Middleton Beach

This is me in 1945 aged 18 months playing with an old rubber bathing cap at Middleton-on-Sea.  The beach was still littered with detritus from the War.  Rusting clamps were left lying around on the shingle after the anti-tank scaffolding defences against invasion were demolished.  Mum always declared that a beach was the "world's best playground," which was handy as she had four children and we lived just yards from the sea. 

When we were older, my brother and I loved to go prawning in the rock pools.  There was semi-submerged old mine casing which was positioned perfectly to trap the prawns as the tide ebbed and we could scoop the grey, transparent creatures up with our nets.  We're septuagenarians now but we often talk about those trips to the mine in the hot summer days of our childhood.

Recently, I was looking at footage from the South East Screen Archive and was intrigued with the films of a certain Gowlland family who spent most of their holidays at Middleton.  What a thrill it was to find a section filmed right in front of our house and to see that very mine casing before it became half buried. The anti-tank scaffolding can also be seen in these screen-grabs from the film.








                             Middleton beach filmed by the Gowlland Family 1945




The Gowlland children climbing on the mine at Middleton-on-Sea.  The Southdean Hotel at Elmer is in the background.


The Gowlland children clambering over the anti-tank scaffolding and running towards the rock pools


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