Wish You Were Still Here

A nostalgic look back at the rise and decline of the Scottish seaside holiday.

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As one of our key forms of leisure and mass entertainment, tourism was a major growth industry of the nineteenth century and this growth continued into the twentieth century. Starting in the golden age of the Victorian and Edwardian resorts, Eric Simpson explores the ways and means whereby the Scottish people were able to enjoy the benefits of seaside and other holidays, including how they travelled, the things they did and where they stayed. This book, therefore, is not just about the holidaymakers but embraces too the many people in the resorts who made their livelihood in the tourist industry. Sporting activities, for spectators no less than participants, were and still are very important, especially golf. So too was swimming and one of the extraordinary features of the early twentieth century was the craze for open-air seawater swimming pools in a country that is not renowned for great warmth. Many Scottish towns, both large and small, ran into debt to construct the open-air swimming ponds that once dotted the coastline. In the large resorts there were entertainments for the masses. But in the wee quiet places, holidaymakers had to find their own ways of spending their time with bathing, country walks and sports always popular.