Looking Westwards, Towards Thorpe Hall Boulevard Junction With The Esplanade.

A Memory of Thorpe Bay.

In 2014, across the road there are tennis courts, and from Google Earth it looks like a thriving Sports Centre.
If there were tennis courts on that site in 1963, hardly anyone was using them then, - my memory remains of an "under-used area" originally intended for the luxury houses along Thorpe bay Gardens, behind to the North. Tennis tournaments hadn't gotten to be really big business in the early 1960's, not like now in 2014, - and so the Sport just wasn't that popular.
Besides, I don't recall a Club House like there is now - and Southchurch Park [not too far away] had grass courts and hard Courts, AND a nice Club House, with adjacent Tea Rooms. There was no tea room or Café anywhere around this location in 1963. If one wanted Beach refreshments for a picnic on the sands back then, you had to bring them with you. The beach huts were very hard to obtain, and were handed down within families; -hardly ever becoming available for rent.