IMAGE CREDIT: Danielle Lee
Picture this. Idyllic Pevensey Bay beach, children running across the sandbanks, in and out of the ocean, whilst their parents sit soaking up the sun on the pebbles.
Elderly ladies sitting in the cafes, drinking their tea and eating their cake, whilst the older men are either fishing or at their choice of local pub.
There is something missing from that scene though, can you spot it?
An entire generation completely missed from what would be considered a perfect scene.
Perhaps it is done subconsciously or perhaps not. But it is difficult to ignore the definite lack of support and respect for a specific age group within Pevensey Bay.
Teenager is perhaps not the best word to use to describe this group, but we are the generation of the 90’s children who are left feeling not quite right in the world.
We aren’t considered adult enough to actually have valid and valued opinions, and for a large part, we are ignored as being of value until we fit into another box, another box that suddenly makes us worth our opinions.
I did not grow up in Pevensey Bay, and perhaps that is where this stems from.
I see my fellow residents, the people that have lived here their entire lives, blank me on the street when I smile and say hello.
I drink at the Castle Inn, and when I dare visit any other pub in the Bay that isn’t this one, I am often regarded as trouble, that I am there to cause some sort of issue for them.
Based on what? I don’t consider myself to have a particularly outlandish appearance, I don’t have the common traits of what you would consider someone to be trouble to have.
So what is it these people are basing it on? It can only be the fact that I fit into this age category, the 18-25 year olds who don’t quite belong in the Bay.
Pevensey Bay is its own micro society, but where on these various councils and boards is the representation of young people.
I will admit that I have never actively tried to integrate myself into these groups, but that is mainly due to fear.
My opinions aren’t considered valid because of my age, and that isn’t based on speculation, that is based on conversations I have had with both friends and strangers, where I have been shut down because I am not considered of worth.
Why should I actively try to change where I live, to use my time to voice opinions that fall on deaf ears?
At some point, as people age, new generations take the place of the old. I fear for the future of Pevensey Bay when the generations to come are pushed out, shut out and choose to live elsewhere, to grow up elsewhere and to live out their years elsewhere.
Tourism is not enough to support the Bay, and rather than ignoring an entire generation, they should be embraced, brought into the fold because after all, no one can live forever and that generation, my generation, is the future of Pevensey Bay.
First published in Bay Life the Journal
My Generation is a monthly column written for Bay Life the Journal by Danielle Lee, her first journalist assignment since completing a degree in media at the University of Chichester. She is the first hyperlocal journalist to work as an intern in Sussex, as part of ICNN (the Independent Community News Network). ICNN is the UK representative body for the independent community and hyperlocal news sector.
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