Dos and don'ts for 'culturally diverse' visitors to the UK seaside this year

Oh we do like to behave beside the seaside… or at least some of us do. The trouble, apparently, is that not everyone knows how to — which is why the owners of Durdle Door have written to the Government to demand an education campaign for the “culturally diverse” visitors they blame for last summer’s overcrowding, littering and worse.

(What do we mean by ‘worse’? Well the phrase the Lulworth Estate uses in its petition is “wild toileting”, so draw your own conclusions.)

The owners of the estate, which includes beauty spot Lulworth Cove as well as the beach at Durdle Door, say: “The estate usually attracts families with children during the main summer season, but 2020 brought a much younger and more geographically and culturally diverse cohort to the nation’s coast and countryside” — and you don’t need to be GCHQ to decode who they’re pointing the finger at.

Here then, just in case the Government somehow has better things to do, is our own tongue-in-close-proximity-to-cheek guide to the dos and don’ts of visiting the Great British Seaside in the impeccably middle-class way the Lulworth Estate expects of us…

DON’T wear trainers. Or heels. Or pumps, shoes, sandals, flip-flops, cleats or clogs. There is only one kind of footwear acceptable in rural England, and that’s a green welly (with your cords tucked into it). Extra marks if it’s made by Hunter.

DON’T camp. These days you must insist on ‘glamping’. (What’s the difference? A painfully fey booking website, a few fairy-lights, and about 75 quid a night.)

DO dress your children from Boden.

DO bring a picnic, with fare supplied by ‘this marvellous little local artisan producer’ you discovered (called Waitrose). Actual local artisans are preferred, of course, though they will have seen you coming — probably from halfway up the M3 — so you can expect to pay upwards of £6 for a sausage roll.

DON’T be fooled. Ginsters is not a marvellous little local artisan producer.

DON’T try to cut corners on containers either. It’s only a ‘hamper’ if it’s made of wicker. If it’s made of cardboard, it’s a Family Bucket.

DO go crabbing, butterflying, fossil-hunting, rockpooling, den-building, nature-walking — the basic rule of thumb is that if the Victorians did it, it’s an appropriate middle-class activity. Still unsure? Ask yourself if your kids will hate it; if so, it’s a goer.

DON’T be deceived by the smiles on the faces of the Bad People with their smartphones and tablets just up the beach from you. They may look like they’re having a great time, what with the laughing and lack of teenage tantrums, but inside they’re deeply unhappy. Probably.

DO dress your husband from Boden.

DO rent a place with an Aga. They’re the microwaves of the upper-middle-classes, and even if they’re a pain for cooking, they’re good for drying out soggy socks.

DON’T rent a place with satellite TV. Anything more modern than a Roberts radio is dangerously downmarket.

DON’T drum circle. Ever. (This isn’t just a ‘class’ thing, it’s a ‘basic human decency’ thing.)

DO antiques shops, art galleries, second-hand bookstores, farmers’ markets, honesty stalls in fields.

DON’T Argos.

DO spend a little too long looking in the windows of all the estate agents.

DO marvel out how much space you could afford out here compared with a place in town.

DO seriously consider putting in an offer on one of those nice little cottages.

DON’T actually do it. What’s the point when you’ve got that place in Tuscany, anyway?

DO dress yourself from Boden.

DON’T turn up with a clean car. Nothing, weirdly, says ‘I’ve just driven straight down from Twickenham’ like a muddy Land Rover. (Except possibly a text message saying ‘still stuck in tailback on A31! ETA midnight’.)

DON’T even think about Netflix. Evenings are for charades and board games. (Well no-one said being middle-class was fun.)

DO beach cricket.

DON’T beach soccer.

DON’T feel you have to miss out on fish & chips. That counts as a ‘regional speciality’, so it’s on the approved list, same as paella in Valencia. You’ll probably want to swap the accompanying tin of Dr Pepper for a nice Prosecco, though…

DO take a great big dog.

DON’T take one of those dogs that fits in a handbag.

DO dress the great big dog from Boden.

DON’T fritter your money away in amusement arcades, on piers or at funfairs. Crazy golf is acceptable (providing it’s spelled correctly, and not as ‘krazy golf’), since it offers at least as much frustration as it does pleasure when you can’t get the damn ball up the damn ramp and into the damn dinosaur’s mouth.

DO wee in the sea.

DON’T poo in the view. We’ve just looked up what the Lulworth Estate meant by “wild toileting”, and it’s not pretty.