Jaywick!

A Memory of Clacton-On-Sea.

Our Aunt had a really Art Deco property in Jaywick- curvey windows, flat roof the size of a football pitch(it seemed); huge room with amazing folding dividing doors. And the whole place smelt of Jaywick sand. Not polluted sand, but salt, iodine, seaweed. Yum! In the 1950s floods it stood proud on stilts above the sea! And opposite was the enticing Morrocco Café! Verboten. Just up the road was the "Dairy". A bakehouse. Fresh baked rolls and bread-creamy milk (Rayleighs Dairies). I used to swing on my swing a hundred yards away and the gorgeous smell of yeasty bread at 7.00am made you salivate! Two amusement arcades each equally good at extracting money. And both with cranes which never picked up your gifts! But exciting places- naughty places with fruit machines, driving machines. Pinballs. Every child should experience being ripped off from their pocket money (not their doting parents bottomless uxorious pockets).
Freezing cold sea. The strong smell of salt. Jellyfish like flying saucers. Candy floss from somewhere. The Jaywick trikes that parents made you shun. The Amusement Arcades-fleshpits- moneypits.
The chippies and (joy) hot dogs and burgers a million years ahead of the time they reached the rest of civilisation. The smells- sand, iodine, chips, candy floss...
The weird bridge between countryside and beach...blackberries and seaweed - like being in two places at once.
The strange people- the geezers... and then the obviously highly educated bloke with a black labrador- probably a teacher or lecturer or atomic scientist - yet who spent his evenings as Bingo Caller!
And then of course the ultimate Gomorrah- Clacton just a mile away. Billy Butlins. Loud music; scary rides. Shooting galleries maximised to minimise your chances of success but you just laughed.Heck-it was just fun. No need to contact OFT! Who wants a plaster of paris duck anyway
Jaywick- seedy (even then) but somehow iconic? Jaywick helped folks find their roots- to not be afraid to run in the filthy sea, to enjoy the " fleshpots" an greasy food.
Not sure I'd spend a week there now... but hey, maybe one of those 50 things to do before you die! I'm up for it. Bury me on the beach below the Morocco Café- that'll do.