Illicit goings on in country parks and unsavoury items, including dead animals, floating in the Mersey all feature in an early 2000s "documentary" on Britain's toughest seaside resorts.
The trash TV show called - unsurprising enough - Toughest Seaside Resorts in Britain was broadcast on Sky One around 2005. Narrated by Ralph Little, star of early Noughties hit sitcoms The Royal Family and Two Pints of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps, the show aimed to expose the steamier side of Britain's holiday resorts through interviews with deliberately hand-picked "colourful" characters with no end of outlandish tales to tell.
There's little doubt those that featured on the show were encouraged to play up for the cameras and reveal their worst misdemeanours and not spare the details. The show also followed the trend of other 'toughest' based TV shows made at the time, including Toughest Pubs In Britain and Toughest Villages In Britain.
READ MORE: On set of 1980s Brookside - 19 throwback photos of the Scouse soap's cast and crew
In one episode, the popular seaside resort of New Brighton came in for a roasting. The show began with the narrator introducing New Brighton as the place where people on Merseyside tired of modern urban living, come to "enjoy the fresh air and marvel at the area's outstanding natural beauty."
One man in his 60s agreed with the narrator's assessment, telling the TV crew: "It’s brilliant, the beaches are clean. Toilet facilities, hmmm, they’ve been better in the past," but adding: "New Brighton is great for the outdoors."
The cameras cut to a shot of a local beauty spot while the narrator states: "The Wirral Peninsula offers a whole host of fabulous day trips. If you go for a nice long walk on the promenade, eventually, you’ll arrive at Eastern Country Park. Where there’s a chance to partake in a wide range of country pursuits."
We're then introduced to a man called Mark, who is a regular visitor to the country park. Mark said: "Of a daytime you’ve got kids playing in the play areas playing football, going out for a picnic, nice old couples walking their dogs."
He then adds: "The reason why this particular area is an excellent site for the likes of dogging is because it’s secluded, it’s out the way." Mark is then filmed walking off the beaten path inside the park to a secluded area he reveals as he pushes through the foliage.
Love nostalgia? Have the best articles emailed to you for free with our nostalgia newsletter. Click here to see all the Liverpool Echo newsletters
Mark continues: "You can clearly see that there’s a lot of space to get in there - a lot of room for manoeuvre."
The scene then cuts to Ivan from Manchester. He is fishing in a boat with several friends on the River Mersey and reveals why he regularly travels to the seaside resort.
Win a deep dive into your family history with Ancestry including a DNA test by clicking here.
Mark said: "I love the outdoors, the great outdoors, I can’t wait to get out at any time. I’ve got lurchers, I go dogging after hares, rabbits that sort of thing. Out fishing, it’s fantastic; when you’ve spent years in prison as I have it’s great, the outdoors is fantastic."
Mark then lists all the bizarre items he has come across floating in the Mersey, which he says included sheep, cows, and items such as condoms, human waste and sanitary products. He signs off his assessment of the resort saying: "The Scouse Riviera, what a place!"
The show then cuts to jet skis cutting bouncing through the waves off New Brighton beach on an attractive and sunny day in a scene more commonly spotted in a place like Ibiza than the North West of England. The narrator comments: "New Brighton, playground to Liverpool’s jet set where there’s no obstacle to having fun."
What do you think about how New Brighton was portrayed in this early Noughties TV show? Let us know in the comments section below.
One wet-suited jet ski rider seems to confirm Mark the fisherman's account of strange objects being found floating in the Mersey. He said: "If we see something we jump it. We’re jumping wood, three-piece-suites, gas bottles, cow - seen a cow, sheep."
While firmly considered trash TV, the 'toughest' documentaries came out at a time when a boom in digital TV channels began to proliferate in the UK. No doubt, much of the material in the shows which aired not quite 20-years ago would unlikely to be broadcast today in the same way.
However, many of the early Noughties shows have now been uploaded to YouTube. If you're at all curious at what other UK towns, seaside resorts and pubs came in for the same treatment.
