Tide out

Tales from the past

For 5 or 6 years while my boys were growing up, we used to take a beach hut for a week in the summer holidays, in the area where Frinton-On-Sea turns into Walton-On-The-Naze. i got up early, made sandwiches, herded the boys - 2, then 3 of them - into the car and took the back way, via Stones Green and Kirby-Le-Soken. you parked wherever you could on the front and crossed the greensward and the boys would run ahead as you descended to the beach.

Your time of arrival varied according to high tide, given in weekly tables in the Harwich Gazette; you’d want it to be just starting to go out, so you could swim as the beach began to emerge from the waves. when you came out, a few more yards of sand were clear and you could begin on the real business of the day, building castles. i had a neighbour who used to take the architecture seriously, bringing a garden spade to make sure the lines were straight. but the boys and i were more slapdash: a pit, a mound and bucket-moulded turrets. and after that came moats and channels leading from the pit towards the retreating sea.

Hours would go by, punctuated by sandwiches and factor 50 and swims that went on till the boys were shivering, blue-lipped, insisting they were fine. the sun would move across the sky, the tide would turn. little by little, water would trickle into the channels and then into the pit. the moats would fill, making a little Venice. and then a thousand years would be compressed into an afternoon as walls, tunnels, turrets gave way to the oncoming water until only the mound remained. and then that was gone too and it was time to go home. we’d sleep well and in the morning we’d find sand on the pillow.

Tide out, tide in. why was it so satisfying? in parts of the globe, even of East Anglia, the encroaching sea is a problem. was that, somewhere deep down, part of the purpose? practice? i don’t think so. we were left with nothing, but that was the point. we could begin tomorrow in exactly the same way. one day older

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