Beside the seaside, beside the sea.

 Beside the seaside, beside the sea.

It should feel like the greatest day of our lives. But then again every day is great, memorable and eventful. Today though is the day of ultimate liberation, that precious moment of the year we've all been longing for, yearning for from the bottom of our hearts. And yet for those who would rather not acknowledge it as such it may be the most disappointing of days and they needn't have bothered to call it Freedom Day. 

Yes folks today is July 19 and that represents something rather special. We should be meeting up again, achieving some kind of reconciliation with each other. It is a world that may have forgotten what it was like to be friendly, welcoming and just thrilled to see a face we once knew. It had been such a long time ago that some of us might have been forgiven for just shutting our doors, cocooning ourselves in a ball of cotton wool, protecting ourselves from what has now become  a deadly virus and never emerging into the big, wide world again. 

Yesterday my wonderful family and yours truly took ourselves to the seaside just to find out whether humanity was ready to pick up the baton and just enjoy the glorious summer sunshine. When all is said and done yesterday was undoubtedly a scorcher, a corker, a magnificent heatwave of a day that was never likely to be interrupted by a drop of rain or a dark cloud in the sky. Summer had returned and she'll be here for quite a while yet. The locals could hardly believe what they were seeing since the preceding months had not lived up to any expectation. It had rained heavily and it was turning into one of the wettest summers for ages. 

But on the day before  Covid 19 restrictions were comprehensively lifted, the Essex Riviera had done itself proud, a sizzlingly hot and salubrious seaside resort that almost seemed to know that the following day would be one to remember and never forgotten. True, Westcliff, Southend's most relaxed of neighbours, couldn't have looked better had it tried. The atmosphere was something to treasure and all of those old fashioned seaside attractions were ready to be appreciated and revelled in. We all know about the end of pier seaside conventions such as walking along the promenade and licking the proverbial ice-cream. 

And yet we awoke this morning just relieved to think that we wouldn't have to worry about queuing up outside supermarkets any more or just enjoying a hot chocolate with a friend in a Costa coffee cafe. We wouldn't have to fret about the lack of any leisure facilities because the gyms were shut. We wouldn't have to look aghast at the closed restaurants, the cinemas that were all locked up for the duration, the hairdressers or barbers that just looked like lost souls and empty streets that looked very sick. 

We were all under the impression that nothing would ever be the same again and we'd have to resign ourselves to the fact that our lives had been turned upside down quite traumatically. For 16 months we were living in suspended animation, frozen solid, not knowing which way to look and who to turn to. But yesterday in Westcliff, next to Southend on Sea, was jammed solid with bare chested men wearing vivid tattoos, women holding onto their children with cheerful abandon and families bathing in the warm luxuriance of high summer. 

My wife, father  in law and yours truly walked gently past a whole succession of traditional cafes bristling with activity, people tucking into fish and chips and that now customary variety of sea food as well as the full English plate of sausages, eggs, bacon and every conceivable amount of cholesterol they could pile onto that plate. It almost felt like a return to the old days, the days when the sun never set on the British Empire, when kids played on the beach and built formidable sandcastles. 

After briefly bumping into neighbours you once grew up with and then engaged in amusing conversation, we strolled contentedly towards any destination which took our fancy. We weren't quite ready for the fairground rides or that machine where you have to thump a hammer firmly down and see how high the arrow goes, a remarkable test of strength but not a task you were willing to undertake. 

The souvenir shops were doing a roaring business which must have felt like seventh heaven to the owners and managers of the shops. There they were on full display; the spinning, fluttering and colourful windmills that looked as though they'd been there since 1958. There were the beach balls, the buckets and spades that have served so many generations that for a moment you were almost transported back to that Post War age when everything had an air of reliability and dependability about it. They were though still here and that's all that mattered. 

Seasides were the places where parents and grandparents would sit back in their deckchairs, knot their handkerchiefs, roll up their trousers and then bend down to help their younger kith and kin scoop up sodden sand, carving out some of the most impressive sand structures ever seen. Dad would simply slump back down in his chair, opening up the News of the World newspaper intrigued by the turbulent events going on around him and perhaps a few moments of salacious gossip. But then life was always and always would be light hearted fun and utterly pleasurable so we knew they were having a good time as well. 

But roll forward to the present day and you wondered how the fish and chip eateries were doing after the most difficult and challenging year and a half of their existence. How on earth had they come out of the other side still smiling, still laughing in the face of adversity?  Where did they find the resilience to battle through the dark days when not a penny had passed through their premises? Was there a sense of resignation, a bowed, forlorn head, a depressing realisation that their business was on the verge of extinction, bankruptcy never to serve their public again?  Yesterday though felt like salvation.

The sun was shining beautifully, Britain looked much healthier than it had for some time and we all looked at each other as if in sheer wonderment. This would be the dramatic turning point for most of England since the virus had been conquered and, to a large extent, eliminated. We would all travel home from this sun kissed isle  and into a Sunday evening that was synonymous with our childhood. The only difference this time would be that none of us would have to get up for school the next day.

And then it suddenly occurred to you that your children had also grown up and were fully mature adolescents more than capable of being independent and making their own decisions. It is still a strange world out there and Freedom Day still feels like Confusion Day. A vast majority of Britain can genuinely believe that the light does indeed feel like those Blackpool illuminations at the beginning of autumn. But the masks are still very much part of our facial furniture, the number of new infected Covid cases is soaring to colossal heights and July looks as if it could be tugged back helplessly to last winter. Oh please not.

Still, Lewis Hamilton has just won an almost regulation F1 Grand Prix motor race in his dynamic, streamlined car and  Collin Morikawa had won the British Open, holding aloft the famous golf trophy as if it had been a cherished prize he'd always dreamt of winning which indeed he had. It was his first time and how he just lapped it all up. The Covid delayed Tokyo Olympics will have its opening ceremony on Friday and you hope that, despite the lack of any spectators at any of the events, the latter day Olympians with Olympian ideals and aspirations will quietly be going about their business in the name of authentic sport. May the Olympic spirit flourish forever more. It is indeed the taking part that counts.