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The author’s love of English coastal resorts shines through in this sharp and deeply moving study of the places that symbolise this country’s declineOn the Naze headland in Essex, Madeleine Bunting finds a bungalow owner “carefully mowing the grass around a rose bush on the edge of a cliff which was soft and crumbly like fudge; trimmed hedges, lawns and flower beds have become a form of impotent protest against fierce winter gales and an irritable North Sea”.There is something very English about this touching, embattled but hopeless stoicism. The country may have invented the idea of the seaside holiday and embarked, as Bunting puts it, on a “great and turbulent love affair” with its resorts. Some even came to be considered “the epitome of modernity and progress”. Yet the brute facts of the British climate meant that their decline was built into them from the start. (If people are looking for sunshine, Benidorm is always going to be more reliable than Blackpool.) Hence today’s distinctive melancholic landscape of crumbling piers, funfairs and grand hotels built to accommodate the much larger crowds of the past.• The Seaside: England’s Love Affair by Madeleine Bunting is published by Granta (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply Continue reading...