Roll On Easter It's Time For Jaywick Again

A Memory of Jaywick.

My uncle Steve owned a bungalow in Jaywick Sands, "Abijan", at 18 Lavender Walk where I spent my childhood bank holidays and annual six week school holiday between 1945 and 1953 and occasionally short breaks in later years, we got to know most of the holidaymakers in Lavender walk as most like us would visit at every opportunity throughout the year.
My uncle owned an Morris 8 and my father a Standard 10, and I and my parents, older brother and sister with their friends set out packed into these two four seater cars from our home in Bedfordshire, the fun began when travelling different routes we "raced" to see who could get to the Colchester by-pass first. Both cars had a similar top speed of about 55mph and we would bounce up and down in the rear seats jockeying to gain that extra edge on speed.
Then the excitement when first opening the "Otterman" chest containing buckets and spades, tangled fishing lines with lead weights, soft vinyl beach balls, cricket bat with bails and kites from earlier holidays.
The rush to get to "Dot's" to look for something to spend our holiday money on and onto the amusement arcade to play the penny and halfpenny slot machines, my older sister targeting the juke-box, my brother at the pin-ball machines hoping to win the prize of two "Plane" or "Turf" cigarettes.
Lunch was cheese filled warm freshly baked round bread rolls bought from "Rolls" bakery and for "afters" perhaps a six penny "Walls" choc-ice's from the kiosk next to the Cafe Morroco", dinner invariably fish and chips ferried in by my father from nearby Clacton, in later years a fish shop appeared in the more residential area situated slightly inland from the holiday bungalow estate and in the main seafront street itself.
Most evening were spent walking along the narrow sandy sea walk to "Butlins" in nearby Clacton for fairground rides or roller skating at the outdoor paved rink and then onwards to the pier.
It was "always" sunny and and the roadways hot to the soles of unshod feet, days were spent playing cricket on the beach or diving from the breakwaters and swimming onto the next one and back again in the warm murky water, or on stormy days ducking the crests of huge waves. The first few days were spent doused with calamine lotion waiting for our reddened and sunburned skin to peel away.
A visit to the putting green was a regular event, issued with scarred golf balls, bent clubs, stubby broken pencils and "Jaywick Sands Golf Course" scorecards, it was to us the USA Augusta " Masters" event of the year.
Brooklands was "out of bounds" for me but I once visited the amusement park and played a game of "Bingo" when I won a soft aluminium egg poacher for mum on my first try.
On Sundays we would all pile into the cars and head off to Walton-on-the-Naze to fly a kite from the clifftop or Harwich to visit the dockyard and then perhaps head home with a dressed crab to enjoy for tea.
We would watch the fishing boats on the horizon leaving nearby Brightlingsea with their brown sails held taught in the winds and the speed boats racing between breakwaters
Shrimping nets were kept in the bungalow and we would sweep the shallow water at low tide and scoop out he translucent creatures which mum would drop into boiling water, or sometimes winkles gathered at Brightingsea to be eaten with bread and butter for our tea.
There was no television but the wireless set provided the evening entertainment particularly on Sundays when we listened to the "Palm Court" or my uncles favorite a music program featuring Edmundo Ross and his dance band, or occasionally favorite comedian of the day,Ted Ray.
The "London" boys would arrive in Lavender Walk on their gleaming Triumph motorcycles and resident "Mick" at the top of the road would polish and then re-polish his Morris Minor,
Sometimes we would climb the broken outer staircase into the Martello tower at Brooklands and peer through the door down into the depths where my brother would talk of having seen human hair with dried blood still trapped in the iron rings set into the wall to secure the chained up prisoners.
These wonderful days undoubtedly marked the direction of my life, I visited Jaywick quite regularly over the years for day trips and now some 70 years on I am looking forward to a "Burger" and a choc-ice from the beach bar this year and another swim in the sea, although I do miss the breakwaters.
Happy days!
John Russell
May 31st 2016

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