We went to Sutton on Sea on Wednesday. It doesn’t have a pier, and never has had one, but it’s an excellent place to relax and eat ice cream and fish and chips. Well, that’s what I did, and it worked for me.
We walked along the seafront, had an ice cream, rejected the selection of sunhats on display and looked at the beach chalets.
The sun hats were either pink, pink with decorations or definitely made for women. As if pink ones aren’t for women. I’m trying to be a New Man but there are lines I will not cross. Pink baseball caps with a Playboy logo is well over that line.
The chalets are looking tired, and not a patch on the ones at Southwold. On the other hand, you can buy one for £12,995, though as there’s talk of ground rest it may not be freehold. The estate agents don’t seem to be doing much of a job of selling it. The green grass on the photos compared to the arid wasteland on my photos shows the passage of time. If you can’t sell a beach chalet in summer it must pose a question about your sales skills.
At least one patch of beach looked busy, but that was partly due to everyone being herded in between two flags. To be honest, I think we’re going over the top these days. In the old days we were just told not to swim when the red flags up and drowning was considered a matter of personal choice. Now we have lifeguards and all manner of bureaucracy. No wonder this country is going to the dogs with all this namby-pamby safety stuff.
The town is quite old-fashioned, free parking is available and there are plenty of non-chain shops, including sweets, baked goods and hardware.
This is a picture of the Lifeguard again, this time frightening pedestrians on a cycle.
Life Guard at Sutton on Sea, Lincolnshire
Please excuse the 1970’s style postcard colour in the photos, I set it on “Pop Art” to brighten things up a bit and forgot to take it off. It was quite a bright day but my standard setting was making it look grey.
This is where the scooter gang meets
There are a lot of retired people in Sutton, and consequently, a lot of scooters cluttering the place up. If speed kills, some of the residents of Sutton are going to live a long, long time.
And finally, a look at the war memorial. It’s 100 years since the foundation of the RAF and Lincolnshire, having been heavily involved in military aviation from before the founding of the RAF, is making a big effort to commemorate it. For some reason the contributions of the Royal Flying Corps, and Royal Naval Air Service mean nothing, but the founding of an amalgamated air service on 1st April 1918 (who thought of that date?) and a uniform reputedly designed by a chorus girl using leftover material from a cancelled Russian order.
Next – a fish and chip review.
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I stayed in Sutton-on-Sea many times in a caravan with my grandparents. Many happy memories. I remember the summer when I was deemed old enough to walk to the shop in the mornings for bread rolls and a paper. One morning I bought the Daily Mail by mistake instead of the Daily Mirror and remember being shocked and horrified by my Granddad’s furious reaction: “I won’t read that Tory rag!”. Which, at the time, made no sense to me at all.
Ah. memories!
Bread rolls, coming of age and the strangeness of grown-ups…
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It must have been a lot warmer for you than the day my parents took us there when my daughter was small – we had to shelter by a wall on the beach.
Excellent post, Quercus. Some nice galleries. I particularly like the car park with beach huts backdrop
Thank you Derrick. That particular shot was a bit of an afterthought but it worked out well in the end. 🙂
Ice cream, the ocean, fish and chips. All sound good to me!
It was good. 🙂
A pierless post too.
Thank you 😉
I though Julia deserved a break.
Have you thought of adding coloured wheels to your bicycle? They seem to make it go quite fast.
Much like the go faster stripe on small cars in the late sixties.
I had a go-faster stripe on my Escort in 1976. I bought it from Halfords, spent Sunday morning applying it, and found it didn’t live up to the name.