BY DOMINIQUE SHAW
One of my first Kage posts was entitled “The Places We Leave Behind” - a project that took me back to the town where I grew up - Filey in North Yorkshire, UK.
That first trip back to explore my roots left me with a strong feeling of personal connection but also, in some ways, a sense of loss. This place that had for so long been my home was no longer mine - it looked the same yet somehow it had moved on, just as I had.
This last week though has been one bedded in nostalgia for me. My parent’s 42nd wedding anniversary sparked a raft of family photographs to resurface and memories relived, and looking back at the town through the eyes of history made me wonder how it looked now that the tidal wave of a pandemic had been battering the seaside town’s shores.
And so, earlier this week I returned to that same spot for an hour or so and found, overall a sense of hope. This place that never really changes still felt the same. The impacts of Covid-19 were inescapable with signage, masks and separation a recurring theme, yet the town and its visitors’ own quirks and peculiarities still outweighed any recently introduced oddities. The British obsession with the seaside; buckets and spades, windshields, rock-pooling, ice cream and fish & chips has endured through wars, societal shifts and every economic threat; a worldwide pandemic is not about to stop it.
Good times or bad, whatever the news, we simply do love to be beside the seaside.
