I was riding on the bus with my mother and I was very exited. My mother was on her way to work in an ice cream kiosk on the promenade at the seaside resort of Hunstanton. We lived in the village of Dersingham just six miles from Hunstanton and it was the start of the school summer holidays in 1947. We had just got over a very rough winter with lots of snow but now in July the weather was dry and warm.Ìý My father had just come out of the army after 25 years and he had started work as a school caretaker. My mother said she would take me to work with her and I could play on the beach. I was only eight years old and that summer I spent most of the days, weather permitting, playing on the beach. I made lots of friends with other local boys and girls. By the time I went back to school in September I had fallen in love with Hunstanton beach. When the next summer arrived I was a year older and a lot more adventurous so my mother let me go in the blue lagoon swimming pool where I soon learnt to swim. But once again I spent a lot of my time on the beach. There was so much to do and see with the rock pools full of shells, mussels, crabs of all sizes, cockles and small fish.Ìý Each day I could not get down on to that wonderful beach quickly enough. After the great flood of 1953 my mother changed her job and I left school and went out to work. I would still go to Hunstanton every weekend and the first thing I would do was to have a walk on the beach, my beach. The years went by but then in 1962, after serving two years in the army, I got a job in a public house right beside the beach at Hunstanton. I would stand in the doorway on a summer's evening and watch the sun set over the sea. It was truly wonderful. You can go all around the world and not see a sight like that. Then in 1966 I got married and we went to live in a house right next to the beach. At the same time I started to dig bait in my spare time. So here I was, not only living beside the beach, but also working on it nearly every day. I dug bait on Hunstanton beach for the next 30 years and I got to know every nook and cranny. From the wonderful red, white, and brown cliffs to the north, along the golden sand as far south as the rich black mud that would squelch through your toes when you walked across it in your bare feet. And even now, in my 66th year, I still go down to that beach every day. My beach. The beach that I fell in love with way back in that summer of 1947. | 
