PHILL Jupitus meets me at Leigh-on-Sea station and escorts me to his Cherokee Land Rover in the car park. He's with his dog Chester, a black Staffie, and clad in off-duty jeans and a green parka and scarf.
We take the short drive over the bridge to the car park on Two Tree Island. Phill laughs approvingly when I say it sounds like a track from a Joshua Tree-era U2 album.
"If the tide's in and its the right sort of day it's achingly lovely here," says the Never Mind The Buzzcocks and QI star and former Radio 6 breakfast show DJ.
Two Tree Island is a peaceful, idyllic place full of eelgrass and birds.
"To me this reminds me of my childhood in Stanford-le-Hope, really grubby salt marsh," says Phill, as we take a path through the long grass.
"I'd leave home in the morning and my mum would say don't go further than her whistle radius point. She has this incredibly loud whistle. We were remote controlled kids."
Jupitus's mother was from Collier Row, Romford. As a kid Phill grew up with his mum and stepfather close to the oil refinery. "Do you know that's where they filmed Quatermass 2?
"That terrifying industrial complex is the Shell Haven oil refinery at Coryton. It was always my grandfather's rather bleak assessment that if there was a nuclear bomb we'd all die quickly as there was only four miles of flat farmland between our house and the oil refinery.
"As kids we'd run around in the Coalhouse Fort and Tilbury Fort. Queen Elizabeth built it. Now Tilbury, there's bleak! It's docks – any town in the world that has docks people say stay away from. But there is a long cresting hill across the marshes down into Tilbury and a good pub. On the train my favourite thing is Tilbury station when people are wrong footed, you go in and come out backwards."
We've walked out on to the island proper. It's windswept here and my DMs start to squelch on muddy ground.
"People think Essex is flat but this ridge is where the Ice Age stopped," he continues, pointing out the long ridge along the coast on which Leigh-on-Sea and Hadleigh Castle are situated.
He clearly loves life in Leigh, enthusing about the local shops, the coffee shops and the art scene. "I also like the conceit of the 'on-sea' when it's an estuary. 'On sea' is when it's a flat horizon, not Canvey and Kent in the distance."
Jupitus observes birdlife with the enthusiasm of an Essex Attenborough as species glide over the water.
"That's oyster catchers. I've been here and seen hundreds of thousands of geese, it's all you can hear. It's weird to be walking the dog and move a tonne of wildlife."
After a stop at Hadleigh Castle we drive to the Arches on Southend promenade, which Phill says "have to be seen to be believed".
The Arches is a row of 13 cafes crammed under Shorefield Road in Westcliff. We enter the Riverside Restaurant and sit at a table topped with menus, ketchup, salt, pepper, sugar and various sauces. The plate glass windows give a panoramic view of the high tide.
"Not being funny or anything, but that view, that flatness…" muses Phill. "I was a latecomer to Dickens and when I read Great Expectations, his description of North Kent and the Thames as "the low lead line", that's what it looks like – like lead. Me and the missus say when this county's at its most beautiful it's like it's in black and white. The grey of the river, the grey of the sky and Kent. I love it. I can relax here…"
I ask him where his favourite spot in Essex is. "I'd have to give it to Leigh," enthuses Jupitus. "It's got everything I need. I love it, love my house, love the people. I can come out of my front the sun is setting over Canvey… It's a weird thing to get pastoral about, but that's my mum's picture you saw, sunset over Canvey.
"The variation in the view of the refinery, Canvey, Two Tree Island, the Kent marshes and the river and the differences you see in it, tide in, tide out, sunny, cloud, windy. Quite often, if I want to clear my head, I just go to the end of the road.
" I remember seeing 20 Thames barges in full sail tear-arsing up the Thames. It's a sight Dickens would have seen – timeless."
As he pours the tea, I ask him how Stanford-no-Hope earned its moniker.
"There was a beautiful stone facade at the station and the name was engraved on it. In the mid-1970s someone just sprayed "no" over "le". My old mate Brian used to say 'we've got three hopes in life, Bob Hope, no hope and Stanford-le-hope.'"
"You have to try some ice cream," he says after our fine lunch, pulling up at the Rossi's shop. It's another dreamy venue, packed with retired folk, looking out at the sea through huge glass windows.
You don't expect a comedian to be full of eulogies to Essex, but spend some time with Jupitus and you soon discover that there's more to him than the Never Mind The Buzzcocks persona. Like one of his heroes, Ian Dury, he's finding Essex and drugs (ok, the odd shot of caffeine) and rock'n'roll are very good indeed.
We discuss how quickly the tide is going out. It's gone from lapping at the esplanade to a huge grey sweep of mud, sand and beached boats.
"I can say, hand on heart that I've looked at the Grand Canyon and thought this is not for me. Here the beauty is so subtle. There's physical changes, millions of tonnes of water where it wasn't an hour ago," reflects Phill, a man who's toured Route 66 for TV, but is utterly happy in Leigh.
