Holland-On-Sea.............1969 to The Present (2011)

The Roaring Donkey c1945
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I first remember Holland-on-Sea when I worked my first 'season' as solo organist at Valley Farm Camping Ground (as it was then called) way back in 1969. I used to regularly have lunch with a work colleague at the little 'Peter Pan restaurant' at the top end of Sladbury's lane where it joins onto Holland Road. The two ladies that ran it were extremley pleasant and years later, I was having a conversation with a dear lady friend of mine and she told me that she was one of those ladies - Miss Beatrice Navesy. What a lovely, gentle human being she was - in subsequent conversations she told me all about her years as a dancer - it was magical just to listen to her. I have forgotten the name of her partner, but she was also a spinster. I remember that the shop which I now live over was a shoe retailer and evidence of the peg board used in the shop was still about when, much later, I had the premises as an organ shop. My then girflriend (in 1969 - later to become my wife) spent the next season with me and stayed in Bedford Road with a Mr and Mrs Coulson whose caravan (Tilly) I was provided with by the employers. I have always had this love affair with Holland-on-Sea and though it has, like all things, changed over the years - there is still this special 'village community' mentality which prevails and makes it a charming place to live. In one direction I have the sea and in the other the 'haven' that is Picker`s ditch a superb place of peace and tranquility. I have travelled to many places in my life, but none better than here.