BeenThere-DoneThat
The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain
BeenThere
DoneThat
DoneThat
The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain.
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I have spent every childhood holiday at walton, as have all my very large family since they were children. I loved the pier, as it was about 10/15 years ago, before the council injected a load of cash into it. The front used to have different eating holes - doughnuts - candlyfloss - sweets, you know the type of thing. Inside where the cafe is now, there was a open hatch that served chips in a cone which always gathered a pool of vinigar in the bottom.
Where the arcade was, there was bingo, then a smaller arcade and a mirror maze instead of Pirate Pete's. I have so many wonderful memories of walton and the pier. My cousin Danny having to be rescued from the mirror maze after he whacked his head so hard he almost knocked himself out! Again danny and me had to be rescued off the bumper cars after we had a head on collision and smashed our heads together! Danny, his brother Richard and my brother Stephen were all crammed into a car on the old ghost train, and as it went down the ramp, it fell backwards again and came to a stop in the middle. Another rescue was needed!
There was the 'bumpy ride' as we called it, the umbrellas, the twister - all gone. The planes, helicopters, so many wonderful rides for kids, some of which are happily still there, and I think its fantastic when I look at pictures of myself and siblings and cousins 25/30 years ago on these rides, and now I have pictures of my own children on the same rides.....that is lovely.
I am sad about the changes - they are not for the better as far as i a concerned. Maybe thats just because of my fond memories, but I think that really its because I know how much fun I had as a child, and there is no reason why children of this day and age should not enjoy the same things. My children do enjoy walton, but they are so spoilt with technology and whatnot that they don't feel the magic and rush of excitment that we did as children when our parents decided that tonight was the night we were off to the pier (before either drinkng at the pier hotel of back to the naze club house, something else that was totally ruined and for those reading this has nothing to do with the club house currently on the Naze Marine Caravan Park!)
I have one major issue though. the carousel. It was a beautiful, original piece of, I'm assuming, victorian craftmanship. Handpainted, proper hair manes and tails on the horses, proper reins. It must have been worth well over a million pounds. A couple of years ago I noticed that it had slyly been replaced with a plastic, very tacky replica. Why would you do this? It was a piece of history.
Out of everything that changed on the peir, that was the worse. I understand the need to change with the times, but Walton Pier hasn't got it right, especially if the owners think that selling off a tremendous piece of victorian craftmanship is the right way to go.
Katie Appleby, Tenterden, Kent Thu 30th Jul 2009
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