I’ve always had a soft spot for the English seaside. It’s idiosyncratic, a little kitschy, a little gross. There are those pre-war beach windbreakers. There are tuna and sweetcorn sandwiches in packed lunches. There’s a mangy dog nipping at your feet as you run into icy waters. It’s always windy, often pebbled, and full of litter.
The spit of sand stretches out along the English Channel and unfurls into Poole Harbour
We love it like we love mushy peas – that is to say we learn to love it. But Sandbanks is nothing like that. Sandbanks is considered a cut above, and it is. The chintzy aspects of seaside towns like Paignton and Bognor Regis are lost on Sandbanks and its £13 million bungalows. Seaside entertainers dressed up in stained suits are nowhere to be found alone Panorama Road. It’s more bluefin tuna and Dom Perignon than cold saveloys and cans of Carling.
Whatever your thoughts are about British beaches, Sandbanks is undeniably beautiful. It’s almost as if Mother Nature forgot she was designing something for England. The spit of sand stretches out along the English Channel and unfurls into Poole Harbour. If it’s not raining, it’s quite something.
I stayed in Sandbanks once. I was 12 and my mother and I spent a week by the sea. It was pretty and it was boring – though isn’t every holiday boring when you’re 12? Something struck me about the place at the time, something I’d never experienced before. The steady passing of time. Everything felt slower. You could sit and watch the waves come in for hours. You could gawk at the kite surfers until the cataracts set in.
It’s been called the Palm Springs of the UK. I wish we wouldn’t do that. We only set ourselves up for disappointment. It’s like saying that Birmingham is the Venice of England. What? Who comes up with these comparisons? Palm Springs is a city in California. Sandbanks is a neighbourhood in Poole. There’s a difference. Though I’d still rather die in Sandbanks than Palm Springs. This isn’t because I want to die in Sandbanks, it’s that I’d hate to keel over in the sweltering oasis of a hopeless desert.
Sandbanks doesn’t operate like other British seaside towns or neighbourhoods. Traditionally, British seaside towns have attracted those at the end of the line. Mostly the old, but sometimes the mad and the drunk. Sandbanks has managed to skirt this. In recent years, Sandbanks has attracted a new moniker: ‘England’s very own Monte Carlo’.
This isn’t meant in a kind way – though I don’t know how comparing anything to Monte Carlo can ever be kind. No. It’s been called this because of the plague of hotshot petrol heads who have descended on the town’s main road. It seems a bunch of Riot Club-boys are attempting to find a purpose to their lives by skidding around the Sandbanks strip. It’s sad, really. They’ll wind up dead along Banks Road before Nascar can send them a contract. Tales of burnt rubber and screeching tires have hung over Sandbanks in recent weeks.
This is one of the few times I’ve heard of something bad happening there. Because nothing bad ever happens in Sandbanks. Just like nothing bad ever happens to Truman in The Truman Show, at least before he finds out his life is a lie. It’s not supposed to be like this. Sandbanks isn’t supposed to be affected by the outside world.
So I feel a little sorry for Sandbanks – perhaps these wacky races signal the beginning of the end for their tiny slice of paradise. Perhaps it’s the end for glamorous seaside towns in England. Then again, when was the English seaside ever about glamour?
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