Tendring Topics…….on Line

Cheap and Cheerful?

After my early retirement from Tendring Council’s service in 1980, I pursued a new career as a freelance writer. In the 1980s and ‘90s I wrote five commercially successful books about domestic hot and cold water supply and drainage, as well as the plumbing sections of such d-i-y manuals as The Reader’s Digest Complete DIY Manual. I also wrote a great many articles on the same subjects for Do-it-yourself and later for Practical Householder magazine. For twenty-three years I wrote Tendring Topics in print for the Coastal Express, and I also wrote innumerable ‘advertising features’ for all of Essex County Newspapers, now the Newsquest Group, as well as for other East Anglian magazine publishers.

The last of these, although not the best rewarded, was often the most challenging. A voice on the phone would demand ‘Can you do 500 (or 350 or 200) words on this, that or the other, pub, restaurant, hairdressers, jewellers, undertakers or whatever and a thousand words on shopping in Frinton, or some area within the district or elsewhere?’ often adding, ‘Oh, and can you get mugshots of the proprietors and a general view of the pub, shop or shopping centre?’ I could and I did. Often I’d be writing with enthusiasm about businesses for which I felt no personal enthusiasm whatsoever. I regarded myself as being in the same position as a barrister. It was up to me to stress my clients’ good points and see if I couldn’t manage to turn their bad points into well-disguised blessings. My contributions were, after all, labelled ‘advertising feature’ and while I always tried to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, I sometimes took comfort in the thought that no-one could ever hope to tell the whole truth!

Here I am, at the ‘workbench’, with a ‘Brother’ electronic typewriter I think, which places it about twenty years ago and me in my late sixties. Around me are some of my plumbing books and just behind my left wrist, a copy of ‘Coastal Express’, ‘The read one’ as its banner headline proclaimed.

There were some words that were absolutely taboo in advertising features. ‘dull’, for instance, was never used as a description of the weather at any of our holiday coast resorts. Our skies might, very occasionally, be ‘cloudy’ but nothing whatsoever about one of our holiday towns was ever ‘dull’. Similarly nothing, whether food, clothing, entertainment or any kind of service to the public, was ever described as ‘cheap’. ‘Cheap’ implied, at its best ‘Cheap and Cheerful’, with overtones of fish and chips with a sprinkling of salt and vinegar, eaten with the fingers out of a greasy newspaper on a windy beach. At its worst it meant ‘Cheap and Nasty’, the sort of gadget that claims to have half a dozen purposes but actually performs none of them. Goods and services might be ‘competitively priced’ or ‘inexpensive’. In the world of advertising features though, they were never cheap.

All of this is why I felt nothing but dismay when I read in bold headlines in the Daily Gazette CLACTON IS CHEAP AND CHEERFUL RESORT with, underneath it, a picture taken just west of Clacton Pier of a crowded beach and a lower prom so crammed with holiday makers that movement must have been all but impossible. The caption said Busy - Clacton is the cheapest UK holiday. We Clactonians were, no doubt, expected to greet this with gratitude and enthusiasm. My own thought was, ‘while we’ve got friends like that, we certainly don’t need enemies!’

The news story, that accompanied the headline and the picture, was in fact quite cheering. A survey, commissioned by Virgin Money Travel Insurance had revealed that Clacton was the least expensive holiday resort in the whole of the UK, followed by Orkney, Bournemouth (that was a surprise!), Morecambe and Bognor (and so were they!). The survey, which took into consideration hotel and restaurant availability and charges, quality of beaches, and the overall cost and number of nearby tourist attractions, also listed the ‘best’ holiday resorts in order.

In this list Clacton-on-Sea was 19th best, well ahead of Southend-on-Sea who were 28th. The survey also praised the quality of Clacton’s beaches. The news report doesn’t say how many resorts were surveyed but as we know that among them were resorts on the south coast and Orkney in the far north, it may be assumed that 19th was well towards the top.

Had I been writing that story in my advertising-feature days, the illustration would have been of children enjoying themselves on a busy, but not crowded, sandy beach in full sunshine. This would have been my headline and my news story:

HOLIDAYS AT HOME?….CLACTON’S THE BEST!

An independent survey, conducted by Virgin Money Travel Insurance, has rated Clacton-on-Sea, whose beaches were specially praised, as the best holiday resort in Essex, and among the ‘top twenty’ within the UK. It was also declared to be the least expensive resort in the whole of the United Kingdom!

The survey took into account the weather, the cost of a week in an hotel, price and availability of restaurants, quality of beaches, and the overall cost and number of nearby tourist attractions.

So, if you’re holidaying in Britain and have been flooded out (or ripped off!) in the Lake District, the West Country or the Scottish Highlands, try Clacton-on-Sea next year. It’s the best in Essex and rated among the best in the UK, it has the lowest annual rainfall in the British Isles, some of the best beaches – and the lowest prices!

‘Cheap and Cheerful’ never!

This picture, of my younger son enjoying himself on a Clacton beach in the early ‘60s is the best illustration that I could find at short notice. I am sure that the ‘Gazette’ has many much better and more recent ones on its files

Our Man in Nanjing!

Much as I might have liked to forget Essex County Council for at least a week, its members force themselves upon our attention. They have sold off all their old people’s residential homes, are eager to turn their schools into privately controlled ‘academies’, have incurred Colcastrian wrath by closing two schools and bussing their displaced pupils miles across the town, and have been severely criticised for the standard of their child care and social services. Unabashed, triumphant in fact, they have now established a ‘company’ in Nanjing, in Jiangsu Province of the People’s Republic of China. This must surely be ‘a first’ for local government enterprise!

It is going to cost the County Council (which means, of course, that it’s going to cost us) £40,000 a year. £26,000 of this will go as salary to a Chinese citizen, and the remainder to running his office in Nanjing. As a life-long trade unionist and a retired life-member of UNISON I hope that existing staff at County Hall, Chelmsford will offer their new Chinese colleague membership of our Union!

The purpose of the County Council’s new overseas venture is to help Essex businesses meet potential buyers and sellers and it seems that under Chinese law, the county council cannot operate unless it has a company there. Lord Hanningfield, eloquent as ever, explains:

‘Essex has a long-standing relationship with the province (of Jiangsu) and the establishment of a permanent office there will allow us to identify potential inward investment and opportunities for local businesses. The downturn has shown us we must look at alternative ways to sustain our local economy and keep local businesses thriving, and we have taken the initiative on this.’

That is all very worthy and done, I am quite sure, with the very best of intentions. When, many years ago, I was learning about the nature of local government, I was taught that a big difference between a local authority and a private person was that while a private individual was permitted to do anything that wasn’t prohibited by law, a local authority could lawfully only undertake tasks specifically entrusted to it by central government. Anything beyond that was ultra vires, or beyond its powers, and illegal. Essex County Councillors have, I am sure, the very best legal advisers in their employ. Perhaps the law has since been changed. If not, the County Council must surely have found some statute that permits a local authority to use public funds to establish a company on the other side of the world, in a country with laws and traditions completely alien from our own.

Common sense tells me that such a venture should be funded by the businesses hoping to benefit, not by the council taxpayer. Council tax and Government grants should surely be spent on tasks entrusted to County Councils; social services, education, highways, refuse disposal and so on; admittedly pretty boring old jobs compared with jetting round the world, running banks and post offices, and founding and managing businesses in faraway lands.

‘It was us wot won it!'

Most people will remember The Sun’s proud, and deliberately semi-literate, boast after supporting John Major’s successful general election campaign. The sad thing about it is that that boast was probably justified. Whatever politicians may say, I have no doubt at all that daily newspapers do influence public opinion.

At the very least they reinforce and strengthen opinions and prejudices already half-formed. To some extent readers are influenced by leading and feature articles; even more though by large black headlines and brief punchy reports that never tell more than a fragment of any news story. Such reports distort the truth, as much by omission as by anything that actually appears in print. I think that I have demonstrated this in this blog in my piece about advertising features. At least my contributions to the press were labelled 'advertising feature'.

Why is it that Eurosceptics can be confident that referendums held in England on the Lisbon Treaty, or on the adoption of the Euro, would almost certainly produce a large ‘No’ vote? Certainly not because a majority, or even a sizeable minority of us, have carefully studied the pros and cons and have decided that they would be to Britain’s disadvantage. The reason is simply that in a large section of the press; The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, the Daily Star and, though rather less stridently, The Daily Telegraph, never mention the Treaty, the Euro or the European Union without a sneer.

For that reason I think that the Government has every reason to be angry (however much they may claim not to care) not only at The Sun’s change of policy, but at its having been carefully timed to fill news bulletins that might otherwise have been occupied by reports of the Prime Minister’s speech at the Labour Party Conference.

I don’t think that regular readers of this blog are likely to accuse me either of uncritical support for New Labour or of mindless xenophobia. I do feel very strongly though that the means of moulding/manipulating/distorting public opinion should not be in private hands and under private control. This is surely particularly important when those hands are based in, and that control exercised from, a foreign country, even if that country is one with which we are said to have a ‘special relationship’.

Week 31.09

Tendring Topics…….on line

Floral Clacton-on-Sea

We Clactonians have had reason to be proud of our cliff-top gardens for many years. Throughout the time that I was employed first by Clacton Council and latterly by Tendring District Council, they were the responsibility of the Council’s Parks and Gardens Department. The Department had its own nursery that supplied all the Council’s horticultural and arboreal needs. The gardening staff planted and maintained the Council’s cliff-top and other gardens, provided cut flowers and potted plants and shrubs when required, and regularly competed successfully in the Tendring Hundred Farmers’ Show and in the Essex Show.

I became closely involved with the department in the 1970s when, under the leadership of Councillor Malcolm Holloway, the Council’s Trees Working Party carried out several very successful tree planting and tree maintenance campaigns. At that time the Council had a separate tree nursery in Thorpe-le-Soken where tree whips were grown into young trees for planting out. The head of the department, the Council’s own gardening expert, was always available for consultation and advice.

Now, of course, maintenance of public gardens, like most other public services, is contracted out. In this instance at least, the contractors have maintained the former standards. I was glad to know that the excellence of the gardens has now been officially recognised and rewarded with the presentation of a ‘Green Flag’ award. I hope we’ll have equal success with the Britain in Bloom Competition.

My wife Heather, at the beginning of the New Millennium

The Memorial Garden in particular, has special memories for me. Seven or eight years ago, when my wife was still able to walk with the aid of a four-wheeled shopping trolley (a ‘sholley’), I would often drive her on warm sunny days to Marine Parade West. There, courtesy of her ‘blue badge’ I parked a few hundred yards from Pier Gap. With the sholley we then walked back, through the cliff-top gardens as far as the Memorial Garden. There we would sit on one of the benches and enjoy the flowers and the general atmosphere of peace and tranquillity for half an hour or so before returning to the car. It was at home, several hours after such an excursion, that my wife fell and broke a hip. Sadly, throughout the remaining two years of her life, she was never able to walk independently again.

Since then I have been driven along Marine Parade, past the cliff-top gardens, many times, but last week with my mobility scooter I decided to visit them again at my leisure. On that scooter I realize that I am much more aware of my surroundings than I had ever been in a car, or even on a bicycle. It was a sunny morning and I enjoyed the hanging containers of colourful growing flowers on the pavement railings at the junction of Pier Avenue and Rosemary Road. I fully appreciated the young street trees and the wide smooth pavements on the newly-laid-out town centre.

Still quite early in the morning, the Memorial Garden was even more colourful and peaceful than I had remembered it. I drove on, past the Japanese Garden, the dry Mediterranean Garden and the 1920s Garden. I enjoyed them all, though I didn’t quite spot the connection between the 1920s (a decade that I can just remember!) and the last of these.

My expedition ended with a leisurely cup of coffee at the café near the Martello Public House, with its views of the sea and of the wind turbines being constructed off-shore. I used to park my car near there when Heather fancied a walk along the lower prom. It had been a personal pilgrimage that I can well imagine being equally enjoyed by visitors to our town……particularly perhaps those who, like me, are well past their youth!

‘If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’

One swallow doesn’t make a summer……..and one would have to be very bold indeed to claim that there are local signs of spring in the current national and international economic winter.

It cannot be denied though that Clacton’s outlook is a lot brighter today than it was just a few months ago. It is good to note the continuing activity out to sea. During my recent visit to the sea front I noted sixteen completed wind turbines. By the time you read this there may well be more. Things are definitely on course for the completed wind farm to be in operation early in the New Year. This may not have much, or even any, effect on Clacton’s current economic future but, together with many other similar enterprises, it does help to ensure that our town has a future!

More to the immediate point is the fact that a large retail premises in the town centre that has been looking for an occupier for several months has found one. Another, threatened with closure, is continuing in business with the same staff but in different ownership.

The former Woolworth’s store with its commanding frontages on both Pier Avenue and West Avenue has been taken over by the ‘99p Store’; not quite ‘Bond Street’ perhaps but then few of Clacton’s residents and, I think, even fewer of our holiday visitors are potential Bond Street shoppers!

I think that the 99p Store is a direct and worthy successor of the Woolworth’s that I remember from pre-World War II days. Their boast then was ‘nothing over sixpence’.

Venturing into the crowded 99p Store on its opening day I was reminded of going into ‘Woolies’ in Carr Street, Ipswich at the age of ten or eleven, with a tanner (that’s what we used to call a sixpence) in my pocket and thinking to myself that I could, if I wished, buy anything at all that was on display! Sixpence in ‘old money’ is two-and-a-half pence in ‘new’, but I reckon that its purchasing power in the 1930s couldn’t have been very different from that of a pound today.

The other threatened town centre business was the Co-op Department Store in the busiest part of Station Road. This has been taken over by the Vergo organisation, a national retail chain that seems likely to offer a similar range of goods to the Co-op. The really great thing about the Vergo takeover is that they are continuing to employ the whole of the existing Co-op staff.

These developments, taken in conjunction with the modernisation and added features of the Pier, and the imminent completion of the Travelodge Hotel in Jackson Road surely mean that, in Clacton at least, an economic spring may be on the way!

Bishops Park College – the Good News, and the Bad

There was good and bad news about Clacton’s Bishops Park College last week. Bishops Park, you’ll recall, is Clacton’s latest and most modern Secondary School, best known for the fact that a number of determined local parents are teaching their children themselves at their own expense, rather than send them there. Next month the Government is expected to rubber stamp a plan to amalgamate it with Clacton’s Colbayns High School as ‘The Clacton Coastal Academy’.

The good news is that Bishops Park, which had been listed as a ‘failing school’ by Ofsted, was last week taken out of special measures and will therefore be on equal terms with Colbayns as it takes its place in the new Academy.

Then too, a new uniform has been designed for the Coastal Academy in black, blue and gold; a black blazer with a light blue trim and the school logo (designed by Nikki Light, a learning support assistant) on the breast pocket to be worn by both boys and girls. Under it girls will wear a white open-necked shirt and boys a similar shirt but with a light-blue and gold striped tie. All year 7 to 11 students will, so the Clacton Gazette report says, be given a new Academy blazer together with two new white shirts, and a tie for the boys, as well as the new sports kit. Academies clearly expect to be funded more generously than ordinary local authority schools!

I wonder if dissident parents will decide to send their kids to the newly created academy?

And the bad news? Just that I was shocked to read in the Daily Gazette last Friday (24th July) that a gang of fifteen teenagers had beaten an autistic fourteen year old boy into unconsciousness, leaving him with severe facial injuries and stamp marks on his back. Another teenager, with whom he had been having an argument, had used his mobile phone ‘to call for back-up’ from his gang members!

What has it got to do with Clacton Coast Academy? Simply that the attack took place at the Pudney Woods Playing Field off St Johns Road, which means that the majority, if not all, the assailants were likely to have been pupils or former pupils of either Bishops Park College or Colbayns High School.

Furthermore the victim’s dad told reporters that his son had been ‘tormented by his peers, who took advantage of his autism, ever since he moved into a new class at Bishops Gate College last September’.

I hope that the new Academy will include in its curriculum the teaching of what I am old-fashioned enough to think of as ‘Christian values.’