Figure 1.-- This Rnglish snapshot shows a family on the beach by a huge pier, a popular seaside attractioin at the time. The snapshot is undated, but the sunhat suggests the early-1910s before World war I. We are not sure just which beach this was, but think it may be Brighton. Hopefully our British readers will confirm this. An English reader writes, "Two facts the picture revealed: a large pier and a shale beach. I think the pier is Palace Pier Brighton. This seaside town is on the Channel coast. This beach is shale." One boy looks to be wearing water-proofed rompers to protect his clothes underneath.. The older boy wears short pants which her some reason he has rolled up. Our Englisjh reader adds, "I agree that the younger boy is wearing water proofs to keep his clothes dry while he paddles. The older boy has rolled his trousers up for much the same reason. I did that myself at about the same age when we went to the beach during the 1950s. A bit silly though you could fall in the water and become very wet indeed."

Brighton is perhaps the most well known English beach resort. It is located south of London in East Sussex. (Sussex has been divided into two portions, East and West and these are administered as two separate counties. Some little while ago, Brighton was amalgamated with its next door neighbour and great rival--Hove. The two became known as the City of Brighton & Hove, on top of that, the city is what is known as a Unitary Authority, which means that, although it is geographically in the County of Sussex, administratively it is entirely separate from county council control.) Elegant hotels were built facing the beach. More modest boarding houses were built in the town. We notice camping at Brighton as early as the 1880s. Brighton can be reached in a little over an hour by train making it very accessable to the people of London. Thus it is a major destination of day trippers. Brighton is quite famous for a number of other reasons. It was a famous venue for what were known as 'dirty weekends', in the old less-permissive days! The hotels and boarding houses were full of 'Mr & Mrs Smiths', which caused a lot of problems for real Smiths. A colleague of mine said he got quite a lot of 'funny looks' from the staff, when he was on his honeymoon, which does not mean that he had his honeymoon at Brighton. This was a general alias for this activity! Brighton is also famous for the ending of the Red Flag Act which had restricted car travel to a walking pace. This is now commemorated in the London to Brighton Vintage Car Race. the annual rally of vintage cars, which was immortalised in the film "Genevieve" (1953). Brigton is also noted for a BBC film shot out of the train driver's cab, which was speeded up and purported to be "London to Brighton in Four Minutes" (1952). A British reader writes, "This was shown on TV quite a lot of times, but I haven't seen it now for a long time. It was quite impressive in those days as it apparently hurtled through towns and villages en route, at 840 miles per hour. I remember it aways impressed me as it slowed down and gently and sedately slid towards the buffers at Brighton". Another English reader writes, "We took day trips to London. I enjoyed both the beach and pier as well as the train ride. Brighton was also the scene of the 'Mods and Rockers' fights in the early 1960s."

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Created: 6:30 PM 8/28/2015
Last updated: 3:16 PM 8/29/2015