The advantage of going north is that is almost guaranteed space on the beach the disadvantage is that the

The advantage of going north is that is almost guaranteed space on the beach; the disadvantage is that the weather is changeable. I grew up in Scotland with the northern version; my wife grew up in Spain and elsewhere expecting the southern. As a young family (daughter six, son two) we have always gone south – until last year when we took a beach cottage holiday in Denmark. There must be tens of thousands of them, arranged in neat little colonies along much of the country’s extensive and beautiful coast. It’s a clich?I know, but they do seem to have a particularly Scandinavian elegance. Something to do with high-quality materials – wood, mostly – clean lines, and a civic-minded discretion.

It’s hard to imagine anything similar in the UK – our anarchic individualists would produce a riot of bodging with all the grace of a caravan park. The Danes are gourmets of designer bathing, too, and most cottages have saunas and whirlpool baths, as well as satellite television, DVD players and large TVs.The big telly was a fortunate feature for our first week. We had arrived at Esbjerg off the overnight DFDS ferry from Harwich (efficient, comfortable, excellent facilities for children) and driven 40 minutes north to a third of the way up the admonishing finger of Jutland. Our newly built cottage was just a few hundred yards from the pounding rollers of the North Sea and the white sands of a beach which runs for 100 miles.

But although it was mid-August, the weather was unseasonably bad. Rain prevented us investigating the beach until the second day, and then returned to curtail our brief outing in the sunshine and drive us back indoors. Over the next five days, we managed only one more proper visit to the beach. It didn’t rain all the time, but the weather was so changeable that only children older or hardier than ours could have enjoyed it.There were, of course, other things to do apart from beach activities. For the children, a day out at the original Legoland at Billund was the undoubted highlight – and, as well as the white-knuckle rides, there’s a lot there to interest adults too. Children have a choice of fried food, pasta or meat and vegetable dishes.The peopleA lot of surfers and beach-types, but quite a few of the older crowd who adore Cornwall and have been coming for years.The areaSteep cliffs loom over the white sands of the ocean-battered beach.

The PM’s pregnant secretary is blackmailing him (“one phone-call to the Daily Mail and it’s all over”) while Wilson’s doctor offers to “dispose of her” with a discreet injection. Some of Britain’s most senior dignitaries, from the press tycoon Cecil King to that old Windsor-licker Lord Mountbatten, consider mounting a coup. Wilson confides to his friend Barbara Castle: “Every year, when I watch them out on Horse Guards Parade, practising the Trooping of the Colour, I imagine them turning and marching on Downing Street.”Although Lawson stresses that his interpretation of events is fictional, the fat bibliography is a reminder that these events happened only a generation ago. The unifying theme is the long journalistic quest for a British Watergate: Wilson, Jeremy Thorpe, the coup-that-never-was, and, as the novel screeches to a halt, the deaths of Diana and Dr David Kelly.Fiction set in the past usually says more about the period in which it was written than the period in which it is set. The vibe is cool yet child-friendly.The comfort factorThe rooms are spacious and airy. Many have views of the Atlantic and the atmosphere is big on beach chic. Relaxation is aided by a baby-listening service and supervised evening playrooms for older kids.The bathroomsOn the small side but, hey, you can bathe in the sea.The food and drinkBreakfast is ample, if a little functional, but the dinners are superb, especially the fillet steaks.