Memories of The Seafront
Welcome to the Memories of the Seafront page this will be the page where any memory or story relating to the Seafront will be located.
Name: James Watson
Date: 23 October 2013
My earliest memories of Southend-On-Sea are visiting there, most likely on a sunny Sunday in the Summer (that was a lot of "S"'s wasn't it? All said in
sudden succession.. oh, there I go again..). We'd all get into Dad's Austin Maxi, with Mum in the front and younger Brother and I in the back. There
was a ritual that Dad would always decide on the Saturday before that we were going tomorrow, and thus had to be up early and ready to go "before the crowds get down there". Of course, what always happened is that he'd have the car boot packed with the windbreak, beach towels, buckets and spades and stuff by 8am, and still be waiting for my Mum to get ready well after 9.
Eventually we'd set off and soon join the A127 and before long, hit the slow or stationary traffic that always used to be a feature of these days out. I
don't remember these delays being fraught or anything... they were just something that was part of the hole experience
Rather than drive right into Southend Town Centre, my Father always took a right turn and headed towards Westcliff-On-Sea, climbing up as we went
towards Chalkwell Park. He always used to say to us kids "Who can be first to see the sea?!", and my Brother and I would stand up between the front seats (no rear belts then) and strain to see anything on the horizon. He also had a habit of sniffing deeply and saying "You can smell the sea already!" at this point.
Driving along the Western Esplanade towards the Pier, we'd look out to sea and remark on the tide being out or in. If it was out, we'd be able to walk
out into that "mud", playing the daring game of seeing how far we could get without being literally sucked under. That oily, smelly mud... God only knows what sort of petro-chemical and human waste outflow sludge went into making it!
It's only now that I realise my parent's habit of parking up and "setting up" on a section of beach a long way from the Pier may well have been
to discourage us from begging to play "on the machines". My Mother especially had a real hatred of the things, for reasons I know not. Some trips could be ruined for me by her shouting and ranting that we were "wasting your money!" or that we "might as well just give it to the man!" rather than actually play the things. Or it may just have been so we were near that little parade of restaurants where Shorefield Road meets the Esplanade, and where we used to enjoy those little polystyrene trays of takeaway chips, collected by my Dad and delivered to us on the beach. No matter how much we were told to be careful eating them, they'd invariably get dropped and I think part of the charm was getting varying quantities of sand in your mouth with each one.
If we were lucky, we'd mange to convince our parents to pack up all the beach stuff around 2pm and we'd all walk along the front towards the pier. Being young children, we had no interest in looking at things along the front, or admiring the sails on the Yacht Club's boats, we just wanted to get to Peter Pan's Playground as it was known then. It seemed like miles to walk to the Pier from where we'd started, and we used to get so fed up waiting for our lagging parents but after what felt like an eternity, we'd finally draw close and hear the engines of the go-karts.
Most times, we would end up going down into Peter Pan's and I remember going on such classic rides as "The Whip" (still there now, in 2013), the "Crooked House", the "Runaway Mine Train" (well, that's what we called the train with the round circular "drums" you sat in), and some animal "Noah's Ark" train ride. Even as we grew up, we were never allowed to go on the go-karts, with my Mother sighting a time in the past when she'd seen a boy get "run over" on the track by another go-kart. I even recall going on what I remember as the "Wendy Glide" roller-coaster once with my Father, feeling dreadfully sick, and not seeing anything except the bare metal of the inside of the car we were riding in. I found an old video of it online here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3DxZmxy1mo which really brought it all back to me again.
We loved the "Golden Hind", and would spend ages looking at the swinging blade display outside, feeling sure that the next pass would see the poor
unfortunate man's head sliced wide open before us! I don't think either of us realised that the blade's arc never changed until years later. I could never
decide if that or the gruesome (well, it was 1978 or so) "Torture Chamber" waxworks were my favourite. I don't remember them ever changing in all the years I used to go into them, and can even now picture the dank images of "Pressing", "Thumbscrews", and the like. It had that exquisite charm of the "naff waxworks"; just bad enough to make it good, and slightly creepy. Such a shame that they appear to have just disappeared when the site was
demolished / renovated.
We'd occasionally go on the Pier proper, but I don't remember doing that much.. we usually went straight on to the amusement arcades, with my Mother often not even coming in and leaving my Dad to chaperone us.
Key machines that stick out in my mind are the original "Egg-laying Chicken" machines, with their "Prize every time!" signs. They would often be placed outside the arcades, with their volume levels cranked right up, and their distinctive 1970's electronic "Cluck, cluck, cluck CL-UCK!" is a sound that instantly evokes many happy memories of time spent along that front. Freud once said that "the definition of insanity was repeating the same action and expecting different results each time", and with that in mind, I'm surprised I was never committed for the number of times I would eagerly drop in my 10p (or was it 50p by then?) only to be rewarded with a "Ladies Rain Bonnet" or an equally useless pair of tweezers or similar. Of course my Brother would always "win" something brilliant, like a die-cast car, or a finger monster key-ring. making my own frustration even worse! I also loved
the electronic "horse race games", where you'd put in 2p a time to bet on one of the 8 or 9 mechanical horses, before watching them slowly and jerkily run the course, like Scalextric cars on tranquilizers, and being thrilled to win some paltry amount like 6p when "Number 1, Red Rum!" would win and be announced. I used to wonder how many programmed "results" there were, and had dreams of noting the sequence and coming back to win every time and be rich. When you're under 10, you don't realise that just £20 in copper coins weighs over 6 Kilograms!
Back then, a simple pound's-worth of 10p pieces could last a young child for hours, especially if you changed half or all of it for 1p or 2p coins for
the waterfalls. I don't remember any of them having the plastic novelties strewn on top of the coins like you see now... we just had coins in my day. You could make 50p go on all day if you were skilful.
Having walked the length of the front to the last main arcade, we'd wander back again towards the car, sometimes stopping for a bag of fresh
doughnuts at the last beach-cafe. They say smell is a strong memory jogger, and I can't help recalling Southend whenever I smell that cooking dough scent you associate with fresh doughnuts. There's simply nothing to compare to them.
The walk back to the car would take twice as long as the walk to the pier and we would eventually get to the car with very tired legs
indeed, usually having eaten all but one of the doughnuts to "keep us going". Once we'd drunk a few gallons of Squash from Mum's flask, we'd polish
off the last of the doughnuts and then fall asleep in the car, with me lying full length on the floor in the back, and my Brother lying stretched out on the Maxi's bench seat. I fondly recall my Father's muttered oaths the following Sunday as he'd be vacuuming out his pride and joy and complaining
bitterly about the loose sugar and sand that littered the back of the car and boot, ruefully saying we'd "never do it again"... until the next warm weekend
came around.
I've just scratched the surface with these thoughts, and no doubt more will surface the minute I send this off. ;-)
Date: 23 October 2013
My earliest memories of Southend-On-Sea are visiting there, most likely on a sunny Sunday in the Summer (that was a lot of "S"'s wasn't it? All said in
sudden succession.. oh, there I go again..). We'd all get into Dad's Austin Maxi, with Mum in the front and younger Brother and I in the back. There
was a ritual that Dad would always decide on the Saturday before that we were going tomorrow, and thus had to be up early and ready to go "before the crowds get down there". Of course, what always happened is that he'd have the car boot packed with the windbreak, beach towels, buckets and spades and stuff by 8am, and still be waiting for my Mum to get ready well after 9.
Eventually we'd set off and soon join the A127 and before long, hit the slow or stationary traffic that always used to be a feature of these days out. I
don't remember these delays being fraught or anything... they were just something that was part of the hole experience
Rather than drive right into Southend Town Centre, my Father always took a right turn and headed towards Westcliff-On-Sea, climbing up as we went
towards Chalkwell Park. He always used to say to us kids "Who can be first to see the sea?!", and my Brother and I would stand up between the front seats (no rear belts then) and strain to see anything on the horizon. He also had a habit of sniffing deeply and saying "You can smell the sea already!" at this point.
Driving along the Western Esplanade towards the Pier, we'd look out to sea and remark on the tide being out or in. If it was out, we'd be able to walk
out into that "mud", playing the daring game of seeing how far we could get without being literally sucked under. That oily, smelly mud... God only knows what sort of petro-chemical and human waste outflow sludge went into making it!
It's only now that I realise my parent's habit of parking up and "setting up" on a section of beach a long way from the Pier may well have been
to discourage us from begging to play "on the machines". My Mother especially had a real hatred of the things, for reasons I know not. Some trips could be ruined for me by her shouting and ranting that we were "wasting your money!" or that we "might as well just give it to the man!" rather than actually play the things. Or it may just have been so we were near that little parade of restaurants where Shorefield Road meets the Esplanade, and where we used to enjoy those little polystyrene trays of takeaway chips, collected by my Dad and delivered to us on the beach. No matter how much we were told to be careful eating them, they'd invariably get dropped and I think part of the charm was getting varying quantities of sand in your mouth with each one.
If we were lucky, we'd mange to convince our parents to pack up all the beach stuff around 2pm and we'd all walk along the front towards the pier. Being young children, we had no interest in looking at things along the front, or admiring the sails on the Yacht Club's boats, we just wanted to get to Peter Pan's Playground as it was known then. It seemed like miles to walk to the Pier from where we'd started, and we used to get so fed up waiting for our lagging parents but after what felt like an eternity, we'd finally draw close and hear the engines of the go-karts.
Most times, we would end up going down into Peter Pan's and I remember going on such classic rides as "The Whip" (still there now, in 2013), the "Crooked House", the "Runaway Mine Train" (well, that's what we called the train with the round circular "drums" you sat in), and some animal "Noah's Ark" train ride. Even as we grew up, we were never allowed to go on the go-karts, with my Mother sighting a time in the past when she'd seen a boy get "run over" on the track by another go-kart. I even recall going on what I remember as the "Wendy Glide" roller-coaster once with my Father, feeling dreadfully sick, and not seeing anything except the bare metal of the inside of the car we were riding in. I found an old video of it online here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3DxZmxy1mo which really brought it all back to me again.
We loved the "Golden Hind", and would spend ages looking at the swinging blade display outside, feeling sure that the next pass would see the poor
unfortunate man's head sliced wide open before us! I don't think either of us realised that the blade's arc never changed until years later. I could never
decide if that or the gruesome (well, it was 1978 or so) "Torture Chamber" waxworks were my favourite. I don't remember them ever changing in all the years I used to go into them, and can even now picture the dank images of "Pressing", "Thumbscrews", and the like. It had that exquisite charm of the "naff waxworks"; just bad enough to make it good, and slightly creepy. Such a shame that they appear to have just disappeared when the site was
demolished / renovated.
We'd occasionally go on the Pier proper, but I don't remember doing that much.. we usually went straight on to the amusement arcades, with my Mother often not even coming in and leaving my Dad to chaperone us.
Key machines that stick out in my mind are the original "Egg-laying Chicken" machines, with their "Prize every time!" signs. They would often be placed outside the arcades, with their volume levels cranked right up, and their distinctive 1970's electronic "Cluck, cluck, cluck CL-UCK!" is a sound that instantly evokes many happy memories of time spent along that front. Freud once said that "the definition of insanity was repeating the same action and expecting different results each time", and with that in mind, I'm surprised I was never committed for the number of times I would eagerly drop in my 10p (or was it 50p by then?) only to be rewarded with a "Ladies Rain Bonnet" or an equally useless pair of tweezers or similar. Of course my Brother would always "win" something brilliant, like a die-cast car, or a finger monster key-ring. making my own frustration even worse! I also loved
the electronic "horse race games", where you'd put in 2p a time to bet on one of the 8 or 9 mechanical horses, before watching them slowly and jerkily run the course, like Scalextric cars on tranquilizers, and being thrilled to win some paltry amount like 6p when "Number 1, Red Rum!" would win and be announced. I used to wonder how many programmed "results" there were, and had dreams of noting the sequence and coming back to win every time and be rich. When you're under 10, you don't realise that just £20 in copper coins weighs over 6 Kilograms!
Back then, a simple pound's-worth of 10p pieces could last a young child for hours, especially if you changed half or all of it for 1p or 2p coins for
the waterfalls. I don't remember any of them having the plastic novelties strewn on top of the coins like you see now... we just had coins in my day. You could make 50p go on all day if you were skilful.
Having walked the length of the front to the last main arcade, we'd wander back again towards the car, sometimes stopping for a bag of fresh
doughnuts at the last beach-cafe. They say smell is a strong memory jogger, and I can't help recalling Southend whenever I smell that cooking dough scent you associate with fresh doughnuts. There's simply nothing to compare to them.
The walk back to the car would take twice as long as the walk to the pier and we would eventually get to the car with very tired legs
indeed, usually having eaten all but one of the doughnuts to "keep us going". Once we'd drunk a few gallons of Squash from Mum's flask, we'd polish
off the last of the doughnuts and then fall asleep in the car, with me lying full length on the floor in the back, and my Brother lying stretched out on the Maxi's bench seat. I fondly recall my Father's muttered oaths the following Sunday as he'd be vacuuming out his pride and joy and complaining
bitterly about the loose sugar and sand that littered the back of the car and boot, ruefully saying we'd "never do it again"... until the next warm weekend
came around.
I've just scratched the surface with these thoughts, and no doubt more will surface the minute I send this off. ;-)