Southend on Sea

When I look out over the muddy flats from the prospect of the promenade along Southend Beach, I think back to all the happy days we spent here as children.

Dad would start singing

"I can see the sea, I can see the sea, Eh I oh my Daddy oh, I can see the sea"

and we would all join in, that is Mum, my brothers Peter and Joseph, my sisters Anne-Marie and Geraldine and I, all in a roaring chorus. Packed in the car all topsy turvy.

And when we drove home, the roaring chorus would begin again with

"I'm nobody's child, I'm nobody's child..."

or "Once there was a silly old ant, tried to move a rubber tree plant"

or some other ditty which Dad would make up.

Back then, I didn't think about the views to Canvey Island, the industry, the dirty mud floods or the tacky arcades.

It was our own little place by the seaside and we all loved it.