The determined survival of an accident-prone pier at Southend-on-Sea can set the example for the rebuilding now faced by Weston-super-Mare.

Long-time visitors to the pier in Essex often recall previous trips with reference to the numerous mishaps that have befallen it.

Prince George, Duke of Kent, presided over the opening of the newly extended Southend-on-Sea Pier in 1929. It was quite absurdly long already and the extension made it the longest in the world. Nearly 80 years later the sheer audacity of it still astonishes.

“We last came here between the last fire and the one before,” said Peggy Hinds, 69, sitting on a carriage of the train that rattles out over the sea. Stepping out of the train, passengers find themselves on a makeshift scaffold. Southend is spread across the distant shore. “It's quite scary,” says Adam Rendall, 11, from Surrey, staring down at the green-brown sea between the wooden boards. His mother is jumping up and down, recklessly. “Don't do it next to me,” he says, “I don't want you to take me with you.”

Times Archive, 1959: Fire damages Southend pier pavilion

The flames spread upwards and soon the entire pavilion, which seats 1,000 people, was ablaze

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The promenade skirts part of the pier that was reduced to an iron skeleton in the last fire, in 2005, before running out to a broad stage 1.3 miles (2km) into the estuary.

Peggy Dowie, 74, fell in love with the pier in its postwar heyday when five million people travelled to Southend's proud monument every year. “It had everything you could want,” she said. “It was like an entire town on the sea. I can remember the hubbub, the music, the amusements, until you got to the last part of the pier where it was quiet. There were 900 deckchairs and if you didn't get there by 9am you didn't get a seat.”

During the war the pier had been commandeered by the Admiralty. Commodores would come ashore to receive their orders, RAF workers supplied the ships with kite balloons to ward off enemy aircraft and there were orders to blow up the end of the pier if it was ever captured. It survived the German bombers unloading the last of their munitions on Southend on their way home and floating mines. A fire in 1959 destroyed the pavilion at the shore end, another in 1976 destroyed cafés, amusement arcades and a theatre. In 1986 the MV Kingsabbey sailed clean through a section that had been rebuilt, Mrs Dowie said. “It went straight through the gents' toilets. A chap was in there at the time. He told me he felt a rumbling, got his trousers up quick and got out before the seat he was on disappeared into the sea.”

Another fire in 1995 destroyed the rebuilt shore end section, another in 2005 did for the seaward railway station, a bar and a café. Little wonder yesterday that stewards were quick to tell a tourist to put out his cigarette.

Fighting to save the pier through the fires has become Mrs Dowie's full-time occupation. “It's a very emotive thing, the pier,” she said. “Piers are very British. It's like John Betjeman said: 'Southend is the pier and the pier is Southend'.”

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