Are King’s ‘choppy waters’ being felt on the beach?

Down on the south coast at Pagham’s busy holiday park it’s like the punters’ profile has taken a recessionary shift.

Coming in at their top end, plenty of people like Ken and Barbara Tester from Chichester who are coming here and not off cruising.

At Ken’s garage the staff have been on a wage freeze for two years now – the staff stay around though: not many other jobs to go to.

Not only that – Ken and Barby are hedging on moving house, waiting on the markets to make their move and living in the caravan meantime.

At least Steven – running his IT company but actually paddling up to Pagham Beach in his kayak – chimes with the government and Bank of England.

He says the last couple of years have been bloody but there are definite signs of recovery now.

Though Mike, looking at the global restaurant market from his family beach house, would disagree.

He’s here and not on a family holiday abroad because he needs to save cash. The restaurant business is not picking up and, he adds, will be the last sector to do so when, if, the recovery begins.

Some are taking rather more drastic action. Taking the children to the trampolines at the holiday camp, Dominic Crane is changing jobs altogether.

He’s been top-end for the last few years, installing mosaic glasswork for luxury super-yachts.

Recession-proof you reckon? Not so, it seems. He’s leaving and going back to his former employment, the music business.

It seems our feeble climb from recessionary depth is re-writing the employment bible before our eyes: old assumptions no longer safe and many a plan for family spending now very much on hold.