We love to reminisce looking through old photographs of visits to the seaside: stirring fond memories of first trips to the seaside or stories of parents and relatives’ golden days spent on beaches we still visit today. Here are some fabulous pictures shared from coast readers.
If you would like to share your own coastal memories with coast, to be published in print or online, please email images to [email protected] with some words about what the picture means to you.
1940s
This is my mum Valerie in a wartime photo on the beach in Devon. It was taken in 1944. Vanessa
1980s
This photos is from 1980 and shows me and my lovely Mum on Winchelsea Beach in East Sussex. We had many fabulous holidays and weekends there staying in our lovely old caravan “Bendigo”. We still live close and return often, such wonderful memories. Wendy Maylam
1940s
This picture was taken in Blackpool in 1941. It shows me with my mum and my godfather, enjoying some sea air! Valerie Walker
1955
As a regular reader of your excellent magazine, I thought I would send to a photo of me as a child (taken in 1955 – not sure where we were on holiday though). At the time we were living in Solihull, so a trip to the seaside would have been great fun. Luckily, at the age of 4, we moved to Bournemouth and my wife and I now live in St Ives, Cornwall. Richard Hunt
1950s
This is me and my cousin Joy in 1954. We were at Westcliff on Sea. Rhoda
1960s
The photo was taken in 1960 in Bournemouth, I believe. My parents, Peter and Carole, were both 18 at the time and engaged. They were married for 50 years before Dad passed seven years ago. Nicola
1958
This photo shows my mum Kathryn Gale (now Baker) in 1958 on Exmouth Beach in Devon, with her cousins Teresa and Janet visiting her from London. My mum would have been about seven in the photo. Nicola King
1930s
Kath, Sydney and friends trying out the new surf boards at Bude in Cornwall in the 1930s. Still a terrific beach. Louise Bryant
1939
This is a shot of my glamorous grandmother, Helen, taken on Winchelsea Beach, East Sussex, in the summer of 1936. She was on holiday from London with my grandad and their two eldest sons. Coincidentally both my dad and I now live near this spot and walk there regularly. Lorna Hall
1960s
This is me on my first visit to the beach in Troon, Scotland, loving the sand so much I decided to eat it! I was just over a year old, so it was 1966 – gosh it still feels like yesterday! I still love the beach, although I try not to eat the sand so much… June Kerr
1963
Here is a photo of me, Mum and my sister, taken in the surf at Croyde Bay in 1963. We loved that beach and had so many happy holidays there, staying in chalets right behind the dunes, returning every August for two weeks for 60 years. Such happy memories and we will be there again as usual this summer. Joanne Lear
1926
This is Dad, Louis Hall, with his mum Minnie at Sandown, Isle of Wight. Dad is about seven, so this would be circa 1926. The photo had been made into a postcard, with ‘Souvenir of Sandown’ printed on it. Jane Harcourt
1959
This is me and my mum at Hayling Island in 1959. Mum loved a paddle, but never went in as it flattened her hair! Jan Norman
1900s
This is my father Harry at Skegness in 1917. A postcard (dated August 1917) tells us that he had been bought a little blue bucket and a little iron spade. Hilary Watts
1940s
Taken in 1945, this photo shows my mum and dad, Peter and Doreen, on their first date at Hunstanton, Norfolk. It was a popular place for us to visit and stay on holiday in the 1960s and somewhere I still love to visit. David Brown
1970s
Me (aged four) and my mum pictured at Bedruthan Steps, Cornwall, in 1978. Danielle
1960
Thought I’d share my favourite beach picture of my dad, brother and I down in Cornwall. This was probably about 60 years ago and it still brings a smile to my face. Chris
1970s
Here is my husband John and his dad Jack, photographed on Chapel St Leonards beach in 1970. It started a lifelong love of both the sea and equines! Casey
1940s
This is a photo of my mum, Brenda Epps, in Aberystwyth, in 1948. Alison Woodward
1940s
This is me when I was four years old with my parents, Ann and Ben Fynn, on a trip to Cliftonville in 1947. Alex Fynn
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