A Hythe mother has recounted the terrifying moment her five-year-old son went missing at Dymchurch beach, sparking a frantic 90-minute search that saw dozens of people joining the effort to find him.

Candy Archer, along with her husband Ryan and their three children—Winston, Maxim, 14, and Alessandra, 7—had planned for a fun-filled day at the seaside on Sunday. However, their outing quickly turned into a nightmare when their youngest, Winston, suddenly vanished.

One moment Winston was there, and the next, he was gone,” Mrs. Archer recalled. “He’s a bit of an adventurer, and this isn’t his first time getting into trouble. Just a few months ago, he had an accident at Hythe beach and needed stitches.

After arriving at the car park, Mrs. Archer stayed behind to pay for parking while her husband took the children to the beach. When she joined them, Winston was nowhere to be seen.

“We started looking for him immediately, thinking he might have wandered off to join someone else’s picnic or play with other kids’ toys, but as time passed, our concern grew,” Mrs. Archer said.

The family, who had set up their spot on the beach near the High Knocke Estate, became increasingly anxious as the minutes ticked by with no sign of Winston. “After about half an hour, panic set in,” Mrs. Archer said. There must have been at least 100 people helping to look for him. It was overwhelming how many people just dropped everything to help.”

The search intensified with the involvement of the coastguard, who dispatched boats to scour the shoreline, while the Met Police, already present on the beach, joined the search on foot.

My husband and I must have run about 10 kilometres each, frantically searching up and down the beach,” Mrs. Archer recounted. “We were terrified—my husband thought he might have drowned, but I feared he had been taken.”

After nearly an hour and a half of desperate searching, the family finally received the news they had been praying for—Winston had been found safe and sound at Dymchurch Amusements.

“It was such a relief,” Mrs. Archer said, fighting back tears. “My husband ran barefoot to the amusements to get Winston—he’s got cuts all over his feet now.”

Winston, who had gotten lost while looking for seashells, explained that he had lost his bearings and, unable to spot his parents, wandered off and sat on some steps. A woman, who spoke no English, found him crying and, after a while, walked him to the amusements.

Winston was driven back to us by a police car, which he thought was ‘pretty good,'” Mrs. Archer added with a smile. “He was just excited to show off the big shell he found during his adventure.”

Following the incident, Mrs. Archer has ordered GPS trackers for her children to wear in case they get lost again. It was the scariest experience of our lives, but we are just so grateful to everyone who helped us,” she said.