Sandown Sunday and OCD

It was a usual summer Saturday the sun had come early turned to rain and returned bright and shining by the evening. Mid-summer extending the long bright evenings into a sultry night. This particular Saturday my father had promised us that if we were up early enough the next morning we could catch the bus to Sandown and spend the day on the golden beaches beside the sea.

The resort town of Sandown lying in the southern lee of Culver Cliff on the Isle of Wight’s eastern flank,, Sandown is no more than fifteen miles from East Cowes but to me it was an unbelievable distance and I had the same feeling then as I do now when I venture to the Mediterranean.

I prayed long and hard that night for the sun to keep shining and was happy that the voices had agreed that the day would be a family day. I began dab, dab, dabbing to appease the voices in my head in order that the day would be bright and sunny and more importantly that my parents wouldn’t start rowing and fighting before the morning.

My Mother started her preparations early she had begun wrapping egg and tomato sandwiches, into what seemed like yards, of greaseproof paper in readiness, before they both had gone out for the evening. My mother and father promising to return home early from the Victoria Tavern however, the midnight rattles at the front door together with my mother’s noisy and tearful entrance held little hope of a forthcoming day at Sandown. I had accepted, ruefully, the likelihood that I would be filling sacks of shingle for Grandfathers pigeons as usual.

I hated Sundays!

The morning came breaking joyfully through my curtains, crazy cracks of sunshine played across my bedroom ceiling. Good humour moved about the small flat I could hear both of my parents talking loudly and laughing in the bedroom next door

The voices had relented!

How I hated Sundays, but this Sunday was going to be different.

 I was awoken shortly after at six thirty washed and given a slice of buttered toast and sent outside to stand on the front step and to await my parents. They soon appeared spreading confusion and panic before them like confetti my father swinging a brown paper carrier bag by its string handle whilst my mother carried a large gondola shaped wicker basket full of rolled towels over her arm. 

As expected the small Southern Vectis bus was almost full but nonetheless we clambered aboard with no alternative other than for me to squeeze up tight next to my mother and father for the whole journey. The little old single decker bus chugged past winding hedgerows and fields of waving corn and then once over Arreton Downs it took us spiralling down into Sandown.

The first impression of Sandown was the noise, the shrill hustle bustle of Homes Counties children, lots of children with strange accents. I particularly recall the way they pronounced water as walt-ar as their skinny pale arms hung each side of orange rubber rings which ringed their frail white bodies. An intoxicating sickly sweetness hung in the air from the high street from where we had alighted from the bus to the beach, the smell from sticks of rock, ices, and candy floss faded as you rounded the corner and descended to the golden beach of sand. The Ozone was salty and clean, the sea distant and shimmering, the hot sand sank immediately about your feet leaving you no other option other than to hop in circles and remove your shoes. Once removed shoes were carried tied by their laces around your neck as you awkwardly sallied forth through the soft hot sand. Loud, happy suntanned men wearing shorts and faded marine caps reeled off coloured tickets for the hire of deckchairs, windbreaks, and the hire of pedaloes.

A position furthest most from the sea under the tall promenade wall was sought as my mother stood with her basket and the carrier bag held high to her chest whilst my father struggled cursing with the deckchairs and windbreak.

With exception of swimwear there was very little custom-made beachwear in evidence men and woman were dressed in exactly the same way as they might for a picnic or an afternoon’s shopping. At best jackets were removed shirts necks unbuttoned and opened heavy trousers with their turn ups full of sand were rolled up

bunions and corns crawled beneath the warm sand as exposed legs, whiter than candles quickly turned pink.

Children were always sans deckchair and were expected to take up a sitting position in the burning gritty sand or at best upon a reed mat or towel.  Meanwhile a hundred children like me were stripping under less than adequate towels into woollen swimwear and then released scuttling over the hot sand like turtles towards the crashing and sucking foam. Rows of screaming children timorously inched into the icy water their shaking hands cupped beneath shivering chins whilst others already in the chilly brine took great delight in splashing and ducking their younger siblings.

The ritual was as unpleasant and intrusive liken to that of the first day at school and although I was an Islander I moved among them like a clumsy stranger stark and awkward. I ducked into the water and began swimming over arm splashing out furiously not stopping until the salty burn of seawater stinging and beating in my chest stopped me making another stroke.. The water beneath me grew deeper it was stinging as my hands chilled and aching pushed in circles Treading water I looked back at the full expanse of the beach which was jammed line after line with people I could hear the shrill cries of excited children clearly but had no way of seeing my parents who were fighting sand and sandwich over a breeze blown News of the World beneath the grey concrete of the promenade wall.