As coronavirus restrictions continue to ease in the UK, Brummies are looking for places to have a relaxing break outside of the city. Why not try the historical home-away-from-home of Brummies — Weston-super-mare?
Tom Fair remembers his first trip to Birmingham’s favourite beach…
When I was a kid, my family didn’t have passports, or the money to spend on jetting off to sunny Spain, or the picturesque south of France. Instead, we were the ones scooping up leaflets and coupons at the tourist information stand at New Street — museums, zoos, and other day-trip destinations.
One day, when I was 8, as we were sitting around the old CRT television watching Cartoon Network on our school break, my mom piped up — “How do we all fancy a trip to the beach next week?”
I’d been to the beach before, but I was much too young to have remembered it. In fact, the only tale I can remember my mom telling me of a beach trip before then was falling down some stairs at a Butlins.
My sister and I were bouncing off the walls in excitement all week.
Back then, I used to get travel-sick. Cars, buses, coaches and trains — I was a bit of a time-bomb, and it always made my mom nervous when she travelled with me. Trying to go to sleep would get me through it though.
I didn’t know it would be a two-part journey, so I was dazed and confused as I stepped off the first train in Bristol.
“Where’s the beach, mom?”, I said, looking across the tracks and thinking I’d been tricked.
“Not there yet!”, she replied as we sprinted over to the next platform.
Even then, I couldn’t remember being that far away from home. We boarded the next train. It was much more rickety than the previous one, but even through the screeching and clanking, the excitement was building.
I still remember my first breath of sea air, and the sound of seagulls as we jumped off the train. Five minutes later, we hit Oxford Street, which looks down onto an old-fashioned café at the end of a busy road.
And for the first time I could remember, I could look beyond that building, and just see blue — sky and sea. I must have had the widest, silliest grin.
After a quick pit-stop at the hotel, we set off on what seemed like the greatest adventure ever.
First though, we needed vital supplies. Buckets and spades.
We found one of those seaside souvenir shops tucked away in a side street by the waterfront road. You know the one — every available inch of the shopfront plastered with cheap and colourful toys, balloons and souvenirs, and the insides all dimly lit and grimy.
My mom tried to hurry us past the shelf with all the naughty keyrings and postcards. The aisle was really narrow though, and I got a face full of them. I remember being confused at why they were there, and then half-understanding it from my sneaky peeks at the old Page 3s in The Sun.
Mom did her best to make me a sheltered child.
We emerged back out into the sun, bags rattling with plastic toys. Onwards to the beach!
There are stone steps down from the parade onto the sandy beach, and 8 year old me loved the feeling of stepping from one to the other.
My mom is not a quick walker, so my sister and I were practically begging her to move faster so I could take my first steps into the sea.
There really is nothing else like reaching the end of the dry sand, walking up to the sea and letting it wash over your feet. It doesn’t matter how old you are.
It was an entirely new experience for me, one of those things that you can’t help but “wow!” at. I did a similar “wow!” the first time I lifted off on a plane.
The first proper wave that hit me was also a new experience — we quickly relocated to the dry sand so I could cough up the briny water, and wash out the taste with a Fruit Shoot.
The first sandcastle was a marvel of modern engineering, by 8 year old standards.
We had a bucket set, of all different sizes and shapes, so we could get real artistic. A central keep gave way to a bunch of rough, small buildings outside of it, all surrounded by a wide, square wall. My sister and I dug around it, and ran a relay race from the sea and back to fill up a moat.
It must have been a fearsome sight, for any of the strange little sea creatures that washed up near it.
Of course, there’s only one thing more fun than building a sandcastle — knocking it down. We smashed it down, with hands, feet and spades, giggling all the while.
Finally, a place where you can break something and not get in trouble.
The Grand Pier was next — a busy, bright and colourful entertainment complex at the end of the pier.
It was there that I tried my first arcade machines. There was one particular racing game that I must have spent at least half an hour in. By all rights it should have been an awful experience — the seat was tough and boxy, the wheel needed a lot of elbow grease to get moving, and there must have been some actual grease smeared on the screen. But it was addictive.
It was also there that I first saw the most entertaining contraption in the world — the coin pusher, or the “2p machine” as we called it. All three of us lost track of how much money we put into it, trying to out-think and out-manuever the pusher, and figuring out how to get the bonus prizes out.
Safe to say, we did not make a net profit.
We spent the rest of the day lazing around in the hazy sun, eating cones of chips and ice cream, and digging massive holes around the beach, looking for treasure.
We didn’t find any gold coins — just bucketfuls of every shape and colour of shell you could think of. And a half-empty lighter, which was quickly taken off of us by mom. I’d love to say we were responsible children, but that was probably the right move.
Finally, as the sun started to dim and wispy clouds started rolling over, we walked our way back through the town and towards the train station. I remember looking backwards every minute or so, to see if I could still see the sea.
We got on the train, first to Bristol, and then back to normality, home — and school the next week. I was so exhausted that my travel-sickness wasn’t an issue for the whole ride.
I can only imagine the nightmare the cleaners had that night, trying to pick all that sand and dirt out of the train seats.
What’s the strangest thing you dug up on the beach as a kid? Comment below, or tweet me — @ThisIsTomFair.
This article was part a writing task for the position of Nostalgia Writer at Reach plc.
