week each summer and we'd go along the prom and watch the rock being made. I liked the big humbug shaped one best. Sadly Blackpool south shore is officially one of the poorest and most run-down areas of the UK these days. It's all betting shops and unemployment and run-down. But I have fond memories, at least.