I can’t wait for all you horrible holidaymakers to CLEAROFF home!
A blistering blast from one fed-up seaside resident...
WhEN I left London for good on April Fools’ Day two years ago, I was convinced I’d had the last laugh.
After ten years in the big city, at the age of 55, I packed up and moved to Dorset’s beautiful Jurassic Coast.
A long-term relationship had fizzled out, my son had grown up and left home, and I felt if I was ever going to fulfil my dream of living by the sea, it was now or never.
Tired of traffic, crowds and crime, I had always imagined myself staring out at the vastness of the ocean, walking deserted cliffs and empty stretches of shoreline. It would be, I naively told myself, a gentler way of life.
Worried friends cautioned me: ‘But what about the winter? It’ll be bleak.’ But nothing could be as bad as living with the noise of the M25. I was swapping motorways for dark, star-filled skies, clean air and stunning scenery. What could go wrong? I’ll tell you. Summer. That’s what.
I quickly discovered that the ‘high season’ is a double-edged sword for the coastal dweller. Of course, visitors are essential to the local economy, the flows of capital over those few bustling summer months helping all the lovely little independent coffee, book and clothes shops keep going, so we can enjoy them all year round.
But the influx of townie tourists also makes me feel like I’m sharing an overcrowded Airbnb with several thousand total strangers as my local area (population 15,000) welcomes some 107,000 holidaymakers, not to mention the more than 780,000 day-trippers reported in 2015. ThIs
year’s soaring temperatures have seen even more visitors pour in, desperate for the solace of a sea breeze. heaving crowds, insane traffic jams, litter everywhere, inflated prices — remind you of anywhere? small wonder I’ve started to think the April Fools’ joke might be at my expense.
That’s why I can’t wait for this summer — the hottest since 1976, people keep telling me, as if that’s a good thing — finally to be over.
In my tiny village, there’s a sense of relief that soon we can get back to our lives in the stunning place we call home. August Bank holiday, looming this weekend, marks the last hellish days of tourist misery. I hope it rains.
When I first moved here, I shrugged off the dire warnings from locals about the crowds that make the beach a no-go zone from May to August.
Then, one blistering day, I walked to my favourite beach hoping for a paddle.
The promenade was crowded like the terraces at my local football club. The beach was packed, every car park full and endless queues to buy a cold drink or an ice cream.
I enjoyed Quentin Letts’s ode to the English seaside earlier this month — but his vision of rock pools and well-behaved visitors looks nothing like the scene on my stretch of shoreline!
I quickly learned to avoid the beach at peak times — and never on a saturday, changeover day for all the local rentals. Instead, we locals are reduced to creeping on to the sands at sunset, when the crowds have thinned.
And it’s not just people you have to fight your way past to get to the beach — at every turn are families loaded with what looks like major home removals; tents, barbecues, chairs, games and cool boxes big enough to smuggle a body. I’ve seen people leave Ikea with less. What is it all for?
Being on holiday makes people less inhibited, too; add in alcohol and a beautiful sunset and you’re halfway towards a baby boom.
They slather on sun cream in erotic fashion, making eyes at each other. Just a gentle reminder to the couples who take it a little further — while you’re packing on the PDA ( public display of affection) down on the sand, I can still see you, we all can.
Then there are the boisterous dogs rampaging over beaches where signs clearly proclaim that they are banned in order to let children play in peace. And do the owners pick up after their pets? No, they don’t.
Many don’t even pick up after themselves. I was shocked to learn of one group who abandoned their barbecue, bottles and plastic implements, then sauntered to the ice cream kiosk. When the kiosk owner flatly refused to serve them until they’d cleared up their mess, the waiting queue clapped in support.
It’s not just at the beach tourists are a menace. Even the most mundane tasks become a nightmare. supermarket aisles are thronged with self- catering families wielding trolleys laden with enough food to feed an army.
At the self- scan tills, there aren’t enough assistants in the world to verify ages on all the alcohol sales (and accompanying packs of paracetamol).
You can spot fellow locals at a glance: we are the ones wearing clothes, not just coconut oil.
On the roads, convoys of motor homes, campervans and bikers appear. And although they’re on holiday, tourist drivers retain the city-dweller’s pointless desire to get there faster than the person in front. They also have the bad habit of religiously following sat nav — bypassing such aids as common sense or looking out of the window.
If only someone would tell them that selecting the ‘fastest route’ does not give carte blanche to drive at speed through villages with twisting lanes and disappearing pavements.
I dream of a compulsory preholiday test to check if you can successfully navigate a tight passing place on a country lane. Fail, and I’m afraid it’s a fortnight at home painting the fence.
Being by the sea encourages people to attempt all sorts of things when they should know better — such as surfing, cycling off-road and hiking.
As a result our local Nhs services become seriously strained. A doctor friend who’s lived by the coast for 20 years says his summers are a constant stream of injuries from outdoor sports, sunburn and repeat prescriptions for holidaymakers who forget to pack their pills.
‘Don’t get me started on the jellyfish stings,’ he says. ‘They clog up A&E when a splash of vinegar from the fish and chip shop works just as well.’ ONE
Friday, I went to the dentist hoping it would be quiet — only to find the waiting room packed with patients who’d suffered lost crowns while surfing, had fillings fall out when they bit into a toffee apple and even lost their false teeth (touring cyclist, I hope you found them).
And while it’s delightful to see people finding their way to our quiet corner of the world thanks to its appearance on a recent ITV detective show, the staff of the lovely, quiet museum really have better things to do than repeatedly answer the question fired at them by one recent visitor.
‘But where’s all the stuff about Broadchurch?’ he asked indignantly. When I told this story to a friend, she said she heard someone complaining in st Ives that the sea had ‘kept them awake’.
From screaming children in meltdown because they can’t have another babyccino, to restaurant guests who don’t tip because they’re ‘ only visiting’, the one consolation for us coastal-dwellers is that at least we can get together and laugh about how awful it all is.
That’s when I realise I’ve crossed a Rubicon: I’m a local now. so please remember, next time you enjoy a staycation by the sea, treat our home like you would yours. see you next year.