Seaside donkeys and puppets ditched for spas

Say farewell to Punch and Judy. Forget donkey rides and saucy postcards.

The attractions of a traditional seaside holiday in are fading fast, acording to a survey published on Monday.

Holidaymakers would rather relax at a spa, try their hand at extreme sports or head for a theme park.

And the generation gap is widening all the time.

Teletext Holidays surveyed 2,500 Britons and divided their soundings into the over 60s and the under 30s.

For 60 percent of the young, visiting a traditional beach resort was considered to be distinctly unfashionable.

Punch and Judy shows, first recorded by Samuel Pepys in his diary in 1662 and a stalwart of seaside resorts since Victorian times, found favour with just two percent of the younger tourists.

Bryan Clarke, 70, who makes puppets for fellow Punch and Judy puppeteers, said: "In the Victorian heyday there were over 300 permanent Punch and Judy shows around Britain."

"Now I reckon there are no more than four," he told Monday's Daily Telegraph.

Just three percent of younger holidaymakers said they would contemplate taking a donkey ride on the sand while one in five rated them as animal cruelty.

Even cream teas looked set to become a thing of the past with one third of the under 30s rating the afternoon treat as outdated - and many considered them too fattening.