June 12th - 14th
Fifty
miles up from Southport, into Preston then up the M6. Not bad site
here, just behind Morecambe's new football ground and with a cycle
path into the town one way and to Lancaster the other. Good TV and
radio reception, so will be able to watch the opening World Cup match
tonight, and my Three dongle works fine. All good then.
Just
before I left Southport I was talking to the old chap in the van next
to me. He was getting a push-chair out of his van and explained to me
“This is for the dog. He's thirteen and gets very tired, but he
likes a walk and doesn't like being left in the van. We'll walk down
the town and put him in the push-chair when it gets too much for
him.” Priceless.
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| Across Morecambe Bay |
Having
good radio reception means I can listen to the ball-by-ball
commentary on the First Test against Sri Lanka. Oh,
bliss! And the sun is shining. In fact, it was so warm in the van on
the way up that I had to use the fan for the first time. Ain't life
grand? Isn't it strange that so many towns in this part of the world
have been named after famous entertainers? Eric Morecambe, George
Formby, Bing Crosby, Chuck Bury, Billy Preston, Burt Lancaster, the
list is endless.
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| The Stone Jetty |
So,
after settling in, having lunch, a read and a snooze, I did my now
usual preliminary scouting outing on the bike. There
is an off-road cycle-track right to the sea-front, so I took that and
rode along the promenade from top to bottom. Half-way along there is
the Stone Jetty which has an old station building on it. The jetty
was built in 1851 and the station was the terminus for boat trains
for ferries to Ireland and Scotland.
Another old station now contains
the Tourist Information office, which is excellent and which provided
me with a free cycling map of the area. A third station is actually
the station where trains to Morecambe stop and start. As
I rode along the promenade I enjoyed a lovely view of the fells in
the Lake District across Morecambe Bay. There is a nice sculpture in
steel on the prom of the fells with their names so you can see what
you are looking at across the bay. The
bay itself is amazing, the sands stretching out towards the Furness
peninsular as far as the eye can see.
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| Steel fells on the promenade |
On
Friday I attacked Morecambe for real. In along the cycle track, which
apparently used to be a single-track railway line, then south along
the promenade to Heysham. The track made me climb a very stiff hill
then disappeared when I got to the top; unkind, I thought. So I
turned round and rode north, along the length of the Morecambe
promenade and up to the coast road to the north. Set into the
promenade were some metal discs engraved with interesting facts about
Morecambe Bay. It would take twenty-four million years to fill the
Bay from a bath-tap. The West End pier was damaged by fire in 1907
and destroyed by a storm in 1977. The Central Pier was damaged by
fire in 1933 and demolished in 1992. The Central Amusement Arcade was
destroyed by fire somewhen or other. Since I had just passed the Mega
Zone laser tag attraction (whatever that is) still smouldering from a
fire yesterday, it seems there is a long-term problem here with
things catching fire. The fire brigade were on strike, incidentally,
so the police had to deal with the fire.
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| Not the one with short, fat, hairy legs |
On
a wide grassy area next to the promenade were two old geezers having
a chat, each of them with a golden retriever. The two dogs were
sitting quietly, virtually nose-to-nose, and at first it appeared
that they were just ignoring each other. When I looked closer,
though, I could see they were talking:
Rover: Blimey,
Towser, these Owners are something else, aren't they? Mine watched
the Brazil match last night and now he thinks England can win the
World Cup!
Towser:
I know. What are they like? Mine listened to the Test Match this
morning and now he reckons we're going to win the Ashes back. Did
yours have a glass of sherry before we came out?
Rover: Yep,
it always spells trouble, doesn't it? They'll probably want to go
down the pub now instead of going for a proper walk.
A
number of breakwaters formed from piled-up rocks have been built, and
this has had the effect of creating a succession of little sandy bays
along the seafront, making a most attractive sight. Another
attractive sight is the bronze statue of Eric Morecambe, real name
Eric Bartholomew, on the promenade near the Clock Tower. These
features, together with the amazing Art Deco Midland Hotel, the Stone
Jetty, the Lifeboat Station and the backdrop of the Fells make for a
really outstanding promenade.
Sadly,
the town itself, behind the facade of amusement arcades, rock-shops,
pubs, ice-cream parlours and boarding houses, is not an attractive
sight and is just appalling. It was a frightful shock to the system
after the delights of the promenade. Dereliction of both buildings
and of people. It even has an Arndale Centre, which is always the
kiss of death. I didn't have the courage to go in. I've never seen so
many derelict-looking, demented-looking or dangerous-looking people
together in one place. Fertile ground for Channel Five documentaries.
I
had decided the charity shops and the plaque about Thora Hird, who
was born here, were the highlights of the town centre when my sanity
was rescued by finding a brilliant model railway shop in a
back-street. Half an hour's chat with the owner and I was ready to
face the town centre again, but I escaped without waiting around. I
did, though, sport an exquisite 148:1 scale Southdown bus from him
and it's now in pride of place in the van together with Tintin and
Snowy and the two cats.
I
feel sad about Morecambe, because it has obviously at some time been
an elegant town of some note and the people I met were friendly and
nice, although they sounded a bit like Caroline Aherne. Will its
decline continue, I wonder, or can the restoration of the Midland
Hotel and the Winter Gardens and the new football stadium inspire a
return to former glories? I think the life of the town has been
sucked-out by Lancaster, just three miles up the road, with its
university and county town status. By the way, I read that Caroline
Aherne has lung cancer. I hope she makes it because she is a talented
girl and we can't afford to lose talent early. Her “Mrs Merton”
used to break me up totally.
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| The fabulous Midland Hotel |
On
my last day I got the bus to Lancaster as planned. I had forgotten it
was Saturday and was a bit overcome by how busy it was. It was also
very hot, the hottest day this year for me so far. I enjoyed mooching
around and had a pleasantly cool walk alongside the estuary of the
River Lune, but didn't stay too long. I had been here a few years ago
for work, but couldn't remember anything about the place. The
vulcanologist (don't mention the ears) with whom I used to develop
computer earthquake models did his PhD at Lancaster and had a
research facility here. I later went to Bogota in Colombia with him and he was good company.
He told me a very funny story about the crowd throwing meat pies at the players at Oldham Athletic, but I can't remember enough detail to make a go of it for
you. I can, though, remember the one he told me about watching the
Old Firm match (Glasgow Rangers v Celtic). Someone was taken
seriously ill in the crowd. The paramedics came and took him away on
a stretcher, but had to walk round the perimeter of the pitch with
him (they couldn't stop the game, could they?). As they were walking
along a true Christian threw an empty bottle, which hit one of the
paramedics on the head, laying him out and causing him to drop the
stretcher. “That's not funny”, I hear you say, but I can hear you
tittering from here.
A
tremendous coup at the Oxfam bookshop when I got two completely mint
Sjowall and Wahloo paperbacks (iconic pre-Wallander Swedish police
procedurals). What a result! If England lose tonight it won't seem so
bad now.
It
took me only five minutes to decide that Colombia were going to be my
favourite “Other” team. They were great against the stodgy Greeks
and played like madmen on drugs, doing everything the hard way,
hogging it when they should have passed it, obviously not talking to
each other and generally playing like Under Thirteens. Brilliant! England
could be playing them in the next round. Mental! If they ever decide
to listen to their coach they will be a real handful.
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| "The Shrimps" |
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