‘Twas Brillig*

Billy Bragg writing on the A13 and Shoeburyness (found via Luke):

Southend is the mecca of Essex, with its Golden Mile and longest pier in Britain. However, for my family, paradise was to be found beyond the arcades and winkle stalls, past the coloured lights that flashed out a welcome on even the wettest, windiest days. Go along the East Beach, past where Edwardian beach huts still stand in rows, through Thorpe Bay to the hamlet of Shoeburyness. Here, out of the mouth of the Thames Estuary, facing the North Sea itself, you will find the finest beach in the county.

It was here that I came with my parents as a boy to sit on towels on the sand and watch the Thames sailing barges lazily cross the horizon, listening out for the big Navy guns being tested on Foulness Island, eating sandwiches from Tupperware containers.

It’s funny, but I don’t remember ever going to Shoeburyness beach when I lived in Leigh-on-sea. The summer before we moved to Leigh we stayed in our caravan near there for a week and it rained which probably set my feelings. But once I had moved away and was a visitor it became the beach to take #1 to when he needed entertaining. Maybe, once my parents are back in the country, we’ll go there again…

I lived in Southend for the bulk of my childhood and this is as upsetting now as it was previously in 1976 (the year my family were preparing to move there).