Coast Of Teeth By Tom Skyes & Louis Netter

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Being an island nation we have had to get used to invaders that have regularly turned up over the past 2000 years. Most of them haven’t been particularly friendly, the Vikings spring to mind. This threat of ‘invasion’, especially those in ‘small boats’ fuelled by certain papers and politicians, coupled with the fact that most coastal towns and villages are run down or tired then these factors may be why most people in these places voted for Brexit.

This book is a tour of some of the coastal towns around the UK. It is not extensive and both the author and the illustrator visited the places together after the pandemic lockdowns to get a feel for the places and to do some people watching. They begin their journey in the English Riveria. The town of Torquay is haunted by the spectre of Faulty towers and isn’t quite what it used to be though, and feels like it is full of Little Britain bigotry. It has lost some of its charm
Weston Super-Mare is a place that I have only ever been to once. I can’t remember how old I was, but all I remember was the mud glistening in the sun and the tide went out. It was the place that Banksy chose for his theme park, Dismaland with his particular take on the English seaside.

Quite who was taking the piss out of whom has not been determined… In the time of Covid restrictions though, normal seaside activities are not happening, the donkeys that would have been plodding up and down the beach aren’t there.
Sandbanks is quite a place. It is dripping with money and should you have any desire to live there you will need a large fortune, but anyone can turn up and enjoy the beach and the views over the Purbecks and Old Harry Rocks. Just along the coast, Boscombe is a complete contrast. It has had money poured into it, but it still feels slightly seedy and rundown, but it does now have a gastropub. The pier here is a beautiful minimalist design and is a favourite of mine. Sykes mentions something here that I have never really noticed before, that almost all the benches have memorials on them, unlike other countries. As they head towards Christchurch, they find anti-vax slogans alongside the benches, the irony is not lost on the author, that these people lived long enough to be remembered because of the vaccination programmes of the 20th century. From Sandbanks one end, at the opposite end of the bay are the most expensive beach huts in the UK.

And so to Essex, a county that is often unfairly defined by its derogatory stereotypes. Clacton is drab and artificially lit by amusement arcades. They find a pub, that is allegedly the worst in the country, but they feel that have been in worse before. The mediocre food isn’t really enhanced by the karaoke serenade they are treated too either… They move further along the coast to Jaywick, here it feels like a shanty town with the jerry-rigged houses and the slide downward is very visible here. Sykes ponders if it is a precursor to the economic Brexit slide, though there is a glimmer of hope he sees in the Happy Club and its bartering system.

Sykes heads to his home patch of Portsmouth for the next journey. He recommends that it is always worth looking down, not just to avoid stepping in anything nasty, but so you can spot the engravings, inscriptions and other man-made items embedded in the ground. He marvels at the attempts to make Gosport a seaside town, whilst the industrial past and present loom over in a slightly threatening way. Even though Portsmouth has a long history, sometimes he has to look really far to see it. On a more positive note, the city has gone from being a cultural desert and a place to catch the clap to a place that is forging its own new identity.
The beach at Milton has its own strand line of plastic debris and other detritus and is not as salubrious as Sandbanks… The sluice gate is packed with rubbish and other junk, in a nasty tribute to the glamour of capitalism that is Gunwharf Keys. But one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, and his beachcomber friend, Dan, collects this junk, with the hope of finding something interesting.

Hayling Island is not quite an island, he could drive onto it, but chooses to take the ferry. Sykes has mixed memories of the place and visiting again, brings them flooding back. It was where his grandparents lived, but his uncles and aunts have less fond memories of their upbringing. They lived in poverty, surviving on benefits and budget clothing and where a treat was a trip to the funfair.

Another branch of Sykes’s family comes from Yorkshire. His grandfather joined the navy, hence why they ended up living in Portsmouth, but he feels a trip back there is due. He begins in Robin Hood bay, in a mostly left-wing county, it has been a Tory stronghold for almost a century now. It feels very different to the seaside town of the south and is discombobulating for him. Whilst in the area he feels that they should visit Whitby. He likes its unique culture and it has become a place of homage to Dracula, even though he is barely there in the book. It has expanded from that now, but don’t tell the goths, and this is the place where he eats the best fish and chips of the trip.

The first pub that they enter in Scarborough has a very disturbing political bent and so they head to the possibly wrongly named Grand Hotel. It may have been at one point, but isn’t now… They take a wander up the headland, past the bowling green. A waitress describes the place as dead, but as they have found with all the places they have visited, there is life if you know where to look.

A tour of the seaside towns of the UK wouldn’t really be a full tour if you didn’t go to Blackpool. It once was the pinnacle of the British seaside resorts, and whilst it still has it, some of the glamour has faded. They walk the sights and see the lights, have a go at bingo and partake in a mini pub crawl. It isn’t as run down as other towns they have visited, it still draws a fair number of visitors, but there is a seedy side that they come across. It seems to be holding its history well and seems to be in a good position to move forward.

I really liked this book. The mix of forensic observation of people by Sykes and the sketches by the very talented Louis Netter makes for a very unusual book indeed. But it works, or at least it did for me. I think that the reason for that is that they travelled to all of the locations in the book together and they have a certain dynamic that works really well. These dual views of what was happening around them are expertly portrayed in the art and the words. If you want to read a very different travelogue of Britain then this is a brilliant place to start.