It took an open-top car snug enough for two, a healthy breeze and miles of unbroken road to get this Mr Toad out of Toad Hall and off to Chelsea-on-Sea.
September 17, 2009 11:00
By, Richard Burton
It took an open-top car snug enough for two, a healthy breeze and miles of unbroken road to get this Mr Toad out of Toad Hall and off to Chelsea-on-Sea. And with a poop-poop and glassy-eyed visions of million-pound designer beach huts, he was on his way up the A1 to the Fens, planning the perfect day in a perfect town where Orwell once lived and the seagulls sound just a little posher than those over Southend.
So Southwold it was; all smart, smiley Suffolk folk and rambling streets complete with lighthouse and a wide, sand-and-shingle beach. It was spring but it should have been autumn so I could don a Toad cap and a set of goggles.
Even so, I went to the pier and strolled all 810ft of aged planks. The lady at the chip shop told me it had won an award and I put coins in the novelty machines and marvelled at the intriguing water clock.
Beach huts all the colours of candy floss were there. And it felt so very English. I even promised myself I’d write about it and not use the word “quintessential”. I was thinking that at the counter of the fudge shop, when I asked the owner: “So, what’s it like to live in Chelsea-on-Sea?”
