OH we do like to be beside the sea... and to prove it, the Russell-Cotes Museum and Art Gallery in Bournemouth is offering people the chance to contribute to a new exhibition.

Sticks of rock, old buckets and spades (made from metal, not plastic), Kiss-Me-Quick hats and old-fashioned bathing costumes all feature in Wish You Were Here...

The display, which runs throughout the summer, until September 30, features a "Memory Wall", where visitors can leave messages on postcards detailing their seaside memories.

Ann Gerrard, who lives in Southbourne, is among local residents to have loaned treasured items to the museum, including some items salvaged from the garden of the now defunct Shell House, a landmark and attraction for many years.

Another donor, Vivienne Goldbart, brought along a Lowry-like painting of Blackpool by an artist called Helen Bradley.

One of the museum's own paintings, Ramsgate Sands, by eminent Victorian painter William Powell Frith, and dating from 1854, is one of the main points of interest - along with artwork by the renowned Bournemouth artist Eustace Nash.

But it's not just the famous that feature - in fact, as one of the organisers, learning development manager Sue Willis, explained: "What we have here, where the community creates the exhibits, is not something that happens very often in museums.

"We think it will help the community to feel more like a part of the museum.

"It's for everyone, whether they're five or 85 - and it ties in nicely with another of our exhibitions, Celebrate the Sea, which also runs this summer."

Rachel McArdle, learning development officer, said Bournemouth grew out of a Victorian desire to benefit from the healing properties of the sea - and that was the reason the Russell-Cotes family first moved to the area.

  • Russell-Cotes Museum, East Cliff, Bournemouth - open between 10am and 5pm, Tuesday to Sunday, admission free.

For more information, call 01202 451858 or you can visit the website at russell-cotes.

bournemouth.gov.uk