Through the prism of our longstanding and often nostalgic relationship to our seaside towns, Madeleine proposes writing a state-of-the-nation book about England, which simultaneously considers what the seaside means and has meant to us, alongside an examination of what are now some of England’s most deprived areas.

This is a history of the rise and fall of seaside resorts, their cherished place in our imagination, their beauty and resilience, and their depression and abandonment with the arrival of cheap foreign travel in the 70s. And in taking us into some of England’s most deprived areas, BESIDE THE SEA will offer an insight into the politics of the last decades, the effects of austerity, the Brexit vote, along with ideas of Englishness and national identity.