'The Jolly Fisherman' was a pub on Skegness front, not far from the Pier and the clock tower which was emblazoned with the town's larger than life mascot, the happily skipping wellingtoned 'Jolly Fisherman'.

Although it was on the 'front' this did not necessarily indicate its close proximity to the sea. Skeggie had an extremely long foreshore and it was a popular joke of the time that to view the sea from the parade one needed a good pair of binoculars. If you didn't have one then 6d. would buy you a go on the creaking metal telescopes that, once in focus, gave a blurred misty view of the distant rolling waves.

My family lived in Nottingham, one of the furthest points from the coast in England, so a trip to the seaside in my childhood in the early fifties usually meant Skegness or Chapel St. Leonards. There were three grades of accommodation on offer, the Boarding House, the Guest House and the Hotel. In my early childhood our little family stayed at a Boarding House. Dad and Mum struggled to afford the week and Mum knitted me and my sister identical cardigans for the holiday with little round buttons shaped like a carefully sliced pieces of seaside rock but unlike that pink sticky seaside confectionary they did not have the blue lettering.

The Landlord locked up the house in the day as it was assumed that their guests or 'boarders' would not need to return until the evening meal. So, on rainy days, we spent our time trailing round amusement arcades, a miserable experience when money is tight, or eating chips from damp newspaper in sea front bus shelters cold and shivering in wet rubber sandals and brightly coloured coats. It was because of this that we started 'caravanning', a more laid back kind of holiday where you could come and go as you please, and on rainy days we could play cards and read comics.

Later my parents became a little better off and we moved up to Guest Houses which proved to be a little more hospitable. Hotels, of course, were out of our reach.

It was a time of innocence, of pseudo respectability and of keeping up appearances, a safe time for us children. Just after the war no one wanted anymore shocks, just gentle refined pleasure. The scariest thing was the Figure 8 on Botton's Fun Fair.

The great flood of 1953 had left Sutton on Sea, a village just up the coast, devastated and Dad drove us past the ruins of some bungalows swept away by the storm. Mum had known an old man who lived in one and had died in the tragedy. Mum however was more shocked at how small his now partly demolished kitchen had been!