A STORY OF O

I went for a walk, to the end of Southend pier.  It’s one and a third miles apparently, and they count you in, just so you know where you are.  

And, OK I admit it, I caught the train back, and this is almost an interesting pedestrian dilemma.  Walk there and take the train back? Or train there and walk back? Actually much depends on whether there’s a train about to depart when you arrive at the land end of the pier.  On my day there wasn’t.

And I realized I’ve walked along Southend pier quite a few times over the years, not often but regularly enough, with a good few years between each visit.  

In fact when I did it for the first time, when I was wasting a year of my life doing an MA in European Drama at Essex University, the train wasn’t running in either direction.   So I walked there and back, and somehow I survived. 

This is me on that previous occasion:

And these were my walking companions:

         Even walking there and back – two and two thirds miles isn’t really much of a hike but who doesn’t like a train journey, especially in a train that’s named John Betjeman, the man who said "The Pier is Southend, Southend is the Pier,"  though I think many would argue that Southend is more than just the pier.

The current pier has a few attractions – kiddies rides (as they’re called):

and a fancy architectural ‘royal pavilion.’  I had an Americano and a flapjack – no sign of any royals.  

But perhaps the greatest attraction for walkers is that you can get a certificate saying that you’ve walked the length of the pier.  To be honest, I think it would be perfectly possible to get the certificate without having done the walk at all, but what kind of cad would do that?

I paid my quid for a handwritten certificate. They ask you to write your name on a piece of paper before they make out the certificate, no doubt to avoid spelling mistakes.  But evidently it’s not a foolproof method.  I am now Geoff Nichlson missing an ‘o.’ But you know, somehow I like it better this way.