Hardy Northerners don't let rain spoil seaside holidays | Steve Canavan

When I say I, I don’t mean I’ve taken myself off on my own without my wife and children, as tempting as that was.

No, I’m a modern man so I took Mrs C with me – mainly because we are staying in a cottage and I need someone to do the washing up and look after the kids.

Anyway the highlight so far – other than a brief period of sun on the fourth day – was a scene witnessed on a beach, that, although it didn’t last long, beautifully summed up typical family life on a British holiday.

We were at a spot about five miles from Bamburgh, with its magnificent castle and very posh-sounding residents.

In seven days I’m yet to hear a north east accent or anyone so much as drop a H – every single person living here appears to be a southerner (two I got talking to in a pub had both retired from the oil exploration industry.

I need say no more about the status of those residing in the area).

I was on the beach, spread-eagled on a blanket covered in sand (we’ve got the internet and a cure for most diseases yet we still haven’t invented a blanket that doesn’t get covered in sand within two minutes of being placed on a beach) when my attention was caught by a group of six people about 20 yards away.

There was a mum and dad, their two daughters aged about eight and six, and two older people, who – I deduced from appearance and interactions – had to be the parents of the mum.

They seemed a happy close-knit family, laughing and enjoying pleasant exchanges, but then a few raindrops began to fall and everything changed.

Nobody else on the beach batted an eyelid about the rain.

I mean enduring crap weather is what us Brits specialise in.

I’ve seen families stoically sit through the worst tornadoes nature can throw at them and other than maybe buttoning up their Gore-Tex kagool and making sure the sandwiches are properly re-covered in tin foil, they refuse to budge an inch.

‘Just a passing shower,’ they’ll say as the rain and wind batters relentlessly against their faces and rattles their windbreak.

But this family were clearly not made from the same stuff as the rest of us, for when the first drops fell they straightened and jerked their heads up like particularly nervous meerkats.

‘Is that rain?’ I heard the older woman remark.

All the adults instinctively put their hands out in front of them, as if asking for money from a passer-by.

‘Yes, I felt another spot then,’ said the mum, who had the sort of short-bobbed haircut all women over the age of 40 get when they’ve had a couple of kids and no longer have the time to properly worry about what they look like.

‘Jemima, Pippa,’ she screamed, with the same panic in her voice as if there were a car travelling towards them at 60mph.

‘Go in the sea and wash the sand off your legs, we’re packing up.’

The older couple jumped to their feet and began to take down some sort of elaborate tent shelter they had earlier erected, but did so in the manner of a couple who’ve been together for 50 years and miserable for about 48 of them.

‘You don’t take it down like that Jeff,’ the woman shouted, as Jeff attempted to forcibly remove some pegs from the sand.

‘Don’t tell me what to do,’ he said angrily, ‘I use it every bloody weekend to go fishing in.’

‘Jemima. Pippa. What did I just tell you?’, shouted the mother in the direction of her two children, who completely ignored what she was saying and continued placing shells and seaweed on their sandcastle.

‘Say something Andrew,’ she chunnered to a slightly pathetic-looking bloke wearing thick-rimmed glasses, who was attempting to put three apples, a banana, and half a packet of Rich Tea’s into a sandwich bag,

‘Jemima. Pippa,’ he said feebly, like a supply teacher you have no respect for and would carry on messing about at the back of the class flicking elastic bands at the girls.

‘Come on, do what mum tells you,’ he whimpered. Pippa and Jemima didn’t even glance up.

The rain fell a bit harder. Again for most of us this was no problem, but they were the kind of people who act as if rain is 98 per cent acid and you die if more than 10 drops fall on you.

‘Jeff, you’re going to break it pushing it this way and that,’ said the older woman, as she and her husband pulled at the tent as if engaged in a gruelling and very bad-tempered tug o’ war.

‘Jeff, are you listening. You’re pulling it the wrong way,’ she bellowed, looking at this point like she regretted not getting divorced sometime around the start of the Falklands war.

The feeble-looking younger man stared at his mother-in-law, presumably suddenly realising this was how his life was going to pan out because he was married to the daughter.

‘JEFF, I SAID THIS WAY,’ screamed older woman.

I would have actually felt sorry for Jeff had it not been for his dress-sense – aged about 70, he had slicked back hair and was wearing sunglasses (it was overcast and raining), a purple skin-tight long-sleeved lycra top, and salmon pink shorts. All were designer makes. He was one of those blokes who has a lot of money and wants as many people as possible to know.

‘Felicity, let go of the pole and let me do it,’ he bawled at a volume so loud a tourist stood several miles away on a remote coastal path turned around to listen.

Then the mum marched towards Jemima and Pippa, went ballistic and grabbed them by the arm.

Pippa started crying, the dad – very hesitantly – told his wife to calm down, she told him to shut up, Jeff got shouted at again about his tent-dismantling skills, and, several unhappy minutes later, the entire family stomped off the beach not speaking and very much looking like their evening game of canasta was off.

It was a quite wonderful to watch, but what made it even more satisfying was that about a quarter of an hour later the sun came back out and we enjoyed a glorious afternoon of weather, so good I even took off my waterproof trousers.

British seaside holidays, you can’t beat ‘em.