WIMBLEDON bounces back into play a week from today and to celebrate, we’ve dug out some smashing tennis themed stories from our archives.

The images here are from the golden age of tennis in Southend – the 1920s and 1930s – when fashion and style on the court was just as important as skill.

Adverts from the Southend Standard and County Pictorial from these years often promoted the ‘must wear’ tennis fashions of the day, with crisp white linen shorts. cashmere tennis frocks and smart pleated skirts part of the immaculate look expected of every female player.

Southend once boasted so many tennis clubs it was difficult to count them. There was the Rochford Hundred Lawn Tennis Club, the Westcliff Tennis Club, the Leigh Park Tennis Club and the Southend Park Lawn Tennis Club to name but a few.

In 1925 a real life love match was made when ‘Mr A Harwood’, the gentleman’s tournament secretary of the Imperial Lawn Tennis Club married ‘Miss M Pain,’ the ladies tournament secretary of the same club at Crowstone Congregational Church in Southend.

Echo: Victory - Men from Westcliff Tennis Club visiting Frinton in 1925 Victory - Men from Westcliff Tennis Club visiting Frinton in 1925

In 1928 two men demonstrated how tennis was bringing together the most unlikely of people. The Southend Pictorial reported how a policeman and a church vicar could often be seen slogging it out on the court at Benfleet Tennis Club, in Brook Road, much to the delight of locals who flocked to watch the action.

“Policemen and parsons are rarely found in company in their leisure hours, but it is now becoming a customary sight to see the Rev Ralph Gardener on the courts with Constable Silwood, one of our local policemen at least two or three times a week,” described the report.

Reverend Gardner was the vicar of St Mary’s Church in south Benfleet while Constable John Silwood had been recognised by Essex Police for his bravely. Both, it seemed, were aces on the court too.

In January, 1932, there was a tragic tennis incident when a 70-year-old doctor dropped dead on the court following a strenuous match. Dr Alfred Weakley, of London Road, Westcliff, had just finished playing a match on a Saturday afternoon. He was the father of Jack Weakley, the one-time junior lawn tennis champion of the United Kingdom.

Dr Weakley, who was a native of South Africa, left a widow, two sons, and a daughter and he was laid to rest at the Sutton Road Cemetery in Southend.

In 1929 one of Southend’s oldest tennis legends died. Richard Wesencraft, aged 80, had only recently competed in a ‘challenge tennis match’ issued to local octogenarians, where he played Alfred Bedding, also aged 80. Mr. Wesencraft won 6-0, 6-2.

In the same year there was a tragedy when, while attempting to retrieve a tennis ball bouncing along the roof of a Southend bakery, Wilfred Clapson, 54, the foreman of the bakery in Victoria Road, Southend, stepped on to a glass skylight, and fell 18 feet to concrete floor.

He had gone to the roof to call employees back to work after the dinner hour. They were throwing a ball about, which he tried to catch. Instead he tragically fell. His inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death.

In July 1939 a potentially explosive incident occurred for a group of Brentwood tennis enthusiasts. Players at St Teresa’s Tennis Club were enjoying a game on their ground, which adjoined Brentwood Roman Catholic Church, when a ball happened to go into some long grass.

During the subsequent search one of the players found a bomb. The police were informed and the bomb was removed.