Let's give more kids chance to be beside the seaside

When I was growing up, whenever we were going to the coast, whether summer or winter, I’d be excited. In summer it was usually Sandsend, where we would spend the day on the beach, and in winter we were regular visitors to Whitby. I remember many a perishing cold day battling the wind along Whitby’s west pier after eating fish and chips in the car.

No matter how many times we went to the coast - and it was often - I would look out for the sea and want to be first to spot it. Once we crossed the North York Moors I’d crane my neck in the back of our Mini Clubman and exclaim “I can see the sea!”

In summer it was wonderful to see that blue band stretching to the horizon, glinting in the sunlight, with ships dotted about, and know we would soon be on the beach.

I replicated those days out with my own children, who needed a little cajoling to keep a lookout, but were always animated once we spotted the ocean. Every summer, for 14 years, we took them to a cottage in Sandsend. Those holidays were among the happiest times of our lives.

Scarborough is a great resort to visit with children. Picture: Tara Morris

I can’t imagine what it must be like as a child to have never been to the seaside. Yet for many kids this is a reality. As many as one in ten children in the UK has not been to the coast, a survey found. And six in ten parents say they rarely take their kids to the beach, saying it’s stressful due to the cost of travelling, parking and other factors.

The research was carried out by Cadbury who, in partnership with First Bus, has made an effort to introduce more children to the seaside by laying on special buses to take city kids there. The free service - which families could book online - saw several buses leave London for Southend-on-Sea last weekend. This weekend more will run from Leeds/Bradford to Bridlington. To top it all there’s also a free ice cream for each child.

What a wonderful idea. When I was a young reporter in Bradford the Telegraph & Argus did a similar thing, taking a fleet of double-decker buses of inner-city kids and their parents/carers to Morecambe. It was a joy to see the youngsters' faces as they saw the sea - some setting eyes on it for the first time. I remember one boy, aged about ten, who told me he had only ever seen the sea from a plane.

It's a shame there isn’t a national initiative embracing such simple ideas - it’s surely worth government funding. A day at the seaside is so memorable for children - more so, I believe, that anywhere inland. Whether it’s sandcastle building in a quiet bay or a walk along a bustling prom with its noisy amusements, hot dog stalls and swooping seagulls stealing your chips.

Being beside the seaside lift spirits. I love a bracing walk along Scarborough front - it really does blow away the cobwebs.

As a child I was fascinated by world maps and used to wonder how people who lived more than 1000 miles from the sea coped with never having days at the seaside. I’d stare at states like Nebraska and South Dakota in the USA- would those kids ever see the sea, I wondered.

My pen friend Anita, to whom I’ve written since I was 14, lives in landlocked Austria and had seen the sea only once before when she came to visit me in Yorkshire in the early 1980s. She and her friend Annemarie were thrilled to visit Scarborough, Whitby, Staithes and Robin Hood’s Bay.

I hope the kids visiting the seaside this weekend have a fabulous time feeling the sand between their toes.