Beach Hut People: Stories from the Beach Hut

Beach Hut People Stories from the Beach Hut

'A charming snapshot of a slice of the British seaside, the humble beach hut, their occupants, and a tiny corner of Essex serving here as a brilliant microcosm for a larger story about our island nation's idiosyncrasies’. -Travis Elborough

Writer Nancy Stevenson will be sharing stories from her book Beach Hut People which takes us beyond the colourful hut exteriors and uncovers the way of the beach hut community. Exploring traditions, changes, challenges and personal expression and style, Nancy shares her reflections on beach hut culture on the North Essex Coast. Based on conversations with 60 people who own or regularly visit beach huts, it is a collection of shared stories: experiences, routines, of things that people collect and display in their huts, and the way they choose to style them.

Nancy began her journey unconvinced; she loved the beach but was always on the move. A walker and a swimmer, she just couldn’t see the attraction of settling down in a hut but started to understand as she collected stories between 2019 and 2022. People shared memories about the best days, the olden days, childhood, family and the feelings evoked by a day at the hut. She was welcomed into a friendly community which started to give her a sense of what it is to be a ‘beach-hutter’.

Nancy will be in conversation with publisher Eleanor Brown from Publishing Household, an imprint of The Nose bookshop in Walton on the Naze. They will also discuss the writing and publishing journey of producing this independent non-fiction publication.

Nancy Stevenson is a writer and researcher.  Her research centres on people’s engagement in leisure activities and is embedded in local landscapes. She has written about festivals, walking, writing and wellbeing and the importance of pleasure and play in community life. She spends her time between North London and the Essex Coast, and hosts writing retreats in Frinton on Sea.  Beach Hut People is her first book. 

Instagram: write_nancy_write