Have you ever met a British person who has never seen the sea, or who saw it at an astonishingly late age?

I'm from Southern California. I've met people who spent their entire lives within 25 miles of the Pacific Ocean who have never seen it. These are people that are very poor and live in poor neighborhoods, they don't have reliable transportation, don't have the time or energy to spend four hours one way on our notoriously crappy transit to get there, etc. etc.

Slightly more common is those who didn't see it until they went on a high school field trip or something, or with some kind of church or other non-profit organization organizing a beach trip.

Don't get me wrong, this is quite rare, and most Californians would find it shocking. Don't be surprised if another Californian tries to accuse me of bullshitting you guys. But these folks exist.

IIRC, nowhere in the UK is more than 70-something miles away from the sea. I've met people from Czechia who haven't seen it, but then I've also met people from Minnesota who haven't seen it. But you guys live on an island, and are more connected to the sea than most of us Californians are. We've only got the one coastline, you see.