Resorts out of season

Text 1: A Watering Place in January, by Isabella Crane

An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

My dear Mrs Lacey, you asked how I find the town now that the doctor has sent me here for the winter, and I must answer honestly that I find it asleep. The great hotels upon the cliff have their shutters up, the bathing machines are drawn up in a row above the tide line like cattle in a shed, and the Assembly Rooms, where in August one cannot hear oneself speak, have a notice upon the door and a dead leaf in the keyhole.

For the first week I thought it the saddest place in England. All the gaiety of the summer seemed to have been packed away in a trunk, and the empty bandstand looked like a cage from which the bird had flown. But I have begun to see another town beneath the first. The fishermen mend their nets upon the beach and nod to me now. The baker’s wife asks after my chest.

And the sea, which in summer was a mere background for bonnets, has become the whole of the view. I walk along the empty Parade each morning with the wind in my face, and I think I have it to myself, and I find I do not want August back at all.

Text 2: February by the Sea, by Owen Petrakis

An original contemporary travel writing.

Nobody goes to the seaside in February, which is exactly why I went. The town I arrived in had the slightly embarrassed look of a party venue the morning after. The ice cream kiosks were padlocked, the crazy golf was covered in sand, and the big sign on the pier that says FUN in pink lights had lost its F and its N.

For a day I felt sorry for it. Everything was built for crowds, and without the crowds it looked like a stage set after the play has closed. But on the second morning I noticed the people who actually live here. The man in the café started saving me the window seat. A woman walking a greyhound told me about the storm that had taken the end of the pier in 2014. The town, it turned out, was perfectly busy being itself.

And the sea was enormous. In summer you barely notice it behind the windbreaks and inflatables. In February it is the main event, grey and wild and thrilling, and I had all four miles of beach to myself. I am not sure I will ever come back in July.

Both writers describe staying at the seaside out of season.

What are the similarities between the writers’ impressions of the resort and how these change?

Draw on evidence from both texts to support your answer.