Going back to the Cornish children who have never Ben to the sea, I am at present based in Redruth and listened to this particular BBC Radio documentary. The location In question was Camborne, and it is true that you can safely cycle or walk along a footpath on an old railway line to the sea at Portreath a couple of miles away.
Indeed, here in the eastern half of Redruth we enjoy a fantastic view of the Atlantic Ocean from St Ives bay, along to Porthreath bay and right over to St Agnes. If you walk a mile and a half up to Carn Marth you can see both coasts of Cornwall and as far as Newquay and the china clay workings at St Austell (the Cornish Alps). On a pleasant day it’s heavenly.
But when you take a walk around Camborne or Redruth town centres you are immediately aware of the abject poverty (by Western standards) of families who have gone for generations without a wage earner, and the resultant all too frequent substance abuse and lack of passed-down parenting skills.
The BBC naturally focused on the lack of multicultural diversity in Cornwall, but there has never been a barrier to immigration other than an historical lack of the sort of manufacturing industry that is attractive to immigrants. That said, the hospitality industry has always attracted Western Europeans (Spanish and Italian) and since 2003 a good number of Polish, too.
So, overall I felt the London-centric BBC put their own spin on the story, and I’m sure there are plenty of children in the poorer parts of London who have never visited London landmarks such as St Paul’s or Big Ben