I found myself with a free day yesterday. I was off the radar, could do what the heck I like and no-one could stop me. The possibilities were endless. And after summing up all my options, I reached the decision to go to Blyth.
Now, don’t be cruel. I like Blyth, and my trip there yesterday morning only served to reinforce my opinion of the old sea port.
I was born by the sea, years before it was 60% plastic, and while it still had cod in it. I don’t get to see it that often these days, what with living in the rural idyll that is the Tyne Valley, so I was quite excited at the prospect of standing on the shore and practicing my thousand yard stare out to the distant horizon like the French Lieutenant’s Woman. Except I don’t identify as a woman. And, no matter how I dress it up, I’m still in Blyth. But anyway, that was the aim of my visit, and I’m happy to tell you that I succeeded in my quest.
Parking up near the ice cream parlour (yes, ice cream parlour. NOW you’re interested!) I walked over the dunes towards the beach. There was a vaguely militaristic atmosphere about, partly because of the little group of displays by the combined Armed Forces of the United Kingdom and, rather incongruously, the Newcastle Thunder Rugby League team.
I was cheered a little to see that there was also an LGBT stall, complete with rainbow flag, offering support for veterans. There was a time not so long ago when anyone who wasn’t enthusiastically and solely heterosexual were excluded from the Armed Forces, so this was good to see.
The first thing I noticed when I got to the top of the dunes was a couple of six inch Guns pointing out to sea. I thought that’s taking Brexit a bit too far, but on closer inspection they turned out to be replicas of the weapons that stood there during the Second World War. They are part of the Blyth Battery Museum, along with a few old look out posts.
One of those posts is in a small room at the top of a tower which is accessed by an open fire-escape type staircase on the outside of the building. I considered not going in, as I am really not comfortable with even the most unchallenging of heights, but my fascination with what we still refer to as “the war” – as if it had been the only one – overrode my nervousness around open staircases and up I climbed.
The room at the top was stuffed full of memorabilia, visitors and guides. I was immediately pleased that I’d made the effort. There were artefacts from the conflict, everything from a German helmet to six inch naval shells and a 1944 Kit Kat wrapper.
The resident guide, an old soldier resplendent in his camouflage uniform, knew his stuff. He could even deliver some of his talk in German, which was met with fixed smiles and encouraging nods as none of the group there understood the language. It did lend an air of authenticity to the proceedings though.
We were told (in English now) that the six inch shells could have been fired from the original guns at the adjacent battery, travelling up to seven miles before interrupting a German sailor’s ablutions. Disappointingly, he didn’t mention the Kit Kat. I had a rogue thought about firing a Kit Kat seven miles, and how “the war” might’ve been different if that had been the case.
I slunk out the door and backwards down the stairs while he went into other details about “the war”. I don’t want to sound pompous, but I have been reading about that conflict for a long time and none of it came as a surprise. It’s good to know that people are continuing to learn about it though.
The tide was about as far out as a tide could be, so I took the opportunity to walk down to the water’s edge and get some sand in my shoes. The sky was a translucent pearly white but the sun was trying to break through. Surprisingly for late October, it wasn’t at all cold.
Most of the other visitors to the beach had either a dog or a child with them. I had a rucksack with a book in it. On the sand, the number of paw prints outnumbered the footprints by around fifty to one. I think this was not only because dogs have more feet than us, but they also cover a lot more ground than your average Human.
You never see a sad dog at the beach. In fact, I didn’t see any unhappy people there either. Beaches have that effect on us; there’s a sense of being freed from your every day life and we rarely get to see the horizon like it appears at the seaside. And we can be sure that that horizon is unchanging; the council are never going to build on it, are they?
Of course, there is another reason that people are so happy at the beach, and that’s the ready availability of ice cream. I was going back to my car and the real world when the aforementioned ice cream parlour leapt out in front of me, getting in my way, so I simply HAD to go in.
Inside, there was one of those glass-fronted cabinets with what looks like a bus windscreen protecting the different coloured mounds of ice cream, offering flavours such as “Reese’s Whirl,” “Turkish Delight,” “Bubblegum,” and “Mackerel and Marmite”. At least, that’s how I remember it. One of them may not have been there. I plumped for a fairly ordinary Salted Caramel, a flavour that hasn’t been around that long so is still a bit exotic for those of us who were brought up on Wall’s Neapolitan.
I took my enormous, overloaded cone back out to eat it on the beach, wary of marauding seagulls. In Devon and Cornwall, they have been known to demand ice cream with menaces. But these were Geordie seagulls, and they seem to have a bit more respect for the tourist.
All good things come to an end, and that includes my visit and cone. I wandered back to my car, doing the pocket pat routine that everyone does when they can’t remember where their keys are, and consequently dabbing my jacket with little dollops of salted caramel.
A couple of women were walking slowly towards me, their trip to the beach just starting. The older of the two, probably in her seventies, had a walking stick and was arm in arm with her daughter. As they passed me, the daughter said that it was a lovely day to have “a nice little stroll.”
I silently agreed. And, I thought, what better place for it?
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