After I posted my thoughts on beach huts being an expensive and out-dated luxury, I had a response from a friend. She has hired beach huts before while on holiday with her family. I know the place she was telling me about; there’s a very steep climb from the beach to the town. So if one of her children needed her to go back for anything they’d forgotten, it was a long climb up and a jog back down – or they could store all the beach stuff in the beach hut all week and nip up the beach for whatever they wanted.
Fair point. I didn’t realise beach huts were offered for hire, and I’ve never taken children to the beach to experience the “Oh No I Forgot My…” moment, when you can either trek all the way back to the accommodation for the forgotten object or risk having the day marred. My main experience of beach huts was hearing of the one that caused so much debate and upset in my husband’s family, and from discussions I have seen and heard it seemed to me to be the privilege of those lucky enough to inherit (the hut, and enough to pay the rates and insurance on it) or those wealthy enough to buy an expensive hut that sat unused for most of the year. The thought of a series of holidaymakers each enjoying a week’s use of a hut cheers me up immensely. Next time I see a row of huts, I will think more kindly of the people drinking tea on their decks.
Julia Chalkley 