A wet day by the sea

French students learn of a great British tradition - making the best of a wet day by the sea

It was intended as a taste of real England, and in that, at least, they were not disappointed. The party of 5,000 French people who descended on the Kent seaside yesterday might have hoped for a little sunshine allowing them to enjoy the area's donkey rides and deckchairs and award-winning beaches. Alas, the gods of cross-cultural understanding had other plans.

Instead, the group, staggering off 80 coaches after a queasy ferry crossing, were greeted by a gunmetal sky, horizontal winds and a blattering drizzle, allowing them to sample the traditional British seaside pursuits of huddling in bus shelters, picking sand from their sandwiches and arguing with their children over money for the arcades.

The French charity Secours Populaire Francais believes that it is the right of every child to enjoy a holiday. To which end the 5,000, made up of children from underprivileged backgrounds and their families, were rewarded with a wet and windy Wednesday in Margate.

"We can organise everything, but the weather we don't have any control over," said Roger Latchford, the deputy leader of Thanet district council, who has been planning the event for months. "I did a sun dance with our events team yesterday. Regrettably it doesn't seem to have worked."

And so the party huddled in clumps on the seafront, crouching in the shelter of the shuttered deckchair-hire cabins and wrapping up tightly in their specially issued white anoraks, left over from and still bearing the legend of Lille's Capital of Culture event in 2004. Few had ever been on a boat before, let alone to Britain; their consolation, at least, was that the weather at home yesterday was not much better.

For Sabine Ben Ammar, her nine-year-old daughter Ismahene and family friend Morgane, 14, it was their first trip abroad. What did they notice that was different to their home in Haubourdin, near Lille? "There are lots of casinos. Lots of ways to spend money." In general, Ms Ben Ammar said, England was cold but they were having a good time, and the local people were very friendly. Had they spoken to many? "We asked twice where the toilets were and they were very helpful giving directions."

"C'est bon, l'Angleterre!" giggled 12-year-old Pierre Durieu, leaning theatrically into the wind on the beach while his sister Elise and her friend Nora tried to keep their shoes dry. "Oh, it's not bad," said his mother, Anne-Marie Pajewski. "Considering the weather, it's not great, but that's nobody's fault. We're going to have a look around the town now. See whether English people really are different to the French."

The charity, founded in 1944, will offer day trips to 29,000 French children this summer, although, reads its literature, "this initiative does not pretend to take the place of the indispensable month of holidays to which all children should have a right". This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European community, so the organisation was keen to include an international element: hence Margate.

"We think it is important that every child can go back to school and say they have had a holiday," said Serge Decaillon, SPF's departmental secretary for Pas-de-Calais, the region from which most of the children had come. "We came to Margate in 1995 and were made very welcome. It was a very positive experience. Of course, that was an absolutely beautiful day."

By way of thanks to the local councils, all the same, the group had laid on a morning reception featuring French cheeses, smoked salmon and large bottles of white wine, martini and pastis, politely sidestepped by the locals.

There being no abatement in the drizzle, Mr Latchford said, plan B had been put into action: those who wanted could be bussed to nearby Broadstairs and Ramsgate, where there were plenty of indoor attractions "and it's a little more sheltered". Though Margate in the rain had its own appeal, he insisted: "The wildness of the sea. The fact that there are people kite-surfing out there. There is still plenty to enjoy here."

For Ms Ben Ammar, however, woken at 3am to meet the bus, Ramsgate was an adventure too far. "We're getting a bit bored now," she said, gesturing at the seafront clock tower whose hands had not yet crept past 1.30pm. "It's been lovely to come here, but we've got another two hours until the bus leaves. It will be nice to get home again."