Hat sagas and stunt riders...summer of 1948 remembered

Tourists were streaming into Southend in record numbers and fetes, fayres and carnivals were as popular as ever. Yet behind the happy revelry something of a crisis was looming - a massive shortage of hats!

Where are all the hats? was the ominous headline in a July 1948 edition of the Southend Pictorial as the newspaper reported how the recent heatwave had led to a hat catastrophe.

The unusually hot weather had meant hats had flown off the shelves at unprecedented speed, leaving many style-conscious Southenders in a conundrum. Should they wear a cheap, ‘inferior’ hat to protect themselves from the sun or shun a hat altogether and keep their fashion pride?

The Pictorial was on the case: “Women who seek shelter from the sun under the brim of a straw Mexican or coolie-type hat and men who want to sport a natty Panama to shade them on the bowling green, will find disappointment if they look for this type of headgear in Southend,” told the newspaper.

According to the Pictorial - which conducted its own ‘investigation’ into the hat crisis - women especially had two choices facing them - to buy a budget felt boater or splash out mega bucks on a shiny straw boater with “expensive trimmings”.

As for men, the situation was worse: “Genuine Panama hats are no longer being imported,” the Pictorial article reported, only “inferior straw hats are left in abundance”.

Hat-gate aside the weather was proving to be big business for Southend traders. On one day alone in July one happy market stall holder reported selling a colossal 18,000 peaches to tourists - a record.

Tons of ice cream and tomatoes were being snapped up too in record numbers.

A little later in the summer all thoughts turned to the carnival. The Southend Carnival was a huge event in its day and preparations took months.

The carnival fete saw the arrival of two major attractions - giant 42 stone Barney - who was the world’s heaviest man - as well as the world’s smallest woman Edith Barlow - whom the Pictorial described as being 21 years of age and weighing just 17lb.

Both proved to be a big hit with spectators eager to gawp at the pair. Revellers also came out in their thousands to welcome British film star Patricia Roc to town to judge the carnival queen competition.

A fearless teenage girl named Maureen Swift was also making headlines. Maureen, age 16, of York Road, Southend, was giving up to 50 performances a day riding her motorcycle around the Kursaal Amusement Park’s famous ‘Wall of Death’ alongside legendary stunt rider Tornado Smith.

Another visitor to town in the summer of 1948 was Violet Bonham-Cater (actress Helena’s grandmother) who came to the Crowstone Social and Literary Society to deliver a speech on the ‘great people’ she had known. Four hundred fans turned out to hear her speak.

Check out our vintage photo gallery of images from the summer of 1948 in Southend.