Southend's Annual Whitebait Festival

A blustery day in Southend for the Annual Whitebait Festival. The Afternoon Orchestra played We Do Like to be beside the Seaside, Gavin Dixon of The Fishermen's Mission led the service with prayers and hymns, including For Those in Peril on the Sea. Accompanied by the mayor, Cllr Judith McMahon, a basket of whitebait was then taken to the shore where it was hurled into the sea to the delight of the seagulls. A whitebait lunch followed in the hosting Sands restaurant, served to members of the Essex Chamber of Commerce, who have been running the event since it was revived in 1937

The photos are the last for my forthcoming book, Whitebait and the Thames Fisheries, which gives a history of whitebait fishing in the Thames, and details of the 19th century annual Ministerial Whitebait Dinners.