SUNBATHERS, families, sand castle-building tots and now even TV comedian Susan Calman have flocked to Southend’s sandy beaches

The Echo told on Monday how the Scottish stand-up comic explored Southend as part of her new Channel Five series, ‘Susan Calman’s Grand Week by the Sea’.

In the series she highlights the best beaches and staycation destinations in the UK and demonstrates how seaside Meccas like Southend want to move away from their ‘kiss me quick’ and stick of rock image in favour of modernisation.

But it is important to remember the hard – and often back-breaking work that went into making Southend the place we know today.

And when it comes to the seafront’s golden sands, the truth is as late as 1930, Southend didn’t have much of a sandy beach to enjoy at all.

There was no fine sand for little ones to play on with their buckets and spades or for daytrippers to place their deckchairs upon. And that bothered people.

So in the spring of 1930 Southend councillors and members of the borough’s Pier Committee decided to bring a whole heap of sand to Southend in order to create a golden seaside beach.

A dredger and tugs were contracted to place sands on the foreshore over a six month period. The contract was for 230,400 tons of sand and cost £8,345

When the dredger ‘Crammer’ arrived at Southend on a Saturday in June and anchored west of the pier, it caused a lot of interest amongst locals.

The dredger’s job was to transfer sand from the bed of the estuary (four feet below sea level), to the sea shore, starting at Westcliff. The Crammer worked alongside a motor tug and two hopper barges.

The dredger was huge and was home to a master, an engineer, a cook, a watchman and three deck hands, all who lived onboard.

Things didn’t start off as planned, however and bad weather hampered the project. After a few weeks only a few barge loads of sand had been deposited into position.

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“The weather has been so rough that we have been unable to move the dredger from one position to another,” said Mr W J Forbes, representative of the contractors in charge of the dredger.

Echo: sandy beaches

The spot chosen for the first treatment of sand was opposite the Palmeira Towers but residents who saw the sand being unloaded were not that impressed. The sand simply didn’t look like the golden sand that people were expecting, as the Southend Standard newspaper reported:

“The sand was of a dark hue and as it issued wet from the barges it was even likened by some people to treacle.

“It set immediately however and and those who examined the material closely found that it justified the name ‘sand’ in spite of its colour.”

The sand would eventually – once exposed to the air, sun and tide – bleach and become a normal, sandy colour. But it would take a while.

In August of 1930, Southend mayor Alderman Albert Martin added his displeasure to the colour of the sand. “The beach looks blacker than I have ever known, all because of this stuff,” he moaned. “It looks more like soot than sand!”