Channel Shore: From the White Cliffs to Land's End by Tom Fort

Author:Tom Fort [Tom Fort]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471129728
Amazon: 1471129721
Goodreads: 24854308
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2015-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

Sidmouth

In 1933 Sidmouth Urban District Council rejected a proposal to build a holiday camp at Salcombe Regis on the grounds that holiday camps and Sidmouth did not go together. Until 1945 changing on the beach was banned at Sidmouth, as were icecream stalls, whelk stands and photographers. It had a new esplanade and the Connaught Pleasure Gardens, but none of the vulgar attractions – pavilions, piers, amusement arcades and the like – adopted by other seaside resorts. It had bowls, croquet, tennis and a putting green.

In 1952 the council decided to form a committee to promote the town, but voted against allowing hoteliers or retailers to be on it. Ten years later the committee came up with a slogan defining Sidmouth’s image of itself: Sidmouth Caters for the Discriminating. In pursuit of the mission ‘to preserve old-world graciousness’, a bylaw was passed in the 1970s prohibiting ‘wirelesses in public places’.

Sidmouth was the first proper Devon seaside resort. Throughout its long history it has prospered by attracting a flow of well-heeled patrons to its expensive and intensely respectable hotels. It has pursued a strategy of discreet exclusion of the lower orders, by the simple expedient of refusing to provide any of the amenities and amusements that the lower orders expect. As a result Sidmouth has always had a particular flavour, derided by its critics but savoured by its admirers. John Betjeman was one:

Mansions for admirals by the pebbly strand,

And cottages for maiden aunts inland,

That go with tea and strawberries and cream

Sweet sheltered gardens by the twisting stream,

Cobb, thatch and fuschia bells, a Devon dream.

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