Seaside fads Padstow, Salcombe and Margate are over – these underrated spots are in

Unlike reliable sunshine, news articles about our seaside towns come around every summer. It’s not only because editors like routines. They also know many of us love our resorts, secretly or otherwise. Nostalgia plays a part; we inherit our family memories along with our own. Your great or grand forebears will probably have enjoyed Wakes Weeks, beauty pageants and charter trains. Perhaps a memorable school trip was to Bridlington or a first snog nudged up your temperature under Southport pier.

What’s more, the seaside is the magical margin between land and ocean; big skies, far horizons and rolling waves have a compelling, enduring power that’s even more affecting than a sense of place.

What is it, though, we really want from a beach break? The “what’s hot, what’s not” line – used to sell posher places like Salcombe in Devon and Padstow in Cornwall, as well as ‘London-by-the-sea’ types like Margate – is mainly about food, drink, ‘shabby chic’ and fashionableness. But this type of tourism promotion can become self-sabotage. Factual and fictional television shows, Rick Stein, moneyed SUV drivers and second home-owners have damaged the South West – especially for local residents. Margate, where the Turner-themed gallery has been a coup for speculators, has already dwindled into a real-estate story.

I say “story”, because that’s what our seaside can provide – and the best ones have nothing to do with trends and fads.

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Seaside towns along the Essex coast are usually in the news because of either deprivation statistics or populist politicians seeking to make use of these to fulfil personal ambitions. But Clacton dazzles for its pier, opened in 1871 and embellished by a vintage helter-skelter. It’s still used as a docking stage by the world’s last seagoing passenger carrying paddle steamer, and its Martello Towers, built at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, are strange presences amid the fun and frolics. The tower at Jaywick, perhaps the most maligned seaside resort in the country, is a thriving arts and community space. Jaywick’s unique architecture and particular history, as a temporary “Plotlands” community that evolved into a permanent settlement, is simply fascinating.

On a recent trip…