Retracing happy but hazy childhood memories in Lytham and St Annes

It’s strange what you can remember and what you can’t.

Sometimes I struggle to recall what I did last week while other memories from 10, 20, 30 years ago remain reasonably vivid. Or at least that’s my recollection.

One abiding childhood memory, which replays in my daydreams from time to time, sees me walking barefoot across the dunes onto a vast sandy beach backdropped by a sea glistening under the sun.

This was at some point in the 1980s in England, on the coast of Lancashire, in fact — a part of the world that isn’t always bathed in sunshine.

But it was on that particular day and it is again this northern summer’s afternoon, as I seek out the place that has lingered in my sepia-tinted visions.

While I’m not entirely sure of the precise location — my parents, who had taken me to the coast that day, aren’t with me on this trip — I have a good idea of where to look as I take a train to Lytham, a town on the South Fylde Line, which curves 40km between Preston — a city on Britain’s west coast mainline — and Blackpool South, a station at the southern end of the renowned seaside resort.

With its quaint centre dotted with flower pots, tidy stores, hotels, bistros and tearooms, Lytham is more genteel and laid-back than Blackpool, although it’s not completely devoid of entertainment or celebrities.

In July its annual multi-day music festival attracts globally-renowned stars to The Green, a lovely, wide grassy sprawl dividing Lytham’s town centre and waterfront.

Alanis Morrisette was due to appear this year only for high winds, brewing in the Irish Sea, to bring about the show’s cancellation for safety reasons. The weather did, however, play ball either side of that stormy day for Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake, Simple Minds and Texas to perform.

Apart from the squawking gulls, it’s quiet as I walk across The Green, past its whitewashed 200-year-old windmill, and towards the promenade skirting by Lytham’s mudflats and salt marshes, where the estuary of the River Ribble meets the Irish Sea.

The tide is going out, leaving little wooden boats beached on the sand and pebbles as I press northwards along the promenade, passing fellow walkers of all ages, while cyclists — kids, middle-aged couples, solo pensioners — whistle past my shoulder.

The promenade mostly runs straight and interrupted, but occasionally bends, such as when it threads between Granny’s Bay and Fairhaven Lake, an inland saltwater leisure spot where swans glide and rowing boats, pedalos and canoes are for hire.

Behind the lake are the greens and fairways of Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club, whose course has hosted the Ryder Cup and Open Championship multiple times (past winners include Tony Jacklin, Gary Player and Seve Ballesteros, while Australian Adam Scott agonisingly lost to Ernie Els in 2012).

The last of Seve’s two Open victories was here was in 1988, which, I reckon, could have been the year I visited.

It’s as I approach St Annes on the Sea, an hour or so into my walk, that I’m sure I’ve found the spot I’ve been looking for. Founded as a resort in the 1870s, when the railway also arrived here, it’s also known as Lytham St Annes.

Behind the tufted grass and wooden huts facing the promenade, a row of gently rolling sand dunes descend to a huge beach with the sun-kissed sea in the distance.

There are a few families here; mums, dads and grandparents sitting on towels and deck chairs, children playing with soccer balls and buckets and spades.

I wander cheerfully past them towards St Anne’s pier, a relic from the Victorian age, completed in 1885 and jutting almost 200m.

It doesn’t have the buzz or pulse-raising rides of Blackpool’s piers but it has a cafe, a small covered amusements area and outdoor boardwalks.

The breeze cools me as I walk on the pier and gaze over the sprawling sands exposed by the low tide.

I overhear a man and his wife (I presume) chatting on one of the pier’s benches. “I wish it was like this every day,” he says, as the sun pounds down.

The weather is changeable, to say the least, on this coast but for the last weekend in August, it’s handy to have the right amount of wind as the beach stages St Annes Kite Festival, when teams from around the UK fill the sky with their colourful kites.

It’s possible to keep walking — or pedalling — to Blackpool, with that town’s Eiffel-esque tower about 7km from here.

And you could go even further. Promenades and bike paths run to Fleetwood, an old port town at the northern tip of the Fylde coast by Morecambe Bay.

From St Annes, it would take you a good four or five hours to walk to Fleetwood — and that’s if you manage to avoid Blackpool’s multifarious temptations.

I opt to linger in St Annes. The locals may tell you it isn’t as “posh” as Lytham but it has a nice, flower-brightened park (Ashton Gardens) and fine places in which to eat, drink and shop.

And as it’s on the South Fylde Line, I can catch my return train to Preston from here.

I’m keen for a caffeine pick-me-up, so I head to a cafe that was recommended to me: Wood Street Coffee. It bakes its own focaccia, cookies and cinnamon rolls and sources the beans from Exchange Coffee, a long-time Lancashire dealer.

Claiming one of the tables outside, I reflect on my day and how nice it was to find that beach and those dunes again.

I’m also, by the way, happy with my coffee. I doubt you’d have got one that looks and tastes as good as this in 1980s St Annes.

fact file

+ Trains usually run every hour between Preston and Blackpool South, with stops in Lytham and St Annes on the Sea. Preston has regular connections to London, Scotland and Manchester. For tickets and timetables, see northernrailway.co.uk+ For more information on visiting the Fylde coast and Lancashire, see discoverfylde.co.uk and visitlancashire.com+ To help plan a trip to Britain, see visitbritain.com