I have always loved the beach but for the first 11 years of my life we lived in the Bedfordshire countryside and the nearest beach was over 50 miles away in Essex. As children we enjoyed wonderful holidays in Norfolk and the West Country, usually in caravans or chalets. In 1979 we moved to Eastbourne. My parents bought a guest house which they ran for three years. It was only one street from the seafront, back-to-back with one of the big hotels. My brother and I used to leave the house in just our swimming clothes and would walk barefoot to the beach! We’d come home soaking wet with my mum standing at the front door and stopping us from going inside until we’d dried ourselves off! We had no fear of the cold water and, it appeared, no feeling in our feet either as I clearly remember us running on the pebbles right from the top of the beach into the sea! These days I can just about manage half a dozen steps without anything on my feet!
“If you’re not barefoot then you’re overdressed”
Since the move to Eastbourne I just couldn’t live anywhere inland! I went to Bournemouth University and after graduating we bought our first house in Bexhill. My first full-time job was in central London and I hated the commute. It was so refreshing to soak up the sea air when I wasn’t in the ‘big smoke’.
“Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought of which the sea would not be part.” Herman Broch
Our four kids were also brought up to naturally love the beach. Some people think that you’d take it all for granted when it’s on your doorstep but I’ve never stopped appreciating how lucky I am to see those beautiful views just a short walk from home. When the children were little we used to fill up one of those enormous plastic laundry bags with inflatables, oars, buckets, spades, wet suits….you name it! It was like Mary Poppins’ bag, the contents just kept coming and coming! They would all help carry, even the smallest ones, and we would set ourselves up for the day. Like all siblings they wound each other up constantly at home and there was always at least two of them bickering at any one time but when we spent time on the beach they seemed to get on really well (hence the effort to go there regularly!). To be fair they have always been good at amusing themselves and, when they weren’t fighting, they played really well. I never felt the need to continually provide days out and entertainment (for one thing I couldn’t afford it!) but I guess despite their ‘moments’ they always had each other as ‘playmates’.
When our youngest was just a toddler three of my friends asked me if I would like to join them in renting a beach hut. Unfortunately my husband had very little work at that time and, although it wasn’t a huge cost, I just couldn’t justify doing it. I ended up returning to work part-time to help keep us afloat. However, they were all happy for us to join them at their hut and we had many happy days with all our children playing together – we had 13 between the four of us!
As our finances improved a little I made enquiries about renting a hut but to no avail. Then one day in 2014, completely out of the blue, my dad received a phone call from Rother District Council to say that a beach hut was available and would he still like it. Hell yeah!! We’d completely forgotten that my mum had put her name on the list nine years earlier! Sadly by this time she had passed away. There was no question though, we were having that plot, nothing could have stopped me from snapping it up! I’m sure mum would have been delighted, it’s just a shame she never got to share our hours of pleasure.
The offer came in April but it took us until June to get a hut. The shed companies were so busy and there were long waiting times. Initially they said August but we managed to move it along. I can’t describe how excited I was! It took a bit of time to get it all painted and ready to use but it was fun just being there and watching the progress. I’ve got photos of our youngest son when he was about ten kitted out in overalls, wielding a paintbrush and sitting on the ‘Workmate’ bench to steady it when my husband was sawing! Precious memories!
My husband is a perfectionist and put his interior design skills to good use to make it a practical space. He reused lots of old timber that he’d been storing in our garage to make cupboards and a worktop. Very cleverly he constructed the front with six doors in such a way that the whole thing can be removed as one section, just adding the worktop when putting it back in. He used old shelving from home and he put in some longer shelves for all my ‘tat’ as he likes to call it! Along one side he put in some bench seating with piano hinges and lots of hooks and hangers for tea lights, pictures, wetsuits etc. We chose a big hut with the maximum dimensions allowed so it has a high roof and one of his most genius ideas was to suspend a large shelf on a chain from the ceiling, as there was a good sized space within the roof area, to store a surf board, bodyboards and oars. My dad gave us a fabric hanging shoe holder that he used to have in his caravan which we use to store all the beach towels. I bought a big laundry basket to hold inflatable and beach toys, baskets for toys and flip flops and became one of Poundland’s most regular customers for plates, mugs, cutlery, decorative features, strings of lights, candles and much more! We recycled tea light lanterns and kitchen bits from home. Over the years I’ve built up quite a collection of contents and people joke that I have ‘everything’ in there! Almost always if anyone asks for something I do have it!
Life is better in flip flops….
On the counter top we have a portable gas cooker and everything we need for making drinks. We also have a frying pan and saucepan and often make egg and bacon butties. There’s nothing like the smell of bacon frying in an outdoor area…..the same goes for eating fish and chips on the beach. I’m salivating just thinking about it! We have all the condiments there – salt, vinegar, ketchup!
There are chairs, sun loungers, cushions, tables, rugs, mats, you name it! Honestly it’s like a tardis! I don’t even know myself how we fit it all in but somehow it seems to work out okay!
So many friends and family have given me kind gifts and I never tire of all my little trinkets, postcards and all sorts of beach and seaside regalia. Let’s just say I’m easy to buy for!
Despite our children now being adults I also can’t help fill up the toy box for little visitors! Almost every trip to Poundland results in more games, colouring items, chalkboards, water pistols, fishing nets and lots of bottles of bubbles! We’ve got a giant ‘Snakes and Ladders’ game with a big inflatable dice, a Dodgeball game with Velcro vests, bats and balls, mini paddling pools and a mini table football!
It was really important to me to acknowledge my mum’s connection to the hut. I had a lovely sign made from driftwood which simply says ‘Cherished Forever! Sally 1947 – 2011’ with a line drawing of an angel. It’s not fixed because I worry about it being damaged so I have a nail on the front which I hang it off when I’m there. I know this might sound ridiculous to some people but I’ve got a theory that my mum visits us there. Almost without fail when any of our family are at the beach hut we are visited by a large bumble bee. We are convinced it’s my mum checking up on us and we say “Here comes Sally-bee” or “Nanny-bee”! Even friends say it now! Silly or not, it brings us some comfort and makes us smile.
Sadly some people can’t help putting a downer on other people’s pleasures and in seven years we’ve had two break-ins. Fortunately both times we were lucky that the loss was minimal. The first time, they took an odd range of items – tea towels, a pack of wipes, a frying pan, a mini speaker and a pair of mini binoculars! We could only think that it was someone sleeping rough or, at the time, there were a few camper vans parking overnight nearby. I guess we’ll never know. I remember I had just bought two really nice blankets (albeit cheap ones from B&M) and my cousin had bought me a lovely light-up beach sign which I had intended on taking home but thankfully they didn’t take anything nice or precious to us. The police did actually send a forensics officer down and she was helpful but all she could really do was take a few fingerprints. They didn’t lead to anything. The second time was only last year and the doors were very badly damaged. My husband had to virtually rebuild them and reinforce them as much as he could. On that occasion all they did was eat the biscuits that were in the biscuit tin! Whoever did it would have had to have used a crowbar or something equally strong to have got in. Others weren’t so lucky – one person lost a kayak and another their fishing gear. Despite buying a heavy duty hasp and staple to secure the doors, there has already been another attempt to get in since then. We noticed that the hinge had become loose and could be wiggled up and down. On closer inspection it looks like someone has tried to put some sort of tool, maybe a chisel or similar, into a narrow gap and there is an area where the wood on the door has been ‘shredded’. There’s only so much you can do. We’ve got two heavy duty clasps and combination padlocks on both. We have a lot in the hut but we don’t leave anything valuable or precious in it when we’re not there. Obviously chairs and sun loungers aren’t cheap but if you can’t leave those there what’s the point of having the hut? That said, we should be able to keep what we like in it without the fear of it being taken. We believe that the most recent attempt was following lots of busy beach days and the beaches were full of paddle boards and kayaks. Someone may have wandered along taking a note of who had them. Ours are all inflatable and portable and are never left there. However, around the same time three other huts on the beach next to us were interfered with and one did have a paddle board taken.
We have also had other unwelcome visitors but not the human kind! I once went down to the hut to find something very small had had a lot of fun in there! A mouse! They can get in through some very small spaces you know! I had made the mistake of leaving some snacks in there that were not in secured containers. Not only had it (or maybe they?) nibbled on the unopened packets of biscuits they had performed some teeth origami on the serviettes and turned them into confetti! On further inspection I discovered they had also put holes in some clothing (jogging bottoms and tops that we leave in there for cooler evenings) and a couple of towels. They had also defecated throughout! Fortunately mouse poo is not too difficult to clear up but it did take me a few hours to remove it all and clean the areas. I got to work with my little dustpan and brush and brought anything fabric home to wash. I no longer leave any food there and always empty the bin, however much is in it, just in case! We’ve had one or two little visits since then but they didn’t leave a great deal of evidence! As annoying as it was it did make me laugh at the thought of a gang of mice having a bit of a party in there….
In 2016 one of my Facebook friends sent me a link about a competition for ‘Beach Hut of the Year’ which is run by Towergate Insurance. My initial reaction was that our hut wasn’t special enough for such an accolade. However, my friend replied that it’s not just about the hut itself but the story behind it and how we have used it as a venue for our fundraising. I gave it some thought and decided I had nothing to lose by entering. I wrote a few paragraphs about my mum and how the beach hut had been her dream and how we have raised money for Macmillan Cancer Support in her memory (more on that in a future story) and sent it in with a few photos.
I then received the following email:
Thank you for entering this year’s Beach Hut of the Year!
2016’s entries have been of the highest quality and it’s been an extremely tough task to choose this year’s finalists. Thank you so much for sharing your hut with us – the beach hut community has done itself proud.
After much deliberation, ten of the best have now been selected – and they will be exclusively revealed in The Sunday Times this weekend. Get your copy on Sunday to see who’s in the running to be crowned Britain’s best beach hut.
Voting will also open on Sunday, and if you’ve made the shortlist you’ll want all of your friends and family to help nudge you closer to being crowned Beach Hut of the Year 2016.
Thank you very much once again for entering the competition, and good luck!
The Towergate Beach Hut of the Year team.
On the day of the announcement I was due to travel up to London with my best friend to see ‘Coldplay’ in concert. We caught the train on the Sunday and before getting on I bought a copy of the paper. Well, being a Sunday broadsheet it had a gazillion supplements to go through. We sat on the train wading through the pile of papers and dropping half of it on the floor! We had come to the conclusion that we’d bought the wrong newspaper but decided to look one more time. I thought the saying was “Nothing is lost until your mum can’t find it”…..well these two mums were making a good go of disproving that theory! So, we tried one more time and there it was, a double page spread full of beach hut photos and in an instant I spotted ours! I almost screamed! Despite optimistically searching for the results we were both shocked that the photo was actually there! Our beach hut was one of the ten finalists for Britain’s ‘Beach Hut of the Year 2016’. Absolutely gobsmacked! It was all a bit surreal to be honest but we were both so excited!
The next stage of the competition was down to public votes to narrow the finalists down to five. I posted regularly on Facebook encouraging our family and friends to vote. There were feature articles in various local newspapers including the Brighton Argus, The Sussex Express and the Bexhill Observer.
We weren’t the only hut in Bexhill to make it into the top ten. There was one other on the east side of Bexhill, an area called Glyne Gap, owned by a train driver who used his job as inspiration for his beach hut as it is decorated in the style of a Southern Region train station or signal box and features train memorabilia. He did a wonderful job, it looked fantastic!
We were delighted to be informed that we had made it as a Top 5 finalist and so had the other Bexhill hut! A representative from Towergate Insurance called me just after the announcement and asked if I’d be happy to be interviewed by BBC Radio Sussex. They were coming to interview the other finalist from Bexhill and were hoping to speak to me on the same day. They initially offered me the 7.30 am slot but I politely declined! I managed to agree to a slightly later time but not much! My friend came down to support me and we took some bits to make bacon sandwiches as it was an early start. The presenter arrived promptly and I offered him a cup of tea. My friend had me in stitches when she whispered to me “Don’t mention the bacon sandwiches, we’ve only got enough for us!” He chatted casually to us and explained how the interview would be carried out. However, he seemed to be in no hurry as he stood looking out at sea with his cuppa, marvelling at what a beautiful spot we had! Eventually he took us up to his little van parked on the seafront and opened up the back to reveal a mini recording studio! He introduced us and gave a little blurb then proceeded to ask us questions. He hadn’t warned us what he was going to ask and it was going out live so we were feeling quite nervous. There we were, standing in the street wearing professional headphones and holding microphones! A lot of it is rather a blur to me now but I do remember a very funny moment when he asked my friend “So, have you always been Lisa’s friend or are you only her friend because she has a beach hut?!” He was obviously pulling her leg but her response was very serious and in her ‘radio voice’ she replied “Oh no, we’ve been friends for years”!! Even though I don’t really like doing anything like that (I hate hearing my own voice played back) it was a lot of fun and we will always remember it. A few people did contact me and say “I just heard you on the radio” which I’ll be honest I wasn’t expecting.
A few days later the winner was announced. Seeing the competition I didn’t expect it to be us but we really enjoyed the whole process. It would have been exciting to meet Phil Spencer (Location Location Location) who judged the competition and presented the winner with a commemorative plaque and prize money but we were happy with our achievement. A couple of weeks later I received a framed certificate of congratulations for being ‘Top Ten’ (although we were actually in the top five) containing the photos I had sent in. It’s a precious keepsake which we proudly have on display in the hut. The hut which won was a beautiful one in Essex which is larger than the average beach hut and has a full-size sofa and dining furniture in it. I can’t argue that it’s not a worthy winner.
I was contacted by the insurance company later that year asking if they could do a Christmas feature with festive decorations etc. Unfortunately I had to decline as our huts only have temporary planning permission for six months of the year. It’s a historic licence and was initially temporary planning as the original seaside beach huts were made from canvas so deemed in the same category as tents! We our allowed to put our hut up from 1st April and have to take it all apart and store it by 1st October of every year. I pack all the internal contents into plastic storage containers and bags and we hold it all in our loft. The actual hut is basically 4 sides, the roof in two parts and a wooden platform. We store all of that plus the cupboards, bench and shelving in a garage through the winter. We have considered applying to extend the planning permission but, having thought about it and seen how high the tide can come up during those winter months, we decided it was better to stick to the six month agreement. It means that nothing gets damp or is vulnerable to stormy weather and it reduces the chance of break-ins when the evenings are darker and there are less people around. It always gives me something to look forward and it’s quite an occasion when it’s time to put it up again. Obviously I am more of an observer/supervisor on the day it goes up or comes down, providing tea and cakes as a thank you to all my boys and other helpers!
We’ve got lovely neighbours on our particular beach and we’ve all created quite a community. We all look out for each other’s huts and enjoy socialising when we are there. This year some of us celebrated the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with ‘Union Jack’ bunting and lots of other regalia. We even had a full size cardboard cutout of the Queen and her corgis which my husband’s staff made for us at the office! I bought a huge Union Jack flag which we attached to the hut on a large pole. We’ve celebrated many other occasions at our little hut, such as a pirates and mermaids birthday party for our young great-niece and nephew. It’s the ideal place to gather with friends and family with minimal fuss. Any excuse or no excuse at all to have a social gathering, it’s always good to chill out in the sea air.
B.E.A.C.H.: Best Escape Anyone Can Have
Talking of the ‘sea air’ I genuinely believe in its therapeutic benefits. Whatever else is going on, as soon as I sit down at that little haven I’m convinced my blood pressure is lowered and my worries disappear for a while. It might not be the Mediterranean but we get our fair share of sunshine here in the South East and, personally I feel like I’m on holiday every time I’m on that beach.
“Smell the sea and feel the sky, let your soul and spirit fly” – Van Morrison (Into the Mystic 1970)
Hoping for a Happy Ever After 