Eastbourne: A trip by the Sea that turned into the Twilight Zone.

Now I don't know about you, but I am quite partial to a day by the sea. Running your toes through the sand, eating ice-cream, going on the rides at the local fair, all the typical seaside things that you do. Checking out the local men with their shorts on, hoping that one of them will give you a good rub down with a bit of suntan cream. Oh, well we can wish can't we?

So, with this thought in mind, I decided to treat my brother and my son to a day out. A bit of male bonding for my boy and his uncle. Me slipping away to the nearest public house for a quick bevvy of alcohol, and a quiet walk along the prom prom prom... sorry, got carried away there.

Anyway, so I booked us a nice day trip on a coach, that very conveniently picked us up just along the road from my house. I tarted myself up, like you do, well, you never know who is going to be on the coach, now do you? I made sure that I sat my brother and son together, so I could slip quietly over to the nearest hunk, who would be sat on his own in the corner.

Okay, I know what you are thinking. My God, she has got one hell of an imagination! Well I have to have, I am a writer, after all. We do tend to live in our own minds and not the real world.

So, on the day in question, I dragged myself out of bed at half six, dived into the shower, and still half asleep, slapped on the old makeup, got myself ready, and by eight o-clock, I was out the door. My son was still grumbling, 'what the hell did you make me get up halfway through the night for?'

That's my son. Don't you just love him? He hasn't grown out of the, sleeping all day, and partying all night bit yet. (neither have I, but I don't tell him that!)

Anyway, meeting my brother up the road, we waited diligently for the coach. It was at a bus stop, so I wasn't particularly worried about the ten old ladies stood in front of us. I thought they were going to High Wycombe shopping. Bless them, a bit of tootling around and then a nice cup of tea. You know what I mean.

Soon, the coach came around the corner, and pulled up to the bus stop. On hopped the old ladies. At this point I just thought, 'oh well, they want a day by the sea as well'

So, heading for the back of the coach, I didn't take a lot of notice of who was on board. When I sat down, I started to look around to see who was likely to be a perspective mate. It suddenly dawned on me that all I could see was grey hair. Every single one of them were over 75! now don't get me wrong, I love going places with the older generation, but this seemed a bit ominous to me. What did they know about the place we were going too?

I figited a bit, then thought, oh well, it can't be that bad can it?

At this point, I have to tell you about the coach trip. Surreal wasn't the word. The coach driver, in his own words, was older than the passengers! And he decided to give us a running commentary all the way down to the coast. This is how it went.......

' Well now, are we lookin' forward to our day boi the sea then? (He had a very strong country accent, so I am trying to write it as he said it, my spelling hasn't gone haywire because of a nervous breakdown!)

I forgot to mention that he drove about 30 miles an hour all the way!

Anyway, the constant conversation went like this.

'I hope you arrr all avin' a good time on the coach, and as we are going down to the seasoide, I thaut it would be a good oidea, to stop of at Brighton, for all you ladees, cos this is where all the people take their clothes orfff! just think of et, naked men, walkin' around with nothin on, with their 'ands behind their backs, you would enjoy thatttt, won' yooo'

I looked at my brother, he looked at me, and by this time my son had gone purple in the face, trying not to laugh.

'anyway, all yoo ladees, av you bin watching corriennation street on the telly? Ooh that Ordree, she's a roit one, aint she? getting her kit of for all the men' !

This went on all the way down to Eastbourne. By the time I had got there, I was knackered. Trying to stop my son laughing, holding my brother down in his seat, as I thought he was going to try and escape, and me just wanting to read my paper!

Then we saw the sea. yippee, I thought, and the second the coach stopped I was of, like a whipped after a rabbit.

My brother dived off the coach, like a swimmer on a starting block. Taking a deep breath of air, he said ' Ah, sea air, clears the lungs' then promptly nearly keeled over through hyperventilation! I thought ' This is going to be one of those days!'

After looking around for my son, he had already started moaning about lack of 'fit women', I dragged them both to get a cup of tea. That's what we Brits do in a crisis, hit the teapot. After a few minutes, when we had calmed down somewhat, we started to look around. There was no sand, it was all pebbles. No, boulders to be precise. I looked left, I looked right. Nothing, ziltch, caput, no no. There was nothing apart from big buildings that were obviously bed and breakfast places, and private tenements. No funfair, no sea world, not even a decent cafe. The one that we had got tea from, was on the pier. If you could call it that. It was so derelict it looked like it was about to crash into the waves. It seemed like it was held up by a wing and a prayer, Oh, and a bit of peeled paint. The weird thing was that it appeared to be have not been touched in about 80 years. Perhaps they were going for quaint. I just saw neglect.

'Oh whoopee da', I thought, 'This is going to be a bundle of laughs'. So we decided to walk on the beach. We strolled along, quite happy for about five minutes, looking at the sea and oohing and ahhing at the boats on the horizon. Then the wind came up, and started to gust around our legs. Now I am not that big, in fact I am quite little. The gust of wind became a gail force blowout, and I found myself being blown along the seafront, as though the giant hand of God was trying to tell me something. I grabbed a telephone pole. And stood my ground. My hair was whipping around me like Medusa's snakes trying to take a bite out of my neck, and the only thing I could think of was, 'Shops, gotta hit the shops' , So trying to muster some sort of dignity, I rounded up my brother and son, who was by this time about to kill me, and we headed of in the direction of the local shopping mall.

Oh yeah right. It took us about twenty minutes to get there, and when we did, we looked around in amazement. The shops looked shabby and dirty, paint peeling of off the buildings, and then we noticed the people. Up until this point we hadn't seen any.

Every single one of them was old, ancient, decrepit, you name it, that was it. I have never seen so many wheelchairs in my life. Even the people pushing them were old. I looked around for someone younger, out of sheer curiosity you understand. Nothing. No one. Everyone looked miserable, and there was a eery quiet about the place.

'We have stepped into the Twilight zone', my brother mumbled. Tell me about it, I thought.

We carried on walking, my son mumbling to himself. He is never happy unless there is one bit of 'skirt' around. Everywhere we went, it was dreary and odd. So we headed back to the beach. We had at least another three hours down there, until the coach came back. What the hell were we going to do?

'I know, said my son, let's go to the arcade'. So we looked at each other, and set of at a fast walk, then a run, towards the pier again. Breathing a sigh of relief, we went inside the doors, out of the Gail force wind, and headed towards the games.

'Oh my God' I muttered, 'this hasn't changed since 1960' I looked around. There were about two modern racing games, the rest of them were racing horses, you know the ones I mean, line 'em up, and stick the penny in, then they wobble down the track, and you have to guess what coloured horse wins. I looked around again. Wheelchairs were coming at me, like something out of a Stephen King novel.

'I am going for a walk' I muttered and left the building. Yes I know, if Elvis had come around the corner, I wouldn't have been surprised.

So I began to take a long walk along the sea front. Don't get me wrong, the actual layout of the gardens by the main promenade were really pretty, and the sea view was really nice. It was just very still and lifeless. At one stage I came upon an old man lying on a sun lounger, he had his mouth wide open, sun glasses perched on the end of his nose, and a paper on his belly. I walked on. people were sitting staring out to sea. Nobody moved. It was as though they had been body snatched by aliens. They just stared and stared, until, feeling a bit uncomfortable staring back, I carried on walking. On the way back, the old man was still there on the sun lounger. By this time, my brother and son and found a novel way of entertaining themselves. They were throwing stones at a plastic bottle on the beach! 'Oh please', I thought, 'Is this the best that you can do?' So we walked back past the man.

'hey' my son whispered. 'Is he breathing?'

I stopped and looked. He hadn't moved a muscle for at least an hour. 'has anybody got a mirror?' I said. 'why, what do you want that for?' my brother asked. 'To see if he is still breathing!' I muttered. So., My son, not one for being tactful, went stomping over. 'He's alright, he's snoring like a drain!' He yelled. 'Shush' I hollered. 'you'll wake him up!'

My son stomped back muttering, 'wheres the bloody coach?'

We walked back up, by this time it was 4.30, and time to get back on the coach. Just as we were climbing the stairs to go in, my brother said, ' Look at the clocks' I looked around. There was one on the pier, one on the building opposite, and one further along the road. They all had stopped at seven o-clock!

'That's it' my brother said, 'Get me outta here!!' We scrambled to the back of the coach, and plonked ourselves down.

The driver climbed back on.

'Everybody have a great time?, He said, 'well' he started the engine, ' Have you 'eard the one about the old man at the pub? 'ee was watching Eastenders an' ee said'........

It was a long journey home.

 I would just like to add that, even though this sounds like I was grouching, we did actually have quite a fun day. And as for the older people, they were lovely, they have their own sense of humour, that made my son giggle. And the Bus driver, in my sons words was 'Quality', which in English means a great funny man. If we go anywhere again, I hope it is him who drives us.

Eastbourne is a place for the older retired generation, and they love it down there. On it's plus side, there are hardly any screaming teenagers, kids knocking you over with skateboards, and mummies little darlings splatting ice-cream on you as you walk by. Bliss!

I just couldn't resist a story out of it! Ya know me! Hee Hee