The Secret Beach, Dr.Anthony Roberts

The sunlight was so white it seemed to bleach the grey gravel, turning it a beautiful creamy slate as we crunched along the riverside pathway.

I’ve always been drawn to those colourful, fairly thick, glossy, expensive magazines you find in hotels or dentists waiting rooms. Those generically titled, regional, upmarket visitor attraction type things. They have titles like Essex Life, or East Anglian Coast or even more imaginatively...  Essex. 

Never quite drawn enough to actually buy one of course, but certainly enough to happily mull over the contents, smell the distinctive print and glean the interior designs tips from a middle aged minor celebrity I’ve never heard of. 

“Heather Wood-Peyton opens her doors” where she is seen photographed in her kitchen where shabby chic decor is matched by tasteful antiques.

Somewhere in these magazines you will  always find a piece about our top six “Unknown treasures and secret locations in the county” whereupon what follows is an article about tiny teahouses in Tollesbury or the sunken herb gardens of Heybridge Basin.

Invariably I want to visit every one of them. Invariably I never do.

But as we crunched along that coastal path I had the feeling that our little group had somehow stepped through a portal into one of those magazines and into one of those articles. 

We headed out from Wivenhoe towards the gravel pits of Arlesford Creek, the sun so bright on the water, the mudflats so muddy and flat, until a mile or so downriver where you can push through the gorse onto a little well trodden wish line and there you are, in a grassy clearing that sits adjacent to the stones on White House Beach.

We sat down and waited for high tide, watching as the water lapped up closer and closer over the pebbles, to the modest picnic things we’d thrown into our small rucksacks.

And then we swam in the salty sea river estuary. Oh my goodness. That water was so, so cold. But the sun was so, so warm. I’ve never had quite had that sensation before. Where such warm weather and such cold calm water combined that day on White House Beach.

An invisible stranger’s dog arrived to join us and the children threw sticks into the water for her to chase. We found a small old rusty shovel, presumably from the old gravel pit washed up. After an hour or so a tiny boat appeared, chugging up the river and landed 30 yards away. An elderly couple alighted and ate their sandwiches.

When the tide eventually turned so did we. The tidal river flowed back to the sea and we flowed back to the town.