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.An After-lunch Scene on the Beach at
Every summer half a milJion people spend their holidays at Douglas.- They all try to find a site on the beach. Somehow, .they all fit their deck chairs in. And
-'
the Salvation Army finds a place too. They hold. a service there; take a collection from the sitters. Some give. Others have given themselves
up
to the sun.
They can hear the Salvation Army
in
Rochdale. But they don't get
sun
and sea air there.
go last BImk Holiday, you'd trudge it with 69,999 other
holidaY""filakers! You reach the Loch Promenade. And then
you see what you've come to see, feel what you've come to feel,
look at
~hat
you've come to do. There'll be fuchsia hepges in
front of the houses and in the gardens along the front, although
you won't find another such 'flourishing fuchsia north of the
Trent in England.
The~e'll
be a warm breeze and probably sun,
for the Isle 'of Man is famed for its .pleasant climate. There'll
be cafes and restaurants, and ice-cream carts and horse-drawn
, trams, and ornainental gardens and open-air orchestras. That's
what the workers of northern England have come for.
At the pier entrance, they divide up. Some take a car or horse-
,AIawn:
cab to a lavish hotel on the front-there are some
magnifi–
cent, imposing
affairs.
Some .struggle on foot with baskets
bulging beyond the!J' straps, old suitcases and a medley of child–
ren with buckets and spades and fishing nets. They· usually make
for the smaller houses, sometimes boarding-houses, sometimes
the. places where mother ouys the food anq the landlady cooks it.
A good meal, and they are out on
th~
Prom. again, ready to
enjoy their holiday.....They are a-cheerful, happy-go-lucky crowd,
ready
I
to :be.-centertained, and to spend money in the process.
After all, Douglas has spent thousands of pounds preparing for
them, so it's only fair that they should put a bit out in
jheir
turlt.
Some of them stroll along the !8o-foot wide promenade that cost
[175,000 to build ana took six winters to' make. The young
people stroll in strings, eight or ten arm-in-arm, sometimes
singing the latest song-hit in chorus, sometimes just strolling.
The old people sit along the seats provided on the frOilt, sOlJletimes
dead to the world, sometimes very much alive and gossiping to
the friend' who sits at the same table in "the :Q.6use." They are a
fashionable crowd. . Shorts 'anq two-piece swUii. suits for the
YOUJ}gsters; floral marocains for the elders-though
occasio~y
you come across a large corsetted1ady still conservative enough to
wear her Sunday-best blue-serge· costume.
Tea-time on the Promenade at Douglas
.There are cafes and cinemas and walks and bathing and ornamental gardens, but feeding the
sea-gulls is always a big attraction. The Derby Castle end of the promenade
is
beiTJg
widened.
The 'sea-gulls, however, 'have
no
respect for ,the foundations.
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