h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

While reading this http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-30997755 I saw the line "Colchester Borough Council said it would stop funding a number of public toilets across the area, including several in West Mersea." My first though was 'Oh, that probably means they're going to close down this http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=51.774075,0.930794&spn=0.000773,0.002064&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=51.774075,0.930793&panoid=Tr4ygQ-cYOPTx63cIt9HPw&cbp=12,343.3,,0,4.21 '

That would sadden me. When I was a kid we'd go to West Mersea once or twice a summer. It was our seaside place to go. We went to Southend too, but really only for the illuminations.

We always took the same route from home, went past the same landmarks, each of which added to the mounting excitement because it was one step closer to the sea, and the journey culminated in driving over The Strood - the causeway between the mainland and Mersea Island, then turning right into Seaview Avenue after a few minutes which, appropriately, would be the first time we'd see the sea (which wasn't actually the case because we'd already seen it as we went over the causeway, but that looks more like a river because it's not the open sea, and seeing it directly in front of us and with the horizon, seemed like the proper way to do it).

Once we got there we'd park in the same car park, which was grass rather than tarmac and is still there. All the beach huts are still there too (and worth many tens of thousands of pounds more than they were back then, no doubt), and so is the aforementioned khazi, but the beach shop we used call in at has gone, and so have three delightful little 1920s/30s-built bungalows which were just to the other side of the public bog, and were called Mersea, Osea and... I can't recall the other one, but it was something-sea, and all three were named after islands along the Essex coast.

So, at some point during the day, probably several points, I'd need to visit that little building, and now it could be one to be closed down.

Aside from it being another little piece of my childhood to disappear and aside from the idea of having a beach resort with no public toilets being plainly wrong, as far I'm concerned this is just one more legacy of Thatcher, and how someone who once proudly proclaimed that there's no such thing as society, has done more to wreck the thing whose existence she denied than any other British leader I can think of, at least during my lifetime. The concept that money and all things fiscal is the be-all and end-all of everything, whether it be cutting costs beyond the bone to deny ordinary people the help of the welfare state, or maximising profits to swell the bank accounts of the wealthy, has done more damage to society than anything else I can think of, even Hitler's bombs, because it's set British people against each other, and now against immigrants with the rise of UKIP, which might not have happened so meteorically without the recent recession.

Well done Thatcher, well done.

And a much more positive story about Mersea
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-31153034