Comb the streets search the beach hang out on the greensward and you will not find one plaid-clad teenager reeking attitude

Comb the streets, search the beach, hang out on the greensward and you will not find one plaid-clad teenager reeking attitude. That is the surprising thing about Frinton: its Enid Blyton wholesomeness and golden- oldie mindset have filtered through the whole population. “We’ve got laws to keep things the way we like them,” comes not from a crusty colonel or blue-rinser but a twentysomething in the library. There are by-laws to prevent radios on the beach, picnics on the greensward, food being sold within 200 yards of the seafront, walking about shirtless, hanging washing out on a Sunday afternoon and parking cars facing on-coming traffic.This Singaporean joy in social order shows no signs of waning. Meanwhile, the sand is hidden, as best it can be, behind two tiers of beach huts, vigorously regimented between equidistant breakwaters. Placards are placed every few yards, giving would-be hedonists their first taste of a long list of restrictions.Frinton’s local legislation is legendary, enthusiastically tackling all areas of non-conformity.

Far more celebrated is the “greensward”, a mile and a half of grassy borders stretching the length of the seafront. You could even be forgiven for not realising the beach existed since, in the best traditions of British modesty, they don’t like to make a fuss about it. Indeed, no appraisal of Frinton would be complete without mention of pensioners, who make up 51 per cent of the population. “Harwich for the Continent, Frinton for the incontinent” is the town’s most famous epithet. Living in bungalows, retirement homes and low-rise apartment blocks, they supply a buttress of well-heeled villadom and the prevailing character of the town. A poster campaign aimed at attracting tourists in the late Seventies featured Southend with its funfair and Clacton with its pier, while Frinton was illustrated by a sedentary old woman next to a potted plant.Eschewing the usual seaside theme of fun, the elderly have created a town of slow-paced tranquillity built on the word “discreet”. Frinton makes a career out of bucking national trends.
“The thing about Frinton is that it’s very tidy and full of old people,” says a former resident, Paul Carpenter, 26.

With six churches, no pub and a Bible-belt feel, Frinton was the town where the true blues could take solace in last weeks local elections: the Conservatives romped in with all three seats, Labour trailing behind even the independents. “Ssshhh!” hisses an elderly newspaper reader a few feet away. Frintonians are not slow to show their disdain towards would-be hedonists. Nearly 65 miles from London on the East Anglian coast, Frinton (population 5,500) is Essex’s own Stepford, adhering to a chipper air of net-curtained respectability and yesteryear values. “Watch me! Watch me!” squeals a six- year-old leaping off a sandcastle, an asymmetrical eyesore among the strictly regimented sands of Frinton beach. “Some men pretend to be ill because they cannot face the pressure of going in to work,” says stress expert Professor Cary Cooper of Liverpool University. “Sometimes they even develop minor symptoms to persuade themselves that they are ill.”Take a leaf out of Virginia Bottomley’s book, guys.

Curl up on the couch, make your voice go quavery and hope for the best.. Virtually all of them (96 per cent) think there is not enough information about healthcare for men. Eighty-eight per cent think society puts a higher value on women’s health than their own. Sixty per cent of them are suffering from depression, of whom 38 per cent, tragically, turn to “nobody” for help; they would rather talk to a GP or friends and relatives than their partner.The same number are suffering from stress, attributed by 79 per cent of respondents to work. “One was furious because I said she needed it more; the other was upset because I did not pick her.”Meanwhile, a self-selected survey of 5,000 analysed by Men’s Health magazine made for depressing reading.