DRIVING IN DORSET - SWANAGE & PURBECK

British coastal holiday towns are busy trying to reinvent themselves - but Swanage in Dorset's Purbeck region doesn't have to. Its Fifties finery remains as appealing today as in the time it inspired Enid Blyton, the Secret Seven and the Famous Five. Jonathan Crouch and family take a trip back in time to a forgotten corner of Britain's holiday heritage.

The English seaside holiday. Memories of candy floss, windy beaches, slot machines and sticky rock. Something you might think you'd got beyond. Something for all our yesterdays.

Or so I thought. Most of my travel writing these days is based around encouraging people to explore a little further afield than their own back yard. To fly somewhere new, hire a car and explore a new experience. Which is why I was intrigued by a recent invitation to rediscover the English coastal holiday somewhere easily accessible - and for me, rather close to home. Swanage, jewel of the Isle of Purbeck.



It's an area of Dorset you'd be forgiven for not knowing very well. I live in nearby Sussex and had never properly visited. A little surprising given that's it's in easy reach of the Southern Counties and is served by low cost air travel into Bournemouth for those further afield. Here lie holiday attractions straight from the pages of a children's Enid Blyton novel - Lulworth Cove, Corfe Castle, Durdle Door. Not surprising perhaps because they almost literally are.



Blyton spent most of her life in Purbeck, using its seaside bays, it's quaint little villages and its rolling green hills as inspiration for Famous Five and Secret Seven stories that sold in their millions the world over. People who found the books taking them back to a time of...