Britain's love of its pleasure beaches gave rise to a peculiar holiday culture - the seaside. Here a usually reserved nation would let its hair down, roll up its trousers, put on a kiss-me-quick hat and laugh at bawdy entertainers. From Victorian sobriety and Edwardian elegance through working-class high spirits to the present day, this book celebrates the place that the seaside holds in all our hearts. PA Photos is the photography arm of the PA Group, which also owns the Press Association, the UK's national news agency. Established in the late 19th Century, the PA has been capturing editorial photography for 140 years, resulting in an extraordinary archive of over 15 million images recording British life over more than a century.