Jellicoe Square

A Memory of Shoeburyness.

Shoebury Hall Farm was owned by Capt H R Townsend RN and his wife Margaret I think.  There was also a daughter Pamela.  They were like the country squire and his family.  Their house was between the church and the camp site.  I recall going inside the house once with Dad.  He was one of the oldest campers on the site after all.   Captain Townsend could often be seen riding round the camp on his bike making sure that all was well and the campers were not getting up to any mischief.  The Townsends were treated with great reverance and they reciprocated.
I remember one occasion on a hot summers day Dad and Uncle Steve were larking about.  They were chasing each other about dressed in womens coats and scarves on their heads chucking buckets of water over each other.   Capt Townsend nearly received the contents of one bucket when he came cycling round the corner of one caravan.  
This I am certain was Jellicoe Square looking north.  I recognise the chalet in the corner and St Andrews church in the background.  This is where my parents had their caravan from about 1958 to 1966/7, the reason for my input on this website.  Mum and Dad had been camping at the site since before the war.  They were married in 1935 so it was at from then on at least.
Our caravan was to the left of this photo and behind the camera.  There was a shingle/sand road running through the square from east to west.  I think there were four squares in all.  Along one side of the road were 3 large wooden huts interspersed at regular intervals.  In these huts were kept equipment for the day to day running of the camp site.  In the early days prior to the caravan they had a large tent which would be put up at the start of the season and taken down at the end and then stored in one of the huts The one to the left of our square from my earliest memory was used firstly to store all the equipment that the campers could hire by the hour day or week e.g. bikes and radios.  The bikes consisted of three wheelers, bycycles and those tandem things that are still used today on some caravan sites.  In the 60s the hut housed a full size snooker table that campers and the men who used to maintain the site could use.  
When we had the tent the pitch next door to us was rented by my Aunt (Dads sister) & Uncle and my two cousins.  I was the youngest of three children so had plenty of company.  Just beyond that chalet and to the right was another Aunt and Uncle (Mums brother) Gert and John they too had been long standing campers.  In later years another Aunt and her friend bought a caravan in the square nearest the toilet block on the east side of the camp.  Later still another Aunt and Uncle (Mums brother bought a caravan in the same row as Gert and John.  Sadly that Uncle, Steve, was taken ill on the site and did not recover.  
In the same square as us were the Horne family and John and I were friends for years from my earliest memory until the site closed in the late 60s.  In those early days when it was mostly tents we had to be careful when coming back late at night not to trip over the guy ropes as there was no lighting whatsoever only faint glows from the Tilley lamps in the tents.
The site was pretty basic then not like todays caravan sites.  There was no running water, one had to go to one of the taps scattered about the site and bring it back in a metal jug.  Hot and cold.  We used to wash in our shed next to our caravan. The toilets were situated in two blocks one on the east side of the camp the other on the west and it was a fairly large site.  I would often go and get the water from about the age of ten.  I learnt never to spill it especially the hot.   Cooking and lighting were by calor gas, no electrics.  We did have a camp shop that sold all you could want really.  Bread, Bacon, Ham, Cheese, Milk, Sweets, Comics and Ice Cream.  In the evening one of the men from the shop would go round the site shouting Evening News and Standard.  In the 60's at the start of the Beatles and Stones era they even got a jukebox much to the annoyance of the shop staff as we teenagers were forever grouped round it playing the same stuff over and over again.  We never vandalised anything or caused trouble though.  We dare not.  We did not want to.   
The camp was closed in the early 70's I think and is now a housing estate.