‘It has echoes of happiness’: life for gen Z in the seaside town I once called home

Helen Pidd, who grew up in Morecambe but was plotting her escape from the age of 14, ‘was totally unmoved by the view across the bay of the Lake District fells’. Photograph: Polly Braden/The Guardian

If you had asked me as a teenager whether I saw my future in Morecambe, I’d have laughed you out of our faded seaside town. I’d been plotting my escape since I was 14. The sea was grey, the sand was treacherous and the wind was always messing up my hair. I was totally unmoved by the view across the bay of the Lake District fells.

It felt like half of the world was cut off. You could go left or right on the prom but never straight ahead, unless you wanted to end up stuck in mud waving frantically for the coastguard. A whole compass point was out of reach.