All the fun of the seaside!

Since completing my challenge of reading all the Agatha Christie novels, I’ve had a chance to read a few more books, including some more crime novels, and other books like The Observant Walker, Postal Paths, and Newark-on-Trent. 

I’ve just started To the Sea by Train which seems an appropriate book to read, given that it’s summer, so holidays are on the cards, and that there’s an exhibition at the public library about the Leicester Fortnight – so the time when all the local factories closed down for two weeks so workers could go on holiday, but probably more likely was because it meant that the company could completely shut down for a period and save some money on overheads, like lighting, heating, and general energy consumption.

Of course, it wasn’t just Leicester and Leicestershire that closed down for a short period. Other towns and cities did too, Coventry, for example. According to this article, while Leicester and Leicestershire folk made their way by train to Skegness, people from Coventry went by bus to Great Yarmouth.

Anyway, back to “To the Sea by Train”. Only 39 pages in and I did a bit of a double-take! I wasn’t expecting to find our lovely town mentioned, but there it was, in black and white! The author was considering a trip to the seaside town of Brighton, that had taken place in August 1844, and which was organised by Rowland Hill, who is perhaps better known for beginning the Penny Post. On this particular trip people were going to Brighton races, and the author presumes that these groups of racegoers were not members of the Temperance Society!

He says:

“Surely it was almost impossible to go to Brighton races and not drink, and this early excursion was presumably a rowdier affair than the landmark event organised by the temperance campaigner and holiday entrepreneur Thomas Cook.”

Hmmm … Our author continues:

“He [Cook] is taken to be the originator of the railway excursion, having laid on a jaunt from Leicester to Loughborough on 5 July 1841, which, given the absence of sea, doesn’t like it would have been much fun even had alcohol been involved.”

Hmmm, again …

If I’ve tracked down the right newspaper report of the event, either the reporter wasn’t a member of the Temperance Society, or people really did actually have a fun time! The Nottingham Review of 9 July 1841 had this to say:

“Tee-total Festival at Loughborough

A number of delegates from different parts of the midland counties, having had to meet at Loughborough this week, for the transaction of the general business of the societies, it was agreed upon to take advantage of the occasion and have a festival, which the tee-totallers of Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Harborough, and other places should be invited to attend: William Pagett [sic.] Esq., although not, we believe, a tee-totaller himself, kindly granted them the use of his park [Southfields] for the occasion.

The morning dawned rather inauspiciously, but as the day advanced the weather became fine, and dissipated the fears of those who took an interest in the holiday. Engagements had been made with the railway directors, for the persons coming from Leicester and Derby, at half the usual prices; and at about eleven o’clock, crowds of people were seen wending their way towards the railway station to witness the arrival of the train from Leicester. The committee of the Loughborough Tee-Total Society were in attendance with a flag to receive them. About half past eleven the train arrived, consisting of one second class carriage, and nine third-class carriages, each crowded with respectably dressed and apparently happy tee-totallers.

We understand there were about five hundred in all. They had with them the Leicester Independent Band dressed in uniform, and two flags. Having joined the Loughborough friends, they proceeded in procession towards the Market Place, and were met by a number of the members of the Catholic Society with a banner, near the Barracks. [1] The number of spectators was immense, the Nottingham Road from the Canal Bridge to the Barracks being one mass of human beings.

A number of the Dragoons at the Barracks, had got astride the roof, and being stripped to their shirts, and wide white trousers, their fine proportions were swelled to those of Patagonians. The windows were also crowded with fierce moustachioed faces, one of which in particular attracted our attention. This soldier, like those on the roof, was stripped, his head was covered with a red woollen night-cap, his moustaches were black and of great size, and he regarded the moving, joyful crowd with the imperturbable gravity of a Turk. The procession having arrived at the park, more from Leicester partook of ham and other refreshments, which had been provided at the general expense.

At two, the procession was again formed, and they then proceeded to the station house, to meet the Derby and Nottingham friends. In consequence of the late excited state of Nottingham [2], but few came over from that place, but from Derby above one hundred had arrived. After they had joined the procession, the whole then paraded the town. On arriving in the Market Place, they formed into a circle, and sung the National Anthem accompanied by the band. They then went to the park and dispersed themselves into separate parties to amuse themselves with dancing, “drop handkerchief” [3] and other games.

Owing to the large number, more than was expected, attending, the preparations for tea were hardly so complete as would have been wished. After tea, addresses were delivered to those who could be prevailed on to leave their amusement to listen. The Rev. Mr Babbington, took the chair; Mr Forth, from Nottingham, Mr Robinson from Leicester, Mr Cook from Harborough, editor of the Temperance Messenger, Mr Burne from Wolverhampton, the Rev. Mr Jones, Unitarian minister, from Derby, Mr Vaughan, from Mountsorrel, and others delivered addresses. About nine, the procession again formed and proceeded to the station house, but a considerable number remained in the park until darkness had ended the day and their innocent sports.”      

Sounds to me like people actually did have fun on their visit to Loughborough, and I cannot imagine why one would think otherwise!

Now, what had I intended to write about … Thomas Cook … Agatha Christie … ah, yes connections!! Next week maybe!!

_______________________________________________

NOTES

[1] All that remains of the barracks is a little road called Barrack Row, which runs beside the Post Office sorting office on Nottingham Road, and leads out onto Duke Street.

[2] I’m not sure if that might have been Chartist riots, perhaps?

[3] Here’s some information about the game:

https://www.ludozofi.com/home/games/drop-the-handkerchief/

____________________________________

Posted by lynneaboutloughborough

With apologies for typos which are all mine!

_______________________________________________

Thank you for reading this blog.

Copyright:

The copyright © of all content on this blog rests with me, however, you are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follows:

Dyer, Lynne (2025). All the fun of the seaside. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/08/all-fun-of-seaside.html  [Accessed 10 August 2025]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

External Links:

By including links to external sources I am not endorsing the websites, the authors, nor the information contained therein, and will not check back to update out-of-date links. Using these links to access external information is entirely the responsibility of the reader of the blog.

Blog archive and tags:

If you are viewing this blog in mobile format, you will not be able to easily access the blog archive, or the clickable links to various topics. These can be accessed if you scroll to the bottom of the page, and click 'View Web Version'. Alternatively, there is also a complete list of posts, which when clicked will take you to the page you are interested in.

Searching the blog:

You can search the blog using the dedicated search box that appears near the top of the blog when viewed in the web version. Alternatively, you can search using your usual search engine (e.g. Bing, Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) by following this example:

site: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/ “Radmoor House”

NOTE – the words you’re actually looking for must be in “” and the first of these must be preceded by a space

Thank you for reading this blog.

Lynne