AS we enter a new life in the wake of coronavirus and workers prepare to commute back to London many Southenders will be wishing they could just hop on a boat and make the breezy commute up the Thames rather than on the train.

The dream of a water service linking Southend with central London has been floated – and sunk – a number of times over the decades. But now the plans are getting a fresh look. The Echo revealed last week how new proposals could see river boats operating along the Thames Estuary, linking Southend to both Tilbury and London.

Southend councillor Kevin Robinson, cabinet member for business, culture and tourism, said the council would be looking into exploring the option of bringing in an upriver service from the pier.

This isn’t the first time. In 2009 the prospect of a waterbus service from Southend Pier to the capital gained popular support and the council admitted it was keen to hold talks with Thames Clippers, the company which runs waterbuses within the capital. But alas it wasn’t to be.

Although there has never been a commuter service from Southend to London, for many years the pier did operate regular services over to Kent and up to London, mainly for pleasure purposes.

In Victorian and Edwardian times paddle steamers such as the popular Koh-I-Noor would ferry passengers up and down the estuary. From 1892 until 1918 it operated from Old Swan Pier in central London, sailing down to Southend to pick up passengers at the pier and then heading to Kent resorts such as Margate and Ramsgate.

The pier was also once a bustling hub for daytrippers setting sail to the seaside hotspot of Ostend in Belgium.

When the new Royal Daffodil pleasure steamer began its inaugural season in May 1939, ferrying passengers across the continent, thousands of Southend residents clambered to book their tickets. From Tower Pier the Royal Daffodil would make her way down to Southend Pier before sailing over to Ostend and Calais – often with more than 2,200 passengers on board.

But it was Ostend, a thriving seaside town on the Belgian coast, that proved to be the biggest attraction to Southend passengers.

The General Steam Navigation Company’s 2,060 tonne Royal Daffodil was seen as a glamorous way to travel and was said to always be filled with “laughter and chatter’.

“As she arrives at Southend Pier from London, lively music is heard from the ship’s loud music,” wrote one passenger.

“There are brisk ‘hurry along theres!’ from officers shepherding, Southenders up the gangways, everywhere a babel of laughter and chatter. Every chair on the sun deck is taken as passengers settle down for the five hour journey to Ostend.”

The Royal Daffodil’s era as a tourist steamer – the first of its kind in Southend – only lasted a few months. By September of 1939, with war having broken out, she was requisitioned for a more practical purpose – to carry troops of the British Expeditionary Forces to France.

She was one of the ships that took part in Operation Dynamo, the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 which saw her rescue 9,500 men in seven trips.

After the war, the Royal Daffodil was refitted, and was used as a tourist ship once again – sailing from Gravesend or Tilbury to view the French coast, also calling at Southend and Margate.

She was scrapped in 1966.