We were hitting West Wittering come rain or shine | Blaise Tapp

What is it with everybody and the beach?They shouldn’t really work as a day out.
Large crowds gathered on the beach near Southsea Beach Cafe in Eastney Esplanade, Portsmouth.Large crowds gathered on the beach near Southsea Beach Cafe in Eastney Esplanade, Portsmouth.
Large crowds gathered on the beach near Southsea Beach Cafe in Eastney Esplanade, Portsmouth.

They are excruciating to walk on, the sea is invariably freezing cold and sand always ends up in the Marmite butties – yet we are drawn to them.

There cannot be many people out there who don’t have early memories of burying their dad up to his neck or spending half a day recreating Windsor Castle with a margarine tub and an ancient garden trowel.

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Childhood is incomplete if you haven’t stuffed seaweed down the back of a sibling’s swimming costume or taken a picture of a sleeping parent with an item of underwear placed on their sunburnt forehead.

The appeal of the beach doesn’t wear off once one reaches adulthood.

This reality is borne out by the almost biblical scenes that we have seen in recent weeks where hundreds of thousands of people have driven, pretty much, to the same places to enjoy the sunshine.

Heading to the seaside is probably the second most popular treat for the British after going to the pub.

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But as we’ve been unable to enjoy a hand-pulled pint since March, is it any wonder that we’re all mad for heading to the coast whenever we get the chance?

Following the scenes of jam-packed beaches at south coast tourist traps such as Bournemouth, there was much condemnation of those who took the decision, in some cases, to drive hundreds of miles to spend the day to sit cheek by jowl with complete strangers, when only a couple of weeks ago many were probably still summoning the courage to brave the weekly shop.

Those ready-made front-page images prompted our reactive prime minister to warn a nation ‘not to take liberties’, before falling back on the timeless plea for everybody to use a bit of common sense.

Calling on people to use common sense is usually an indication that the person asking has either lost their patience or run out of ideas.

Or both.

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Expecting tens of millions of people to all behave sensibly on being given the vaguest pieces of official advice is rather like giving a pot of paint each to a room full of unsupervised toddlers and hoping that there won’t be any mess.

It was so obvious what would happen once the temperatures soared –Boris Johnson needed to warn sun-worshippers before they descended to Southsea en masse, not after.

It is understandable why people all did the same thing at once as life is pretty dull right now – the telly is either all repeats or Alan Bennett plays and even the sport is a poor imitation of itself.

The ‘canned’ crowd on the now nightly football matches is more than a little soul-destroying and a much-needed reminder to those in charge that the game is nothing without the fans.

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Despite all of this, even if I hadn’t been working I would’ve given Durdle Door a miss on the hottest day of the year – not due to fears I might catch coronavirus from a sneezy stranger but because the idea of sitting in miles of tailbacks while my two youngsters torment the life out of each other is too much to bear.

I watched news of the carnage on the beaches with a smug smile, safe in the knowledge that I had booked my parking space at West Wittering, less than an hour from us, which has worked to restrict the numbers who drive there during these strangest of times.

True to form, the day we had booked resembled October rather than the height of summer but we still went.

I’d paid my nine quid.

Thousands of others were of the same opinion and we were witness to the uniquely British sight of people paddling while wearing pullovers.

Going to the seaside is our birthright and neither a pandemic nor rubbish weather are going to stop us.

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