The EVIL Decline of Britain’s Seaside Towns

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Today we explore the brutal collapse of britain’s seaside towns – from blackpool to brighton.

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this video is brought to you by Squarespace a beach holiday in Britain might sound like a cruel joke but believe me for a long time this was the peak of upper class British culture but I know everyone’s very worried about me but I’m actually having a really brilliant time from Brighton to Blackpool Britain’s coastal towns Thrive they were the Forefront of culture of entertainment high class living but then something happened Blackpool is one of the most disadvantaged areas in England poverty unemployment difficulty in accessing benefits and mental health all play a part in the Vicious Cycle of deprivation today we will explore the rise and the fall of the Great British Seaside town I only put my heat on for so long but I could not leave I couldn’t afford to leave it on all day because I i’ just run out of money basically very good very happy very happy yeah better than being at home it’s like 3° at home and raining it’s very cold very in and it’s good that it’s open again and we can all come out and get be here nice and drunk it’s actually very interesting and very important to understand where holidaying as a premise came from the word holiday originally refers to Holy day you know religion it wasn’t about getting pissed on cheap vodka and magal but actually about getting closer to God anyway as time would pass into the 18th century we would have a thing called The Grand Tour you seriously broken your he fractured have you broken now The Grand Tour didn’t come around because Jeremy Clarkson punched someone in the face but it was actually a Revival of an old Roman tradition basically this had now been adopted many many years later by Young Rich British Aristocrats which became the very first lad’s holiday two please Lads Lads Lads they would visit historic sites look at the art the architecture and even try and speak the local language hello can ish Harbor I can I have a beer please mate hell but you see holidaying would fundamentally take a turn with one man who is arguably the First Health and well-being influencer Dr Richard Russell of L during the 1730s Dr Russell became very wealthy for telling people that they should go in the sea seawater therapy but there was one body of water that was Superior to all others and that was Brighton he claimed that going in the Brighton sea was better than what they’d been doing currently where people would visit spart towns Dr Russell was so successful that he built this large house where he would treat his patients this house in Brighton was the biggest in the town and nowadays is known as the Royal albian Hotel after his death the building would be let out to different people they could stay in it and come to Brighton and one of those people who came to this hotel was very important in the the progression of the British Seaside town and that was George II for many years I I’ve been fascinated by my ancestor King George III history remembers him above all as the Mad King before we go any further with this video I want to give a massive shout out to today’s sponsor Squarespace you can’t beat Squarespace it is the number one platform for building your own beautiful gorgeous website now with their new guided design system you can have a completely unique website just tailored for you where you can choose from a professional layout and a few different fing options and then it will shoot out a completely customized design specifically for you and now they’ve got optimized SEO tools you’re going to appear much higher in search results which is going to help you to grow and when it comes to payments they’re super flexible you can pay with PayPal Apple pay loads of different providers and in some countries you can even do buy now and pay later using afterpay and clear pay and what is more they’ve even got their own Squarespace AI where you can type in a prompt and it will fill out the copyright so if you’ve got loads of product descriptions it can do the basics and you can just tweak it to 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second you really get a feel for this character he rocked up in a town that he goes to for gambling and built a mosque and it’s just hilarious cuz this was like his pleasure Palace for his henis lifestyle completely out of place but who cares and so a combination of these wealthy Aristocrats being prescribed seawater therapy and the convenient Factor there’s also loads of fun to do and spend your money on created the Great British Seaside holiday town anyway aside from Bright ear and its growth into becoming like this playground for The Aristocrats it would be in 1840s where everything would change the railways are the arteres of industrial Britain’s trade day and night they work feeding her factories feeding her people as technology rapidly accelerated in this era Britain built the world’s first Railway don’t worry guys you don’t have to thank us you know we’re happy to help and in 1841 a railway line was made between London and Brighton so more and more of these Seaside Resorts would start to pop up all around the country one of those places being Blackpool in 1846 they opened a railway station and it now become much more accessible and very quickly Blackpool became like iconic in 1879 they pioneered electric street lighting which led to the black pool illuminations where all of it was lit up basically to be able to let you keep session until late at night in 1865 an entire town was built specifically for being a holiday Resort Peter Bruff and a few business boys teamed up where they bought some shitty lands some Cliffs and some sand and they built clacton on sea and throughout these many Seaside Resorts they would start building things big facilities these elaborate peers that would stretch out to the Sea and all of this coincided around the same sort of time as the introduction of the bank holiday in 1871 and so very quickly people up and left their busy horrible lives in industrial towns like London jumped on a train to head to the Sea for a health and wellness weekend forget fancy foreign holidays and get ready for the best of British as we make a return trip to the toughest Seaside resorts in Britain the splattered over the walls bits of people’s ears everything it was absolutely amazing the 1800s and the 1900s created a gold rush around holidaying the difference was as in history was that now holidaying wasn’t only for the ultra wealthy Aristocrats now even poorer people were earning just enough money to scrape together a few Shillings so that they could head to the beach but you know probably they’re not going to be able to afford the same stuff as the aristocrats and and this led to the kind of knockoff Audi versions of Brighton Blackpool and like South End on sea and places like this they became your more you know working class Beach Resort probably they weren’t quite as classy as Brighton but they they were fun and for many of the workingclass people at this time these Seaside Resorts gave them like a taste of a life they never had like a taste of the Highlight but you know probably less Mozart in a Grand Theater and more Sweet Caroline in a pub [Applause] into the 1900s these British beach coastal towns were in like a absolute boom it was a golden age they were just growing and growing the local population and their economy just exploded from selling sticks of rock running arcades theaters donkey rides on a beach building sand castles ice cream vendors watching Punch and Judy shows whil eating your fish and chips we were now creating this culture of the British holiday and a whole industry around it had to support that providing tons of work tons of jobs jobs that even perhaps pulled some people away from living in London as they probably preferred this pace of life being by the Sea doing some of fun and good air quality it offered to some people a sort of alternative lifestyle but you see there was a problem as bazer Suzy Stacy Mickey as they were enjoying breaking their teeth on a stick of rock ever so slowly these once very nice up class British Seaside Town started to get filled up with poor people in the 1800s there was also the invention of the steamboat and the Orient Express these modern inventions allowed the rich people to get far away from the pors so that’s what happened people would start to go and travel to further and further places away and we can see these photos of like wealthy Aristocrats climbing up the pyramids and if we look really closely at the facial expressions of the women you will see that this was the husband’s idea and so like guide books would start publishing the best places to go abroad with tips on local culture and this would expand the Public’s understanding of like foreign cultures and Customs things like tipping and we would learn that when other cultures drink tea they don’t put five teaspoons of sugar and a pint of milk in them a will you for like a cup of tea yeah sure have a cup of tea but you see this wasn’t for the vast majority of the British public this was really just the aristocrats an extremely wealthy middle upper class for the rest of the British Society some cheap ice cream and some fish and chips was about all we could afford but you know what it was enough but just as everything was going so well there would be the invention of one key thing that would change everything as the Two Brothers prepare to attempt the first catapulted takeoff man’s age-old dream of flight becomes a reality on December the 17th 1903 the Wright brothers dropped a brand new meta flight right after this point it was pretty much a mad rush to try and make flight of available for the masses and much like early rail is very expensive so only the very wealthy could afford to go to the Sahara Desert you know whilst bar and Su are fighting off sea goals in Bogner but then on the 5th of May 1962 it would all change with one flight that took off from Manchester Airport there was something different about this flight you know the atmosphere was different the smell of beer in the air the the singing of football songs this was a workingclass flight [Applause] and their final destination wasn’t Blackpool anymore it was [Music] myca it took roughly about 60 years from the very first flight for it to become affordable to the working class after the war there was what was known as the postwar consensus this basically came from a promise to the working class of Britain after World War II when they went off to go die in these wars the ones who managed to come home were promised a better life than before they were promised housing employment better jobs etc etc and the standard of Life post war for your average workingclass person had massively shut up very quickly the workingclass started to have more money and more free time and therefore they wanted some holidays toward the end of the 1900s it became just a standard thing that you would go abroad on holiday for a week and for the tourism industry this was a really good thing they now had access to a wider Market of people the working class is is a much bigger Market than the middle classes and the upper classes and so we would start to see some budget airlines that would facilitate this you know it might be a little bit more shaky the seat might be made of metal but at least she’ll be in the sun soon enough Barry during the 60s the 70s ‘ 80s and onwards we would see a tidal wave of British people going abroad giving rise to what is known as Brits abroad from the West Midlands to magalo two British police officers have begun patrolling the streets of the Spanish Resort town to help the Guardia civil deal with tr some UK holiday makers I don’t know what it is about us British people but for some reason when we go on holiday we just we just change we wake up and we’re we’ve already had two beers by 10:00 a.m. by 2: p.m. you’re having a fight with a local over a sun lounger and so yeah you know a very certain uh stereotype about the Brit abroad has has grown over the years but anyway as time passed there’d be a few very particular locations that would just become known for being like cheap holiday getaways places like benador [Applause] [Music] benador has been described as a British Council state in the sun there’s a whole TV show about benador yeah we we definitely didn’t improve the place as well you’d have these cheap trashy holidays like going to Maga iifa as well was very popular like uh Brits going to iifa was actually what started the UK Rave scene back home here opening the door to the British tourist was yeah it was it was a decision they made and they chose to do that and you know I don’t know if they knew what they were letting themselves in for instead of the classic going to a foreign country to immerse yourself in the culture the fine Taste of the food the wine we just bought England on holiday with us like you’ll go to these places and they’ll have like English pubs like fish and chip shops probably the the owner is a brick we begin in our hotel called Hotel Bristal shitty nightclubs that you might find in Luton in benador there’s literally a place called the English square like literally even architecturally it looks like a council estate and as you might imagine the locals didn’t love it that much there’s been protest movements and laws passed to try and keep us under control but you see once this was all happening much like when Paul Woody saw the brand new Buzz Lightyear toy coming in and taking Andy’s attention there sat the once Great British seaside resort with its hand on the window looking out longingly hey guys we’ve got sand here too you know the Fall From Grace from these British Seaside towns wasn’t like you know it got a little bit less busy no they became like the worst places in Britain soaring violent crime drug addiction homelessness unemployment obesity literally lower life expectancies there are so many we can talk about but we’ll focus on one in particular which is Blackpool let’s just run through some stats in Blackpool one in six people are clinically depressed unemployment postco is 55% 55% are on benefits in in Blackpool they’re not able to work an estimated 70% of people living in Blackpool are obese Blackpool ranks at number one when it comes to drug related deaths in the whole country Blackpool is one of the only places in England where life expectancy is actually declining and it also has the highest violent crime rate in the whole country it is literally unbelievable what is happening to Blackpool and you might wonder why has it got so bad so what’s life like in Blackpool it’s all crackheads bag heads piss heads stabbings all kinds of it’s tough mate it’s tough It’s hard it’s um you know it’s a lower end people are struggling you know he drinking drugs infested a place but all British Resorts they’re their ass basically I don’t know if you know but there is something that happened in 2008 that basically created a domino effect that has never quite ended you see because ultra wealthy people needed more Yachts Bankers accidentally crashed the entire global economy when that happened the British government went into Panic it took the UK taxpayers money and paid these Banks £37 billion to save them it was then reported just a year later that the banks were paying out like 7 billion in bonuses but let’s not worry about that right now after the financial crash the country had a decision how to recover from this and we chose the incredibly popular approach of austerity this meant that the government was going to cut its public spending you know I don’t need to tell you about this you’re probably aware of it but this meant things like less police officers less money for the NHS less money for welfare less money money for prison officers less money for social housing and whilst we were told that this wasn’t going to last forever it lasted forever and it’s we’re still it’s 14 years now and we’re still in austerity and then as we’re all very aware you had covid cost of living crisis and these accelerated the things that were already happening since the financial crash you’re on that Universal Credit you get 320 quid a month I went to the bank one day they paid me5 82 for the month and so now let’s just picture right so if the whole country is having problems where we can see everywhere all around us that you know stagnation the wages aren’t keeping up with the inflation there’s just generally declining living standards for everyone imagine for a second what that means for the poorest parts of the UK problem with Blackpool was Freddy Laker came along with his cheap Spanish uh his cheap Spanish holidays destroyed Blackpool in one night didn’t he so this block of houses has just been like this for 10 years and the council have done nothing there’s a block of three so hotels here three separate hotels in this block and yeah they’ve been like this for yeah about a decade yeah the seaside towns were already seeing economic problems cuz they had tied themselves entirely into tourism UK holidays fell out of favor you know obviously it’s nicer to go somewhere Sunny than to sit on a rainy beach in in bin and so when you have a town whose main trade is dying and then you have a cost of living crisis that just jacks the prices of everything up it resulted in these Seaside towns just Absol absolutely crumbling very difficult for people on low wages which is what this town is built on it’s built on on uh tourism and the fishing industry which is not well paid uh they can’t afford to buy houses I’ve lived here since I was 15 and I rent the same room in a shared house despite having a full career in the military and now training as a paramedic I won’t be able to afford a house so yeah I’m probably going to be in a house Chef for the phable these once iconic towns that spearheaded some of the most important industries we still experience and enjoy today we kind of just said you know thanks for doing all that it’s fun while it lasted catula and we just left them to die there’s there’s people living in in bus stops there’s people living in in like bushes I’ve seen somebody living actually in a tent on a roundabout you know disabled man on the streets with just one leg not long ago had it off you know on the streets made like that nowadays when you jump on YouTube I can’t help but see so many videos where people will just literally take a GoPro and walk around these communities and just show how up is you got videos by Bal and bankrupt Wendell wandering turnip Joe Fish backpack of Ben there’s quite a few like this and I hate to say it like dying Britain the the decline of Britain is becoming a YouTube Niche and as depressing as it is I feel like these videos are super important shedding a light to what is happening to our country we have this awful pattern in Britain of like just leaving places behind like leaving them when they fall down we just leave them to die our strategy seems to be only focus on the places that are profitable right this second right now and the moment it dips down just them off this attitude is a fundamental shift from what I was talking about earlier with the postwar consensus it all switched in like the 80s with the rise of neoliberalism with Thatcher she argued that in a country you shouldn’t burden yourself with unprofitable trades we should cut the dead way and focus on what we’re good at which sounds you know there’s logic to that it sounds good but we just seem to stop there like when an industry dies we just say yeah see you later buddy and we and we don’t do anything to try and you know develop these places try and redevelop these places and retrain people into new Emerging Markets Etc we just allow these once successful cities to just decline into poverty and for some reason we’re okay with that see like this dog everywhere I nearly just coming around the corner of a there a huge yeah pick up time but you walk around the town you just see piles of everywhere yeah like they’re closing down the multistory car Parks there’s empty shops yeah and it’s in my personal opinion I’ve grown to believe that this trajectory for tourist towns in Britain isn’t isolated this is going to affect more and more towns as time passes I think you’re going to see a similar trajectory to a lot of towns that are kind of like middle towns you know towns that maybe aren’t your londons and your your manchesters like big cities places like I don’t know HL hempson or Grimsby or slow a lot of this gets tied in with the whole death of the British High Street like when you walk down a High Street and all you see is boarded up shops you don’t just see this in Seaside towns this is happening all over Britain even in London a lot of people say that the declining High Street is just a response to the rise of online shopping and whilst that is true to a degree I think there’s something deeper at play online shopping offers convenience and better prices it doesn’t offer experience and Leisure a beautiful Street offers that and people like that however when we’re in a cost of living crisis people have less free time and they have less money and so they are drawn towards convenience and also cheaper prices this is the area where supermarkets and Amazon will always win so I don’t think it’s just the fact that online shopping is more convenient and people are lazy or something I think it’s the way that life is currently that means that kind of High Street shopping is just a luxury of time and money that probably they can’t afford and meanwhile it doesn’t seem that the government does anything to try and help that they don’t try and reinen divize people going to shop in in real life in fact the opposite they put on Brutal business tax rates that make it impossible for businesses to function where most people claim that the reason they’ve had to shut their business is because of tax and this is a problem that is happening around many Western Nations and some do a better job at dealing with it than others a lot of it comes down to decision making and and zoning laws and things like that declining towns declining Seaside Resorts is a problem that requ requires people to think of solutions but you have to want to do it I only put my heat on for so long I couldn’t afford to leave it on all day I’m having little nibbles instead of making proper big meals you know what I mean like just now I’ve just had a cup of coffee and a cake and that’s me tea I just sometimes wish that in this country we would we would take a second to think what exactly are we optimizing toward what’s the future we’re trying to make here are we trying to make a world where we just all live in overpriced rented pods and everything gets ordered to our door from Amazon do we really want to completely render the Public Square the public space is irrelevant a thing of the past do we really want that what exactly is our end game as a country the more I make these videos about Britain the more I just feel like we’re sleepwalking back into the Victorian era an era where the vast majority of people live in poverty and the wealthy live in extreme decadence there’s even been the same Trend that happened in the Victorian era of people moving back to London I found this report from the standard where they talk about it where they said that the number of londoners leaving the capital to move elsewhere in Britain dropped significantly in 2023 and it says that the trends of rocket in house prices in the countryside during the pandemic has been well and truly reversed as buyers ReDiscover the joys of city life I think that’s a very generous read on the situation the joys of city life like don’t get me wrong I love London but what I really think has happened is not that people just suddenly want to move to London cuz London’s sick but more so that so many smaller towns have just really got so bad we just we’ve been wiped out after covid where so many places are shut down they all look run down now and many towns like the some of these Seaside resorts are just lifeless and run down criminal and so yeah London becomes very attractive when it’s the only place that kind of has lots of culture still and that’s mainly because the money is there the wealth is in London that is the exact same thing that happened in the Victorian era where people had to leave the countryside and their agricultural lives because London became the industrial Hub everyone had to move there to get work because you know working on the farm wasn’t paying anymore I don’t think many people would have said the victorians were moving because they they enjoyed the the joys of city life is this what you think of when you think of Britain a developed Western Nation these ramshackle streets where most people are living on benefits struggling to get by one step maybe one week away or even less from homelessness in order for smaller towns and like Seaside Resorts Etc to survive they need to be self- sustainable they need to have their own Industries and they need to have their own middle class middle classes bring extra money that can be used on Leisure you know not just buying the essentials for Life as we see this middle class shrink in Britain there will be less and less of these towns these small towns Seaside Resorts Etc likely in the future people will be forced to move around London to huddle around to get a few bread crumbs and we will look back at these Seaside towns and see that we missed a warning they were a looking glass for us to see what the future of Britain might look like if we don’t do something about this very soon that was a depressing one I’m sorry Lads if you enjoyed that be sure to leave a like And subscribe to the channel join the Discord we can chat about these topics more you can you can catch me on stream I’ll see you in the next one peace bow