I’m a great admirer of Martin Parr. I love his style of documentary photography. I wonder if he has influenced me, because I’m partial to a spot of irony and satire in my own photographs — and it’s harder than it looks. So, after recently reviewing my favourite Parr book, The Last Resort, I asked myself, “what’s all the fuss about New Brighton?”
It turns out that New Brighton is very much a case of faded glory. Before the advent of cheap European holidays abroad, thousands of Brits would descend upon the town, and litter the promenade, lagoon and beach with their sunburned bodies and garish swimming costumes.
Nowadays, you can still buy a hot dog or an ice cream, but you won’t have to queue for 15 minutes to get one.
It’s a strange sort of seaside town. For one thing, you can see Bootle Docks pretty clearly across the Mersey river from almost all over the resort. I also had a bit of a struggle to find a beach. OK, the tide was in during my visit, but most of the seafront seemed to be a sea wall.
I was pleased to find a decent amount of shameless tat on display. It’s part of the whole British Seaside experience for me. New Brighton seems to have a bit of a pirate thing going on at the moment, and this gives me a good excuse to bore my travel companion with my mental compendium of pirate jokes.
What’s a pirate’s favourite confectionery? A Maaaars Baaaar!
You’re also never very far away from Liverpool city too, with its distinctive skyline (and buckets of student days memories for this writer).
After a couple of hours taking photos, it was time to sample the culinary delights of the resort. And what better way is there to do this than eat Fish and Chips?
