She Won't Forget

The last time I went to Clacton was the hot summer of 1959. A woman who helped my parents on our nursery took me there with her family. I had a hole in the sole of my sandal so had a piece of Persil box as an insole. I didn't have a swimming costume. She bought her daughter and me each a weird cotton creation ruched into squares with elastic thread. It was nearly standing room only on the beach.

Huge crowds there again today and I'd repaired the sole of my welly with duct tape. I was surprised by how many people had turned out for the Remembrance Service held near the head of the pier. I'd come to see Danny Boyle's Pages of the Sea on the West Beach. I thought it would be rude for Ollie and me to push through the crowds so we found a vantage point to take part in and from which to photograph the service. I was asked to move from the low wall I had climbed as Weatherspoons don't allow dogs on their premises.

The shapes of the service personnel that had been scratched into the sand did not show up very well but created a lot of interest. Some people had written the names of lost family members on shells and placed them with the images. It was rather moving to see the tide come in and gradually erase them. To me the foam in my extra images looks like fluffy woollen blankets, such as those the people who were lost would have been tucked up in bed with by their mothers.