I rather enjoyed the Between the Tides festival at Walton-on-the-Naze. On offer was a weekend of art activities and events, all held together with the loose connection of tide and time.
Walton-on-the-Naze certainly had the weather to match the event. Back in Wivenhoe, rowing had already been cancelled for the day due to the breezy Estuary Wilds conditions.
We had a brief train journey over to the Naze. We pretty much departed the train and walked straight into some experimental theatre that involved town criers. This was pretty scary shit. We decided not to linger.
There was an itinerary planned for the day, but best laid plans and all that. In the end we thought it best just to wander and to see where Between the Tides took us.
This meant the first thing was peering over the seawall onto some superb sand sculptures. I misunderstood the description in the festival programme. I thought this would be a sandcastle competition. But nope, it was the faces of some very powerful female role models etched out in the sand.
We then made our way over to Format Records. This is a fantastic shop that somehow seems slightly out of place in a sleepy North Essex coastal town. They have some serious stock in place.
I never know where to focus my attention when digging in the crates at Format. I was on a bit of an 80’s vibe and so I flicked through racks of vinyl that I once owned back in the day. The ZTT dedicated section in particular was pretty impressive.
Outside Format the festival feel continued with a DJ playing some ace digi reggae. Listening to old Greensleeves 12 inches is just what you want to kickstart your Saturday morning.
I’m not so sure about shanty singing however. This always scares the shit out of me. We walked straight into a shanty session when we reached Millennium Square and the small festival stage.
There was a market also taking place that was described as artisan. That was slightly open to artistic interpretation. If you really wanted to, you could customise your Crocs with one particular store.
It all then went a little bit wonky when a couple of dudes in beachwear started to dance around with a surfboard as the lone sea shanty singer launched into some Irish numbers.
We hit upon, by pure chance, a community art challenge. A live piece of art was being created on a large board. There was an open invitation for anyone to use the materials and add in their own design.
This is a particular personal ‘journey’ (ARF) which I am pondering entering into right now. I really do need to address my Art CSE Grade 3 demons from over four decades ago.
I’ve come round to the mantra that if you do something then you become it. Put simply, if you create some art then you’re an artist. If you stand along the sidelines and watch, then you’re simply an observer.
I decided to take up the challenge and waited to find a space on the board that was the smallest available area. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to create. In the end I used a black marker and did a few replicas of some of my tattoo designs.
I took a step back to admire my artwork and then realised that we had to GTFO ASAP.
Perhaps the best find of the day was the Walton and Frinton Yacht Club. I didn’t even know this existed. I always thought of Walton-on-the-Naze as being very much a seaside beach town.
But nope. If you take a few shortcuts around the back, you enter inlets. This is also where the Walton and Frinton Yacht Club is located.
There was an open door session at the Yacht Club as part of Between the Tides Festival. It had a fantastic local angle with a series of high class photographs from various local photographers, all inspired by Arthur Ransome’s Secret Water. This is a piece of fiction that was inspired by these very Essex backwater areas.
The photographers were all part of a loose collective Not a Camera Club. They had taken the map, which is quite a key point in the plot for Ransome’s Secret Water, and then each decided to take some snaps around a specific location.
Holding all of this together in the centre table at the Yacht Club was a blown-up version of the map with some references as to where each photo was shot. It really was a fantastic addition to the festival.
By now the itinerary was completely shot. I fancied something of a beach walk. We headed up towards our usual favourite cliffside cafe, which was now closed for the winter months.
We watched a brave lone paddle boarder trying to launch on an incoming tide before giving up with some of the fearsome waves.
And that was pretty much it for Between the Tides. There was plenty more to discover but we were both knackered and Forest were on the telly back at base at 5:30 pm.
A decent Walton-on-the-Naze day out.
