West Mersea made its own amusements.

Another instalment from the memories of SYBIL BRAND tells of children's recreations of the past.

We`re inclined to take a pitying look at the recreations of our parents and grandparents. No radio, no television. no buses to take them to Colchester for an evening`s pleasure. However, when I think of my recreations as a child, and earlier ones I`ve been told of, they were quite diversified.

Not all were refined, but the very scarceness of them made enjoyment all the keener.

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My father`s first exploit wasn`t all enjoyment.
Mersea then was divided into uplanders and downlanders. Roughly that meant the land workers who lived north and east of the Fountain and the seafaring community at the south-western end. There was always a mild feud between the two which would flare up into fights among the wilder spirits; say outside the Ship Inn in The Lane (now demolished) after closing time on Saturday nights.

My father was a school-boy downlander. An uplander brought his son down west one day and insisted the two should fight. Perhaps he thought a sounding victory would enhance upland prestige. Dad was undersized and mortally afraid, but with his two brothers George and Tom shouting "Go it, Jacks,", what could he do but square up to the other boy? "I gave him a good hard punch on the nose", he said "and drew blood. That settled it. Wasn`t I glad, I had no more trouble with him."

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Sparrow catching was a favourite sport. Dad and his mates would climb over the garden wall of Orleans, armed with a big net, and trap sparrows in the house ivy. They left in a hurry one night and bundled back over the wall, net and all.

A man`s deep voice said, "We're bound to have them," but their own pals were pulling a fast one on them and mimicking a grown-up.

Cricket was played on the marsh east of what is now called Fisherman`s Hard. My father was playing cricket there when news came of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. A German watchmaker who lived in Mersea then lamented "dis is de dreadful day". He had to go back to Germany to join up.

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The Foresters` feast, held the first Friday in July, was a great occasion. A fair with a roundabout and stalls would come to Hall Meadow, where Hall Cottages now stand, and a band would be hired from Colchester. This, preceded by a certain Munson, a wheelwright, on horseback and followed by the officers in regalia and members wearing their green sashes would "process" up to the Fountain and down to the Old Victory. Back then to the White Hart, where the feast was served with big joints on cut. There`d be no short commons that day. To men on small wages, it was literally a feast.

Those steam roundabouts survived to my childhood. I never hear the waltz from "The Merry Widow" without thinking of their brassy music, the water squirts, and locust beans. Water squirts were used freely when the fun got more boisterous and I`d gone home.

Though never allowed to buy locust beans, surreptitiously. I`d crunch one and relish the sweetness if a friend gave it to me.

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Already when I was a child houses were getting thicker and birds scarcer. My brother and his age group used bramble traps, cut green from the hedges in the spring and made into perfect pyramids, for sparrow catching in our own garden.

The girls' favourite game in the spring was "pin a peep" shows. It must have been our delight in the first flowers after winter which made us press "snow on the mountain" (aubretia), primroses, and recklessness" as we called them (auriculas), under glass and go round asking all our friends for a pin for a peep. There was a certain kudos in getting a large number of pins; they were of no use whatever.

When the roads dried up and got dusty we played hopscotch. The squares and the semicircle at the end, which we called the boiler, could easily be drawn with a piece of tile or a shoe heel, and no traffic disturbed us. In the evening the carrier`s van might pass and the bolder boys would swing on the back till the whip curled round.

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We all loved to watch Bert Cudmore drive the red mail cart up from the stables down by the Old Victory. There he sat perched on top of the box-like erection, collected the mail, and went at a spanking pace past the White Hart and up the High Street to Colchester.

Another game the girls played while the boys played marbles was "Five Stones". The game cost us nothing whatever; we simply collected five smooth round stones, flattened top and bottom, and, finding a convenient doorstep, regardless of what mothers would say about dusty dresses and petticoats, squatted on the ground.

Four stones were put on the step and the fifth used for tossing. We played onedys, twodys, threedys, fourdys. First of all one stone was snatched up with the tosser, then two, and so on. "No disturbs" meant picking one stone up without touching one near it. Believe me, this game required skill.

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Another feast enjoyed by saints and sinners alike was a chapel tea meeting. At the "Wesleyan" (now the Methodist Church), the schoolroom would overflow into the chapel itself and we would sit round enormous willow pattern dishes piled with bread and butter, new bread that day with plenty of butter. Some years ago, a bill for six pounds of butter at a shilling a pound was found behind a mantelpiece during alternations.

Winkles and shrimps would be on the menu in season. After the tea meeting would come eloquence. A caravan mission might be in progress and those missioners were often humorists as well as evangelists.

One named Ridley told a story of a previous campaign.

Naturally he`d been entertained to meals by the chapel members. He had rabbit for his first meal out, enjoyed it and thanked his hostess. The next one on the list asked the first what he liked. The answer was "rabbit". You can guess what happened. Wherever the poor man went he was confronted with rabbit. He wound up the story with this rhyme:

Rabbits young and rabbits old,
Rabbits hot and rabbits cold,
Rabbits tender, rabbits tough,
Thank the Lord, I`ve had enough.

There is still a Meeting Lane in East Mersea where a Strict Baptist Chapel stood years ago. There would be much eloquence afternoon and evening but, sandwiched in between, would be a tea. To the great delight of the boys and girls a fire of sticks would be lit on The Pightle, a small plot near, and the kettles boiled on that - making, they thought, a real picnic.

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The Coast Road about 1904, with the Coastguard's lookout on the left

A summer school treat only was the rule. The Sunday School treats were generally held in a meadow. We marched to the rendezvous with our mugs in our hands and ran races for pennies after tea. One memorable day school treat was a trip to Tiptree. We children were helped up into farm waggons while mothers and friends travelled in Rudlin's yellow brake. It was a hot summer day and the journey seemed interminable. We sang the current song "By the side of the Zuyder Zee." Was it from "Miss Hook of Holland"?

A delicious strawberry tea and shade was ready for us at Tiptree. Some Mersea people thought Tiptree was in the wilds. Mrs. George Mussett, short and round as a water butt, convulsed the grown-ups by producing a loaf of bread from her ample skirts.

"I didn`t know what sort of a place it`d be, I thought perharps there`d be nawthen to eat", So little did we know of places a few miles away then.

From Essex County Standard 24 April 1964. Transcribed by Joe Vince September 2025.

More Mersea history