Wish You Were Here: England on Sea - Hardcover

'Elborough is an English nostalgist in the mode of John Betjeman... as a cultural commentator [Elborough] is a terrific companion... Wish You Were Here is quirky, chatty, charming and optimistic - an ideal read for the English beach.' -- Frances Wilson, Sunday Times 'Meticulously researched and trenchantly expressed, Wish You Were Here is as bright and breezy as a trip in a pleasure steamer.' -- Daily Mail 'In this brilliant book, Travis Elborough does a wonderful job of analysing the history of our masochistic love affair with the seaside... [Elborough] has done his research thoroughly and writes with enormous wit and feeling. His book punches far above its weight in both style and substance.' -- Mail on Sunday 'a charming study of our national beachside frolics' -- Independent 'Technically, Travis Elborough is a cultural historian, although that seems too pompous a phrase for such an amusing and sprite-like writer... Here, he chronicles our love (or otherwise) of our seaside, and his elliptical approach, his wit, and the exuberance of his prose marks this book out from a hundred others on the same subject... timely, bittersweet beach reading.' -- Telegraph 'Elborough proves an erudite and entertaining guide, combining the keen eye of a social historian with the lapidary prose of a fine journalist.' -- Financial Times 'Travis's book sparkles like the sun on a breaking wave...The author has confirmed his ability to find a quirky piece of social history and make it as appealing as a seaside ice-cream on an August day.' -- Camden New Journal 'Elborough's overview of our lasting love of fish and chips, Brighton rock and paddling is the perfect beach book.' -- Marie Claire For THE LONG PLAYER GOODBYE:'He's got a happy knack of stuffing sentences with facts, colour and incident' -- Scotland on Sunday 20080713 'Reassuring air of cultural authority... impressive depth of perspective... admirably persuasive' -- Independent on Sunday 20080729 'Elborough is a charming, funny and frequently fascinating guide' -- Daily Telegraph 20080802 'Wonderful book... a great thundering roar of nostalgia for the LP record.' -- Spectator 20080802 'Elborough has the passion of a true enthusiast... but he's also an indefatigable researcher, who has somehow seen a clear path through the vast amount of material to write a book that reads easily and well but also wholly coherently. Richly enjoyable.' -- Mail on Sunday 20080802 'Highly entertaining' -- Independent 20080820 'Lovingly researched' -- TLS 20080905 On THE BUS WE LOVED:'A charming account of the capital's enduring affair with its favourite piece of transport.' -- Daily Mail 20080905 'An undiluted delight - witty and whimsical' -- Daily Telegraph 20080905 'A pocket-sized production as sleek as the vehicle it elegises.' -- London Review of Books on THE BUS WE LOVED 20080905 'He chronicles our love (or otherwise) of our seaside, and his elliptical approach, his wit, and the exuberance of his prose marks this book out from a hundred others on the same subject.' -- Sunday Telegraph 20080905

The seaside, like football and the railways, is a distinctly English and largely nineteenth century invention. At the Festival of Britain in 1951, a replica of a seafront represented hope and modernity - once the preserve of the sickly elite, the seaside had become one of the great English egalitarian institutions. But when the advent of cheap flights allowed us to go and see how the rest of the world did it - with better weather and sandier beaches - our boarding houses and bandstands slowly rotted away. As the economy forced a reassessment of our holidaying habits, resorts from Morecambe to Bournemouth enjoyed a renaissance. Capitalising on the uniquely English combination of irony and pride, the English Riviera has been reborn. In many ways, our national character has been defined by our relationship with the seaside - and in tracing its development, we can see how our ideas about health, welath and happiness evolved. Our aspirations and snobbery, our attitudes to sex, our keen sense of fair play, our chequered relationship with national pride and our ability to laugh at ourselves have all been played out against a backdrop of stormy skies, pebbly beaches and sticks of rock. The seaside is the place we go to get better, to let our hair down, to downsize, to retire, to take drugs and to hide. Ranging from Agatha Christie to the Prince Regent via Billy Butlin and Brighton Rock, Travis Elborough explores how a coastline peppered with quasi-Oriental piers makes us quintessentially English. Erudite, charming and surprising, Wish You Were Here is a gloriously unorthodox social history of a nation of islanders.