Blooming with tropical splendour

“OH, I do like to be beside the seaside...” So went the Cockney music-hall song of the early 20th century.

It was the fashion for the British working-class folk (“working-class” was a term much used in that era) to spend a holiday week every summer at some Brighton, Bognor or Skegness resort and to “stroll upon the prom, prom, prom” as the song puts it.

Cordyline palms — also known as New Zealand cabbage palms — in seafront parks and gardens helped create the ambience of exotic foreign beaches in the days when only the very wealthy could afford to holiday overseas.