Joscelyne's Beach: A Memoir of Leigh-on-Sea

In 1909 when Arthur Joscelyne was six his father emptied the family savings from the jug on the mantelpiece to buy 200 yards of beach on the north shore of the River Thames. Arthur helped run Joscelynes Beach for 20 years. His boyhood reminiscences vividly bring to life a world long disappeared. The tide, the gulls, and the dinghies set the scene for a cast of characters that will never be forgotten. This lyrically beautiful memoir offers an exquisite snapshot of English coastal life before, during and after the First World War. Reviews of Joscelynes Beach: Beyond the bounds of this idyllic place, two world wars came and went, generations grew and faded, and Southend relentlessly enlarged . . . This small patch of private foreshore somehow seemed to enshrine so much of Southends and the English seasides history, as well as a haunting sense of a vanished happy world . . . If this book is as widely read as predicted, this bewitched morsel of land will once again become Joscelynes Beach in the minds of people far beyond Essex. The Evening Echo. Here are recollections at first hand from Edwardian childhood to the 1940s, with a broad variety of people and events, hopes and disappointments brought to life with insight . . . Francis Turnidge the sailmaker; the magnificently uniformed Gravesend coastguards; a champagne-quaffing countess and many others. Boats are an underlying thread: a white elephant hire dinghy too posh to use; a rowboat from Gamages which proved invaluable; buying a Gravesend shrimper for £20 . . . An unusual and beguiling book, with its background of sun, sand and seaweed. Classic Boat. This lyrical memoir offers a vivid insight into Leigh-on-Sea and its characters before, during and after the First World War. Essex Magazine.

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