"Everyday is Like Sunday" - the locations

The video for Morrissey's 1988 single Everyday Is Like Sunday was filmed in Southend on Sea in Essex. 

As that is less than 10 miles from where I live, I've meant for ages to take current pictures of the locations and compare with the video. I've finally got round to it.

The video features a young girl (apparently played by Lucette Henderson) and two women (who've been described as her mother and older sister, although that's never made explicit in the video). The older woman is Billie Whitelaw, who among many other roles played the nanny in The Omen. The younger is Cheryl Murray, formerly in Coronation Street, often mentioned as a favourite TV programme of Morrissey's.

It opens with a view of the Golden Discs record shop in Queens Road. I many times bought records here, including when it later became a branch of HMV. Now, though, it's a bar

The scene changes to Whitelaw and Murray exiting a shopping centre - the Royals, at the top of Pier Hill 

We then get an obligatory grim view of the beach, and the Pier, which also features at the end of the video. 

Southend Pier is the longest pleasure pier in the world, and has a small train in which you can ride if you don't fancy the mile+ long walk to the end.  There's not much to see at the end apart from a lifeboat station and a cafe. What would be really good would be the kind of cafe featured in Friday Night Feast. Sadly, that's only there for filming and is not open to visitors. The rest of the time it's just a closed green building.

A side shot of the pier:

Then to the Kursaal. This is a criminally underused building. It's very distinctive, in a prominent location near the seafront, and yet is now rather run down and houses a Tesco supermarket and not much else.

Then it's back to the beach, and the Adventure Island theme park. The Helter Skelter can be seen in the earlier picture of the beach, along with the ferris wheel. The theme park was rather moribund at the time of the video (in keeping with its theme, actually) but has subsequently been the recipient of a fair bit of investment.

The distinctive Three Shells Cafe is next to Adventure Island, and has had a coat of paint since the time of the video:

Our heroine now takes a walk up Pier Hill. Rossi ice cream is on the corner. This is a Southend institution - particularly the 99's (soft ice cream in a cone with a chocolate flake) - and is linked to Status Quo's Francis Rossi

Continuity goes out of the window now. Our heroine is back in Queens Road, just along from Golden Disc. The butcher's window she looks into is just before the building going over the road in the picture below.

The opticians seen here has moved to further along Queens Road. The picture below shows where it was, and my best guess is that it was replaced by the Kingfisher Cafe. 

Similarly, the butcher's shop has gone, replaced by (I think) the shop next to Il Pescatore restaurant.

Back to the seafront! There are a number of cafes under the arches here, and it's not clear which one they are in. My picture below shows some examples of these (there are lots!). The hotel that can be seen behind the parade of shops is on the previously seen Pier Hill.

The two following shots are impossible to recreate now. The expansion of Adventure Island east of the Pier (it used to just be the west side) means there is no longer an unobstructed view of the Pier. The seafront shelters in Southend itself have also gone, although similar constructions are still on the seafront between Chalkwell and Westcliff.

From there, we're back into the centre of Southend, at the Victoria Shopping Centre. At the time of the video, it was a wind tunnel and cold year round. It's now enclosed so I couldn't get a picture showing the background. Still, the TV rental shop is now the hairdressers you see below. 

Now it's time to go back to the Royals!

Getting into the car is on the same stretch of road you see below. This is at the top of Pier Hill.

The car somehow gets down to the seafront (can't be done directly from there now as Pier Hill is one way traffic). At this point they are heading west, London bound. 

Not for long though! Somewhere they've executed a three point turn, travelled back along the seafront and are driving past the Kursaal again.

And then make another turn, so driving now past a turreted building which then became Ye Olde Chippy and is now permanently closed. I've taken my picture from Street View - spot the Kursaal behind.

And now we're back to the flat. The view from the window of the pier is much the same as from the road below. The same road where our heroine gets in the car.....!

This is the row of buildings which would include the flat. Can't be sure which one it was, but the balconies can be seen to be similar with the latticework.

And this shows just how close the flat is to the Royals Shopping Centre, which hardly necessitated getting into a car.

And finally, to give some perspective, the locations on a map! With a scale to show just how close they are. 

1 Golden Disc

2 The Royals

3 The Kursaal

4 Adventure Island

5 Pier Hill

6 Victoria Shopping Centre

7 Ye Olde Chippy

8 The flat

9 The Pier

(I did consider drawing the route as well, but that would just look like a scribble)