January 14th, 2013 |
3 Comments |
Have you ever been to Walton on the Naze? Like its sister resort of Clacton on Sea it has a long (790 metre) pier with fairground amusements and fishermen casting lines fruitlessly into the grey-green swell. But Walton on the Naze is tiny by comparison and almost genteel, without a single shop selling seaside rock moulded into ‘TINY TITTIES’ – little pink sugar lollipop breasts that are a best-seller in Clacton and Hastings. Its pier amusements are undercover and under-peopled, off-season the Ghost Train man gave us 3 free rides, just for the company.

The roundabout is one of those repro fibreglass ones, with British flags – the Cross of St.George, Welsh dragon, St. Piran’s flag – the Standard of Cornwall, and so on, suspended from the roof, and there are ‘Speak Your Weight’ weighing machines everywhere you look.

The sinister Easter Island-style head on this aeroplane-ride seems to be modeled on my favourite actor Terry Thomas in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965), playing the diabolical cad Sir Percy Ware-Armitage who ships his bi-plane across the Channel by boat, or perhaps in his later incarnation as Dick Dastardly in Dastardly and Muttley and Wacky Races from Hannah-Barbara productions.

Walton Pier has been providing a great day out for Londoners for over a century. There wasn’t time to try the Singing Kettle Restaurant, or to get to the fossil-strew Naze promontory and its marshland and wild birds. That’s why we’re going back in a month or two.
[All images : copyright bibleofbritishtaste.com ]
WALTON PIER – FUN FOR ALL THE FAMILY ! www.waltonpier.co.uk/
Love this post and am tempted to wrap up warm and get down to Walton tomorrow. A good spin on the Waltzer might even cure my ‘flu. Great pictures – thank you.
I haven.t been there for over 40 years. My daughter once locked herself in a cubicle in those loos! That was even longer ago.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I do envy you, seeing it 40 years ago. It’s an outpost of Little England that feels rather beleaguered, now, but still charming.