“Torquay is not Brighton, neither is it Blackpool. It stands upon a different plane to these watering places. A higher one”, The Western Times in 1923
It took 200 years for Torquay to ascend through the rankings of British tourist resorts.
Then came the long campaign to maintain its place at the pinnacle of the nation’s leisure provision. Never the largest or the most innovative, but always the classiest. It hasn’t been easy.
By 1870 there were 48 places recognised as seaside resorts in a halo around Britain; but not all were the same. Torquay, along with others such as Eastbourne, Bexhill and Frinton, wanted to preserve the image of being premier resorts. We really didn’t want to emulate the likes of Southend, Margate or Brighton.
There was even a word, ‘Brightonised’, referring to those resorts that had succumbed to the lure of the working-class shilling.
By the opening of Torre Railway Station in 1848, with the more coastal Torquay Station following in 1859, Torquay had already relinquished its identity of being a health spa to become a true holiday resort.
The railways opened up a new experience for the British, the main beneficiaries initially being middle-class families, though the less affluent were soon to follow. Though, while Torquay largely escaped the Victorian day tripper, being a bit too far from the major cities, the staying tourist did begin to arrive in large numbers. This was a culture shock as many of these new visitors were not the kind of folk that the town judged appropriate.
Alongside their spending power, tourists brought their morality, identity, less sophisticated manners and a liking for alcohol with them. Behind the villas of the affluent then came the boarding houses, while the streets attracted traders, musicians, and itinerant photographers. Within a few years the beach and promenade took on the characteristics of a disorderly fairground as Torquay and Paignton transitioned to places of leisure and pleasure.
The danger, however, was that those visitors and residents most valued by Torquay would either seek other resorts or travel abroad, an existential threat that could never be tolerated.
To attract and retain this prosperous target clientele, Torquay offered comfort, the ‘right tone’ and specific entertainments reflecting the nature of the intended audience. Strategies were then designed to repel and divert the lower-class tourist to the more affordable, and perhaps more permissive, Paignton.
It fell to the Improvement Commissioners and their successors, the Local Board of Health, to regulate and control behaviour. Taking on positions of responsibility these upper middle-class representatives were supported by a professional police force.
In 1923 the Western Times clarified that demarcation, “Torquay is not Brighton, neither is it Blackpool. It stands upon a different plane to these watering places. A higher one”.
Nevertheless, the resort always had that other, transgressive, side. This was recognised in 1933 by author Malcolm Lowry who described Torquay as “a funny, tawdry place, on the sea, like a pub picture of China gone crazy, drab in daytime but at night like a picture postcard of China. It’s a loveable & laughable kind of tawdriness though: harbours full of immense toy battleships, quite cuckoo.”
Yet Torquay’s strived-for exclusivity never came easily. Wave after wave of unwelcome innovations arrived to threaten the town’s aspirations.
In 1914, for example, a new activity came to the Bay. It was called the Tango and the Torquay Directory gave its verdict on this “savage dance”:
“It lacks swing, rhythm, fluidity. The dancers are rarely in time with the music; they never appear, as good waltzers appear, to have the music so intimately in the blood. The Tango is ungainly, ridiculous and dull.”
Above all, the Tango was foreign, “In its native land the Tango has a meaning, but it is not one that can be expressed in an English ballroom… We are not hot-blooded Southerners, or volatile New Yorkers, or pagan Greeks.”
That same year a Young Men’s Christian Association meeting was held in the Town Hall to inform young men of the dangers of modern life. Eight hundred attended this ‘Big Meeting of Men’ to hear speakers caution, “In England today there are thousands of men and young men living careless, fallen, perhaps rotten, loose, unclean lives, but they are sick of the lives they are living.”
So, what were the dangers and traps that awaited the young men of Torquay? Foul language was one: “Swearing was a stupid, foolish, vulgar, and ungentlemanly habit. The biggest fool in Torquay could swear and curse, but it needed a man to control his temper and check and control his tongue.
Women, predictably, presented considerable temptations, “In Torquay there were thousands of girls and women decking themselves out in bright clothing and donning tawdry jewellery that they might walk the streets and try to attract so-called men and young men.”
One speaker was particularly exercised by another indecent enticement, “Filthy picture postcards often lead to a loose and unclean life”.
Most local postcards were, of course, of the innocuous ‘look where we are on holiday’ type though others were often bawdy and made use of innuendo and double entendres.
In the early 1950s the newly elected Conservative government was concerned about the apparent deterioration of the nation’s morals. They saw sexually explicit postcards as part of the problem and so Watch Committees were consequently set up in seaside resorts. Prosecutions under the Obscene Publications Act followed, including some in Torquay. Intriguingly, there is some suggestion that the Police and Magistrates were stricter in Torquay than Paignton reflecting that old resort designation.
Regardless of efforts to segregate the resorts of the Bay, examples of poor taste were always to be found. For instance, many visitors wanted a cheap and cheerful gift to bring home as a souvenir. Sticks of rock were therefore ideal.
At the beginning, this was perfectly acceptable. But then came the association of rock with crude humour, immortalized by George Formby who performed at the Pavilion in 1955. Let’s hope George substituted Torquay for Blackpool in his famous banned ditty.
In Torquay, rock was the antithesis of sophistication. It was to be seen formed into different shapes, including replicas of the ‘Full English Breakfast’, babies’ dummies and intimate body parts.
One challenge for those promoting the resort’s image was that the seaside rock trade was always a traditional cottage industry, operating in the interstices of society and beyond the reach of the arbiters of good taste.
Then came the innovation that rock could have messages inserted. Indeed, sweets with lettering were on offer at fairgrounds throughout the nineteenth century and known as Fair Rock. Most of these messages were innocuous while some were not.
One issue was that the art of putting the lettering into the rock was a skill mastered only by the sugar boiler, which could take many years of experience with practices passed down from father to son. Consequently, sugar boilers were hard to come by and difficult to discipline. Indeed, their independence is the origin of an urban myth: the rebellious sugar boiler inserting abusive messages into a stick of rock.
This one has, however, some basis in an actual Torquay incident.
In February 1977, Michael Leigh, a dissatisfied sugar boiler and lettering artist at Graham da Costa’s Torquay rock factory, inserted the word ‘BALLS’ into more than a thousand sticks of rock. This act illustrated Michael’s feelings about life in general and, on that day, rock-making in particular.
Mr. da Costa was, however, well aware that sugar boilers were temperamental artists and not easily replaced so nothing came of the incident, except a great deal of free publicity for the Torquay businessman. The rock itself was subsequently given away.
So, keeping Torquay exclusive hasn’t always easy. Despite the best efforts of the great and good, there’s always someone out there prepared to erode our hard fought-for reputation with offensive language, crude pictures, feminine temptation, and erotic dancing. So, fellow Torquinians, always be on your guard!
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