We moved to Brightlingsea in '88 because we wanted to be nearer to the sea. We used to come up to Brightlingsea every weekend to sail and stay in our caravan so it made sense to move up here. Because Brightlingsea is small then there isn't a lot to do as it only has a population of 8,000. If you want to buy any thing then you have to go into Colchester which is a large town near us. It is famous as being one of the oldest towns in England so you may well have heard about it. I Brightlingsea however there seems to be a lot of pubs, 13 in fact so you don't have to go far to get to the pubs, but apart from that there is only some fish and chip shops, an Indian, Chinese, Stationary shop, Newsagents and a couple of other really tacky shops. In fact if it wasn't for the sea and the sailing Brightlingsea would be quite boring.
We do however have the best potato Shop in the entire world. This is where we go after sailing and I think that we must be the shops biggest customers. I have scanned in a menu from 'Tastespuds' so you can see what you are missing and if you ever go to Brightlingsea I would recomend you to do there.
We had always thought that Brightlingsea was a pretty boring place, that was until January of '95. This was when we started to have live animal exports through our town.
We had three tier lorries with live exports of lambs and calves coming through the town against most peoples wishes. Moving animals in lorries for hours and hours before loading them into a ship and taking them the long way across the North Sea, in winter, standing, before driving them goodness knows how many more hours just so that they can have their throats cut, or be stuck in a veal crate, at the end is really cruel.
I have been Veggie for years (I think I converted the rest of my family!) so as you can imagine my views(as well as most of the population of Brightlingsea, who are also veggie) are very strong against this.
I have seen animals dead in the lorries as they come through the town and after seeing the condition of the animals everyone wants the trade to stop. One day the police sent 600 riot police into our small town to force the lorries through the crowds. Lots of people were arrested (I haven't been arrested yet but I can say that My sister was along with my mum.) and some of my friends got badly crushed in the crowds!
We made the papers and even the regional news and after weeks and weeks of standing in the rain and snow at 6 in the morning all the protesting worked in Brightlingsea and the trucks have stopped coming through. We are however aware of the fact that the animals are going out else where.
So that is about all there is to know about Brightlingsea and I can leave you with this picture of Brightlingsea.
