According to legend, the fated Eastenders lovers Paaaaat and Fraaaank Butcher met at a Clacton-on-Sea campsite in the late 1950s. It’s up to you whether you want to lumber along Clacton Pier in the twenty-first century, in homage and ostentatious earrings, calling ‘Fraaaank’ in a foghorn voice, but we think it would be a hoot.
No? Feast your mince pies on the other seasidely sights available when camping in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, the biggest town on the Tendring Peninsula and a celebrated seaside resort since the days of Queen Vic. These days, the pier has a SeaQuarium and the bits and pieces we’re fond of on a seaside hol – helter skelter, amusements, rides and dodgems – but fisherfolk are also to be found casting off for catches on the pier, and if you fancy a boat trip to London Tahn, Waverley steamers steam from here along the Thames (not to Albert Square, sadly).
Clacton’s award-winning beach, Martello Bay, is rather a cracker and edges an award-winning seafront, and we’re sure if Pat and Frank were around today they’d sneak off to the seafront gardens for some quiet time whispering of sweet nothings. To see that would also be a hoot.
