Memory Lane Ah, memories

[Bielzibubz]

What's your one abiding memory of Southend as a child? What's that one thing that sticks in your mind no matter how old you get?

Mine is as a six or seven year old walking down the high street with my dad and sister, tugging on his arms as we made it under the bridge and then seeing the huge Lions Tea Rooms clock overhanging the high street. What a treat that was. Every Saturday afternoon, a big dollop of ice cream in a huge bowl with a wafer and a 99.

If i close my eyes I can still see that huge clock and the waitresses in the black and white uniforms

 

[Bluesmanager]

Being lost in Exeter with my dad and brother. We took the approach of following anyone in a Exeter shirt to the ground.

 

[overseas shrimper]

Quote[/b] (Bluesmanager @ Oct. 17 2006,21:02)]Being lost in Exeter with my dad and brother. We took the approach of following anyone in a Exeter shirt to the ground.  

How does this relate to what you remember of the town of Southend in your childhood?

 

[overseas shrimper]

Mine's not a great memory. It's being stuck with my nan at bingo on Saturday afternoons and choking on the smoke from her cigs and another couple of hundred grannies puffing away.

 

[Bluesmanager]

Quote[/b] (overseas shrimper @ Oct. 17 2006,20:19)]

Quote[/b] (Bluesmanager @ Oct. 17 2006,21:02)]Being lost in Exeter with my dad and brother. We took the approach of following anyone in a Exeter shirt to the ground.  

How does this relate to what you remember of the town of Southend in your childhood?

Ah... Right... Sorry, thought it was abiding memories of the club. But then I suppose that'd be in Chit Chat wouldn't it?

Bowling at the Kursaal, going to Peter Pan's, getting my bucket and spade lost on the beach when the tide came in (I was really ripped apart by that). Lots of things.

 

[Groyne Strain]

Mine are: -

The green and white / cream pier trains.

The occasional boat trip on an old paddle steamer.

Walking along the seafront on a Sunday morning with my grandparents and great aunt (when they came down for a holiday - they stayed at the Rosylin) being bought rock, a Tommy Cooper fez, etc.

Bunking off school some Thursdays to work on Roots Hall market, when it was a proper market, and getting a small thrill to see the team walk by after training sometimes.

The number 1 bus to Thundersley, when Southend buses were proper blue & white, not this pale imitation Arriva crap we have today.

Bunking off school (again) to do Christmas shopping in Keddies.

I'm so pleased to see the Rossi ice cream kiosk still in town. Marvellous.

 

[The Artful Shrimper]

I remember the old bus station and walking what seemed like miles to get to the sea front.

 

[Xàbia Shrimper]

The "Triangle Beach" ('Jocelyn's Beach') by Chalkwell Station; many a summer spent wasting precious time farting about down there. I remember one summer we had watched 'The Great Escape' and decided to dig a tunnel underneath single groyne that ran down one side. We didn't succeed.

The end of the pier before 1976. I don't know why I have very, very vivid memories of the amusement arcades and shops at the end because I don't remember going down there a lot. Maybe I did under duress from the parents and my mind has simply blocked it out, except the flurry of the vivid images. Let's face it, it was nothing special. Just a miniature seafront at the end of a long jetty that had to contend with various attempts to shorten it.

Prittlewell Brook - the "adventure" trail, unsuccessfully trying to follow the brook from Belfairs Woods to Sutton Bridge resplendent in a nice pair of wellies each. Some of the tunnels were an "interesting" experience ...

I've mentioned the crustaceans in the precinct ...

 

[MK Shrimper]

I wasn't born in Southend, but I have great memories of going to Chalkwell with my mum & dad eat overdosing on soft & chewy rock. Sugar rush!

Slam door trains from Upminster, taking shells home......ahhhh the 1970's

 

[Uncle Leo]

Having a lemon ice cream from Rossi's in the town cnetre and it all falling off the cone and on to the floor before I had a lick.

 

[Leeboy]

opposite BHS there used to be a big toy shop whose name escapes me ( I'm going back to the late 70's here ) and one Xmas they had a huge Action Man display in the window, set up like an army camp with fake snow and everything.



Any older chaps remember the name of the shop ? Mike? Firestorm? Andee?

 

[MK Shrimper]

Is that pirate thingy still on display on the promenade? Swinging axe, pirate ducking out of the way? Ah, orange slush puppies.......wasting my 10p's in the arcade machines........

 

[David Essex]

anyone ever spend anytime over Belchamps.....is it still there spent many a weekend camping their in my scout days......always remember the wide games through the woods and the outdoor chapel....

 

[David Essex]

ah the golden hind entrance.......nope its gone

replaced by a mini golf adventure course......"change is not good"

 

[David Essex]

the dodgy souvenir shops always had one of those ducking birds in the window .....you know where slowly the bird would drop its beak into the water....

 

[C C Csiders]

My mum bribing me into going shopping in the High Street with her by taking me into BHS for fish and chips, with the added attraction of a lemon wedge on the fish, followed by Lemon Meringue Pie.

Such simple luxuries.

 

[canveyshrimper]

The old Talza arcade, before they replaced it with that concrete monstrosity that is there now. Saturday morning cinema at The Gaumont where the Braclays Bank is now, and Dixons a clothes shop which was on the site of WH Smith, if you had a date with a bird you would always arrange to meet her outside Dixons, and laugh at all the blokes who had been stood up until it happened to you.

Peter Brown's mens shop whose manager was a very ancient man of the Jewish persuasion, who would always try and sell you a suit even if you had only bought a handkerchief. The Old Sausage Shop, and penny night at the Penny Farthing. Being ejected from The Alpha 2 for exhorting that tw&t Rocking Goose to play some f***ing Alice Cooper.

Great memories.

 

[Matt the Shrimp]

Doing my paper round, and the smell of old people in the Old People's Home (Scott House?) at the end of Western Approaches as I dropped their Daily Express through the letterbox.

Bailey's Fish Fry Inn.  Still love it.

The Popular Restaurant on Leigh Broadway - Moussaka and Baklava!

 

[Firestorm]

Quote[/b] (Leeboy @ Oct. 18 2006,10:35)]opposite BHS there used to be a big toy shop whose name escapes me ( I'm going back to the late 70's here ) and one Xmas they had a huge Action Man display in the window, set up like an army camp with fake snow and everything.



Any older chaps remember the name of the shop ? Mike? Firestorm? Andee?

Sorry mate, only moved here in 82 and it was Woolworths opposite BHS by then.
didn't tend to come down here much when I was a kid. earliest memories was the Kursaal in 1974 (Slade).

 

[McNasty]

Quote[/b] (canveyshrimper @ Oct. 18 2006,13:20)]The old Talza arcade, before they replaced it with that concrete monstrosity that is there now. Saturday morning cinema at The Gaumont where the Braclays Bank is now, and Dixons a clothes shop which was on the site of WH Smith, if you had a date with a bird you would always arrange to meet her outside Dixons, and laugh at all the blokes who had been stood up until it happened to you.

Peter Brown's mens shop whose manager was a very ancient man of the Jewish persuasion, who would always try and sell you a suit even if you had only bought a handkerchief. The Old Sausage Shop, and penny night at the Penny Farthing. Being ejected from The Alpha 2 for exhorting that tw&t Rocking Goose to play some f***ing Alice Cooper.

Great memories.

Barclays Bank on the corner replaced the old Victoria Hotel (pub).