h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have never been to Skeggy, for which I suppose I might be truly thankfull but I suppose I should reserve judgement.

What I can say is that my lodger was born and brought up there and escaped from Skeggy to Hemel Hempstead where I live. (Not much of a step up, perhaps from c3 to b2, but no more). When asked what it was like he informed me that "Skeggy had better sea defenses than Scarborough."

I don't know anything about Scarborough as I have never had a lodger from there.

I've only been to Hemel a few times but this is enough to know and admire the marvellous gyratory system. One of my mates comes from there and used to work at the Golden West factory during the summer. He insists that the Hemel accent is distinct from and superior to the London accent, though I myself can never spot the difference.

Not another person from Hemel! This site is littered with them! It's the famous 'artfordshire accent.. it is a bit different from London accent I think..

Nonono, I'm from Lincolnshire but my ex-flatmate was from Hemel, as was his brother and sister. And parents. I've given up trying to distinguish between the various southern accents - it's much better to say "oh, you're from London" which allows people to quickly distinguish themselves into those that say "No I'm not, I hate the damn place" and those that say "no, I'm from Surrey/Essex/
one of those other places" which is another way of distancing themselves from actually being from part of London. The other type is the sort that says "Neeooo, ectuallay Ay'm from [place irrelevant as they all sound the same] don'tcherknoow". There will always be people that say "Yeah, innit. Greatest place in the whole of England corblimeyguv" but such things are sent to try us.

I'm from Lincolnshire and we used to go to Skeggy for holidays. I have no conceivable idea why we went to Skeggy because we would get blown away just walking down the street, if you wanted to see the beach you would have to be so wrapped up in thick coats so that it meant that you couldn't do anything. I'm now living in Kent and the only difference in the accent is that they speak slower, well that probably says it all. Don't it.

Wrapped up in a coat? Soft, to my mind. I had to do my beach lifeguard's exam in the brown and silty waters of Chapel St. Leonards, just a few miles up the coast from Skeg. One of our number had to be removed from the sea and physically moved to a place of warm safety after the numbing fingers of incipient hypothermia infiltrated the scant protection offered by a polycotton bathing trunk. What freaked me out recently were the adverts seen on Scottish Television for "marvellous Mablethorpe, super Skegness and Wonderful Woodhall Spa". I think it's insulting that Yorkshire TV doesn't show these whereas people further north with a slightly lower mean annual temperature are expected to fall for it. It's also a sign of desperation - maybe two coastal "resorts" weren't enough to sound like a proper advert but they couldn't think of a third. As for what they used instead - Woodhall may have been picturesque once but the spa baths are falling into increasing ruin, the Kinema manager's more interested in getting Dolby installed in the new auditorium than he is in playing the Compton organ, a vast new estate has made Green Lane no longer a pleasant way to walk and there was an actual stabbing outside the wine bar at Christmas. There are still plenty of trees there, though.
Return to the point: Yep, it's freezing and unpleasant there, but rejoice in the fact that an annual walking race celebrates the act of leaving the town, by foot if you have to. What killed Skegness is the fact that between it and Nottingham (or Lincoln if you're feeling generous) there's little but flat land and sugarbeet. Sugarbeet, pigs and oilseed rape don't really have the spending power to maintain a vibrant and freshly-painted seaside resort. All it managed to do last year was achieve the UK county record for number of road fatalities.

This is fascinating! Having grown up in the shadow of Skegness so as to speak - my grandmother ran a boarding house there - I have yet to meet anyone outside my family who actually admits to having been there. And what's all this about Butlins starting at Mablethorope? According to my father they started in Skeg itself and only Boy Scouts such as he worked there in the 1930s. Is this wrong and an embellishment of the past?
And what other families have their entire history recorded in those photos that were taken on the sea front and you went and collected later if you wanted to buy them...
For those who think that the charms of Skegness are a thing of the past try Felixstowe in Suffolk - just as cold , just as decaying but you can actually see the sea and the amusement arcades still have games that take 2p....I was sorry to hear that the donkeys had gone; there are none in Felixstowe either.