'History connects us' Resort celebrates its postwar landladies

A postwar northern seaside landlady could be direct, insist that full-board guests come back for tea at 5pm or get nothing, and have no plug sockets in case someone had the wild idea of using a hairdryer.

- Mark Brown

But were they really the unflinching, arms-folded battleaxes often depicted in popular culture? "They generally weren't," said David Evans, of Morecambe Heritage. "They were firm with their rules but they were fair, they were kind and the important thing for them was that someone enjoyed their holiday and would come back." Evans has led a project titled the Landladies of Morecambe, exploring the lives and stories of women who ran bed and breakfasts in the town when working-class families took their holidays there.

It aims to unpick the reputation perpetuated in films and postcards, that northern seaside landladies were "an army of Ena Sharples" (Coronation Street's sharp-tongued busybody of yore).