Should I Go to Jaywick, England?

It started with a YouTube rabbit hole and ended with a can of 7.5% white cider sitting in my house.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately watching ***Benefits By The Sea***, a documentary series centered on Jaywick, a small coastal village in Essex. It’s a place that has been officially labeled the “most deprived” neighborhood in England multiple years in a row. Since Jaywick first received that tag in 2011, the UK has cycled through six different Prime Ministers — a stat I looked up — but Jaywick remains stubbornly, fascinantly the same.

The show introduced me to a world I’d never heard of, including the local staple: **Frosty Jack’s Cider**. Because I have a habit of diving deep into the subcultures I investigate, a friend went through the Herculean effort of importing a can for my birthday. I haven’t tried it yet — I’ve been taking a break from alcohol lately — but as a piece of investigative “merch,” it’s possibly the most thoughtful gift I’ve received in years. It sits there as a reminder of a place I’ve never been, but strangely feel like I know.

The LBNY Connection

As someone residing in Long Beach, New York (LBNY), the footage of Jaywick hits a very specific chord. Long Beach was once a massive destination for out-of-towners, filled with 20th-century attractions that have since vanished. We don’t have much industry left, and steady jobs aren’t exactly falling out of the sky, yet people fight tooth and nail to stay there.

We live in smaller homes and pay a “coastal tax” of sorts just to be near the water. Jaywick is the extreme, distilled version of that impulse. Originally built in the 1920s as a DIY holiday escape for Londoners, the town is made up of “plotlands” — tiny chalets built by people who just wanted a slice of the sun. Today, reportedly 5,000 people live in those same tiny, non-standard Jaywick structures year-round. It’s the same trade-off we make in Long Beach: economic logic says move elsewhere, but the soul says stay by the sea.

The “Wild West” of Essex

There is a certain “Wild West” energy to the region that is both hilarious and heartbreaking. In one episode, a couple returns home to find they’ve been burgled. The thieves didn’t just take the TV; they actually cooked a meal using the couple’s pans and ate an entire birthday cake, leaving exactly one slice behind as a bizarre gesture of “polite” criminality. “They even ate my birthday cake… left me one little slice. That’s just… we’ve ate all your food, we’ve ate your cake, but we saved you a little bit.”

Watch: Britain’s Poorest Seaside Town (The Birthday Cake Incident) https://youtu.be/IwLYbaQtUAU?t=200

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Despite the “bleak” label the media loves to slap on it, the community spirit is massive. You see people like Nikki, a local “Good Samaritan” who spends her nights rescuing lost dogs and looking out for neighbors who have hit rock bottom. It’s a town of survivors who refuse to be “forgotten” by the rest of society.

The Verdict

So, should I go?

The Wikipedia history of Jaywick describes a town built on rebellion — land developer F.G. Freeborn essentially ignored building bylaws to ensure working-class people had a place to vacation. That defiant spirit is still there. Jaywick isn’t a “nice” place to live by traditional standards, but it’s an honest one.

As a writer and investigator, I’m often drawn to places that don’t try to hide their scars. I think I want to see the Brooklands estate with my own eyes, walk the sea wall, and maybe — once my break from the booze is over — finally crack that can of Frosty Jack’s while looking out at the North Sea.

Watch: Life in Jaywick (Part 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dSqu3V7o4A

It’s not for everyone, and it definitely looks bleak, but there’s a resilience in Jaywick that feels familiar. It’s the sound of a seaside town that refuses to stop swinging.

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