Sutton-on-Sea Connections

Today I had an early start (05.00) to make sure that would be in good time for a taxi test at 09.00 in Sutton-on-Sea on the Lincolnshire coast. 

As I said in yesterday's post, last time I was at Sutton-on-Sea I must have been in short trousers. It would have  been my summer holidays (along with my parents) in the early 1960s staying at my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Eric's home. My uncle was an officer in the Royal Air Force and the officers' married quarters for the local air base were in the town, - very convenient for us. In those days, before cheap package tours to Spain and other parts of the Mediterranean, it was a popular resort for families, a bit more upmarket than the nearby, larger, Skegness and the beach would be full of children building sandcastles, paddling in the sea and generally doing what children do at the seaside.

Today, although there is children's paddling pool just  behind the seafront, there appears to be few youngsters around to use it. The town seems to have become  popular retirement destination, according to the owner of the garage carrying out the taxi test, many of the retirees are former RAF officers who were billetted there during their service careers.

And one last personal connection, the garage was just round the corner from my uncle's old house where I spent my childhood holidays.

A more historical connection is indicated by this unusual style of street name sign. It refers to Alex Henshaw who's  famiy had business interests in the area and who learned to fly at the nearby Skegness and East Lincolnshire Flying Club. Henshaw went to make record breaking flights before World War II and during the war he was Vickers Armstrong's chief test pilot at their Spitfire production plant at Castle Bromwich. He later wrote his memoirs of this period under the title "Sigh for a Merlin".