It's a fact that most of the people who visit Skegness (or any
other
traditional British seaside resort) have little or no interest in its
history.
This isn't sad, it's understandable.
A visit to Skegness is mostly
about looking at the beach and the sea, not about looking at 'musty old
buildings'.
But is it not possible to combine the two in some way?
To
look at the beach and the sea and at least glance at those
musty old buildings?
Wouldn't it enhance a visit to Skegness if one knew a little about that
store or hotel, about what it had once been, about who had stayed there?
For example, few visitors (and perhaps few local people) are
aware that
the British wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill M.P. and the novelist
D.H. Lawrence stayed at local hotels, nor do they have any idea where
these hotels are.
Yet the chances are, they walk past them every day.
These are a couple of reasons for our publishing the Skegness Revisited
series of publications: one reason is that it is a traditional
British
seaside resort and is part of our social history, so it deserves to be
researched, and another reason is that the publications might enhance
the visitor's experience of Skegness.
Skegness Revisited takes the view that people and human interest stories are just as important as events and dates.
Some of the events that took place in Skegness could have taken place in any traditional British seaside resort. For this reason, Skegness Revisited isn't just about Skegness, it could be about any traditional British seaside resort.
Photo: well-known Skegness street in the Victorian era.Anyone who is researching the history of the traditional
British
seaside resort will have to include Skegness in their research. This
statement isn't based on 'local pride', on the fact that we happen to
live here, it's based on reality, it's a fact.
Why would anyone want to
research the history of the traditional
British seaside resort? Well, in our view the British seaside resort is
an important part of British social history. Our social history isn't
just about how people spent their working lives, it's also about how
people spent their leisure time - and one of the things that they did
during their leisure time was visit Skegness.