Chalkwell children on the Cinder Path to: Another Dimension!, 2017

Two parts. First of all from the pedestrian part of Chalkwell Esplanade, what’s supposed to be the P&O ferry Norstream arriving from Zeebrugge for Tilbury, but the sound wasn’t carrying as much as I’d like and it was windy; this is edited to take the wind bumps out. At the same time from The Esplanade I could see lights on The Cinder Path. I thought they were bicycles but the movement was all wrong, could also hear chatter so I thought a group of girls had decided to use The Cinder Path to get onto the front. It’s some distance to see/hear them, well over half a mile.

[02:55:] I gave up on the Norstream. Had expected them to have passed me by, then when I set off to cross the railway (you do this by either two short flights of semi-enclosed steps up to a slope which rises to the the level of The Ridgeway, or you come up a slope from the beach which meets the head of the stairs and you turn 180 degrees onto the second slope), the people from The Cinder Path were at the foot of the slope by the beach. There were two adult woman chatting and children, mainly girls, looked like family and friends as there were a lot of them; they were animated as it was half term and no school in the morning, way past their bedtime and they’d just come along the the unlit Cinder Path. They were starting up the slope, but they were primary school age so not 4 foot any of them and not as tall as the walls are high, so the sound was rolling up the slope to the the semi-enclosed head of the stairs and the change of direction of the second slope and was bouncing around all over the place. Not so obvious at the time as I’m taller than the walls, but the recorder was lower down to get it out of the wind picking it all up; the hissing is the wind in the leaves of the tree which is there. This was recorded about 11.55pm.

Such is the power and reach of the Essex Record Office that I fully expect next time I see any hippies down there, they won’t be on the beach, they’ll be sitting cross legged on the slope up from the beach recording an album.