Trusthorpe

When I was a kid, going to the seaside meant sticking to a strict but essential agenda. First we had to find a place on the beach, then buy a bucket and spade to build sandcastles and dig very big holes. This was usually followed by a game of beach cricket, all briefly interrupted by the occasional venture down to the sea. For lunch we had Fish and Chips followed by a whipped ice cream with a flake in it. Later we would go to the funfair and then empty all of my dad’s loose change in to the numerous penny arcades. Before going home we would buy a jar of sweet pebbles and some sticks of rock for my mates.

We now of course live in a very different age, one of 24 hour TV entertainment, Game consoles, internet, and mobile phones. Things would now surely be very different for a kid of today at the seaside. But here in Mablethorpe, everything I wanted as a kid was still there, the shop selling beach toys, the fun fair and arcades, the chip shops and sweet shops. They were all exactly the same as I remembered it from my younger days. It seems that today’s generation has the very same agenda as I had at the seaside.

I can remember once buying my Mom a cheap shell ornament from a shop that sold almost exclusively shell related items, and here I was in just such a shop. I asked the lady if they still sold the big shells that, when you put them against your ear, you could hear the sea. “The shops full of them” she said and just to prove the point her husband picked one up and placed it against my ear. “It’s the blood in your ear making the sound” he told me, which sort of spoilt the mystery of it all, but at least I now know the science behind it.

I had recently been to a business seminar entitled “The only permanent thing in life is change”. Obviously the author had not just come back from a weekend in Mablethorpe.

We were staying in a place called Trusthorpe, which was positioned almost exactly between the 2 very popular seaside resorts of Mablethorpe and Sutton on Sea. The site itself was called “Old Garth Cottages”, which comprised of a field big enough for about 6 caravans or Motorhomes. The beauty of it, though, was it’s location to the beach. Quite simply all you needed to do was walk through a gate, climb up a bank and there was the beach. Next door was a holiday complex with a nice little club and, tonight being Thursday, was Bingo night. Now I normally avoid Bingo like the plague, as my experience is of a Bingo caller talking in a monotone voice and lots of old ladies saying “shush” to anyone who dare speak. On this night though, when I needed just 2 more numbers to win the star prize of £60, I was hanging on to the caller’s every word and telling the person next to me to “Shush”. Some very rich person who didn’t need the money as much as I did then shouted out that he’d won and I hated him. It’s probably best I leave the Bingo alone for a while.

On this trip the kids had both got better offers and decided not come, which left just me, Kim and Ollie the dog. We decided we were going to have a very relaxing few days just taking it easy. Unfortunately, Ollie had a totally different agenda. From the moment we pulled up he knew exactly where we were and the direction to the sea. Within minutes he was dragging me up the hill to the beach. In the short space between getting there and going to bed he had 3 runs on the beach and a mile long walk to Sutton and back. At least he will sleep well and allow us to lie-in a bit later. No chance! At 6 am he was awake and ready to go. By 6.45 I had given up all hope of pacifying him and got dressed for a mile long walk along the beach. At this time in the morning the beach was totally deserted. The beach runs from Cleethorpes in the North Down to The Wash in the South. A total of around 50 miles, and at this time in the morning it seemed we had the whole thing to ourselves. Not another human being or dog for as far as the eye could see in either direction.

On the way back I did pass someone. “Morning” I said, to which he grunted something back. I got the impression that on this 50 mile stretch of beach I was invading his space.

After a short breakfast Ollie was ready to go again. This dog was the Canine equivalent of a Super Duracell battery. Scientists have spent Billions of pounds in research to discover the sort of energy this dog has got. After half an hour or so of walking and throwing a ball for him, we ended up in Sutton on Sea, where a rest was very much needed (for me that is, the dog still had tons of energy left). We managed a cup of tea outside a seaside café before looking around the town.

From the seaside, Sutton is almost identical as Mablethorpe, however once off the beach it is very different. Apart from one beach shop, there was none of the shops selling Confectionary and beach gear, and no funfair or amusement arcades. The whole place just seemed that little bit more mature, and that was certainly true of the people wondering up and down the High Street. I may have got it totally wrong, but it seemed just the sort of place where people came to buy a retirement home. The people we met were very friendly and it seemed just the sort of place I would be happy to retire to. “It’s like God’s waiting room here” I heard someone say. It was hard not to disagree.

One of the things that became very noticeable in both Mablethorpe and Sutton was the number of beach huts. This is something that really intrigued me, so I did a bit of research in to what these were all about. Beach huts are either owned by the local Council and hired out for around £65 per week, or privately owned. A privately owned one costs around £9,000 and for that you get an 8’ x 6’ wooden shed. This works out at around £1.50 per sq foot per week to rent or £187.50 per sq foot to buy. This is serious real estate for something that can only be used for, at best, half the year and can only be used during the hours of daylight. If you are lucky, you get a tap and the facilities to make a cup of tea. If you are not quite so lucky, you get an 8’ x 6’ brightly painted garden shed. And even if you buy one, the land is still owned by the Council and so you have to pay £100 per year ground rent. But people seem to love them, and I can easily see why. On a summers day it must be great to sit and watch the world go by in the comfort of your own deckchair outside your very own garden shed right on the edge of the beach. And when it rains you just move inside and drink tea.

The coolest Beach Hut by far was a metal structure with a large glass sliding door. It was the sort of glass that was a mirror on the outside and clear on the inside, so you can see out, but nobody can see in. Just imagine sitting inside behind the glass and watching people walking past pulling their stomachs in as they look at their reflection in the glass.

After the excitement of the Bingo the previous night, we thought we’d wonder back to the club to see what entertainment they had laid on. Tonight was Karaoke, and the bar was full. The old dears were having a great time singing songs from the fifties and sixties. There were delightful renditions of songs by Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley ballads and the like. A couple in their eighties who had apparently only recently met and got engaged, were smooching around the room. “I wonder” I said “If anyone has ever had the nerve to go up there and sing Ian Dury’s Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll”. “Go on then I dare you” Kim challenged me. The looks I got reminded me of the ones I got when I first played the record to my Dad 30 odd years ago.

It was mid April and, according to the weatherman, we were enjoying temperatures well into double figures, however the northerly wind, although not particularly strong, was making it feel closer to zero. After three days of wandering up and down the beach, it had managed to force its way through my clothes, through my skin and was now gnawing at my bones. As we had a dog with us, we couldn’t just call in to a café to warm up. Fortunately, overlooking the beach was a pub (aptly called “The Beach”) which had a large sign in the window announcing “Dogs are allowed in this room”. We didn’t need a second invitation. The food was very basic but very good and reasonably priced. I would happily have paid a lot more for a lot less just to get out of the wind for a while. Ollie was finally showing signs of tiredness. It had taken us three days but I think the “Duracell dog” was finally starting to run low on energy.

I enjoyed the short break in Trusthorpe, but have to admit I was quite looking forward to moving back inland to where the weather actually felt like summer was not so far away.

Cleethorpes

“You can tell when you hit Grimsby because of the smell of fish” I told everyone as we passed the sign for Great Grimsby. Trouble was there wasn’t any fishy smells at all, even when I wound the window down. This has to be the first time I’ve ever been here and not smelt the fish docks. It’s probably because I normally come to Grimsby in the middle of the day at a time when the docks are in full swing and on this occasion I’m here at 6.30 on a Friday evening.

In its heyday Grimsby had the largest fishing port in Europe, but alas cuts in fishing quotas and the emergence of other ports around Europe have meant that the docks are not quite what they used to be. It has however had a bit of a windfall recently, according to the BBC website, as Icelandic fishermen are now prepared to sail for an extra day and a half to land their catch at Grimsby. The reason is quite simply, if they land at Grimsby they get paid. Following the collapse of the Icelandic banking system there is no money to pay the fishermen, and so they have to look elsewhere to land their catch. One thing’s for sure, we won’t go short of a fish supper or two this weekend.

Cleethorpes is now part of Great Grimsby, so coming from the Grimsby direction in what looked like an area that had seen better times, we only knew we had reached our destination when we passed a sign which said “Welcome to Cleethorpes”. Then we went over a roundabout and it all changed; a nice neat row of B&B’s, then around a corner and straight on to Cleethorpes sea front.

We were camping at the far end of the resort at a Haven holiday centre. We used to go to Haven a lot in years gone by, both for family get-togethers, where there would be up to 30 family relatives meeting up for the weekend, and for cheap family holidays when the kids were small. After a few years of watching the same entertainment and drinking poor quality, over priced beer, we decided this kind of holiday was not for us and vowed never to return. But, as the only campsite we could find open anywhere near Cleethorpes was a Haven site, we had to take it. Laura and Kim certainly got in to the spirit of things by singing the songs they learned at the Haven Tiger club when they were younger, whilst Teenager-Tom sat there with his head in his hands! We had also heard rumours that the site had been re-developed and was of a much higher standard these days (yeah right!)

First impressions were very good, with an excellent pitch for the motor home. Not only was there standard electric hook-up, but the pitch also had a fresh water tap and drainage for the waste. It meant we could use as much water as we needed without having to drive to the Service Point each day to empty and refill our water tanks. The only annoyance was that every lamp post had an advert on it for owning a Haven Static caravan, and a security camera was permanently fixed on our van. They all seemed to imply that owning a static and staying on the same pitch every year was somehow superior to having the freedom to travel the world. Either they were getting desperate for sales or they have an over eager marketing department. At least they haven’t stooped so low as to have touts on every street corner with scratch cards like they do in Spanish resorts, well at least not yet.

After dinner we decided to try out the Entertainment centre, excited to see if the rumours about higher standards were true. But alas we found little evidence of anything changing when we entered the complex. There were 2 bars either end of the centre, however to reach them you had to walk through a very large amusement arcade. Fortunately our kids are beyond the age of hassling for all your change to feed the machines, but it still seemed a little oppressive. Even the main Cabaret hall had a section with about 2 dozen arcade machines. It’s almost as though they are trying to create a mini Las Vegas but without the glitz and the prize money.

After ordering our over priced poor quality beer it was time to sit down and watch the Cabaret. We knew it was about to start because a lady told us “The Cabaret is going to start in 5 minutes, just enough time to go get a drink”. This was then immediately followed by a man telling us “The Cabaret is just about to start, so go and get your self a drink from the bar”. I then expected a large bouncer to come along and shout “Right you lot go to that bar and GIVE US YOUR MONEY”. It sounds cynical but that’s exactly how I felt whilst in the centre. To me it felt that they are willing to entice you in to the camp with reasonably price accommodation and once in the complex they would work really hard on trying to extract every last penny of our holiday spending money. Then once you’ve run out there’s a convenient cash point machine which charges £1.20 to draw out some more.

The Cabaret consisted of 3 guys performing hits we all know well from the early seventies with a few impersonations thrown in. The music was by means of a recorded soundtrack so it was obvious that the guitarist was miming. It was a real shame the singers weren’t miming too. They started acting out “Top of The Pops” from the early seventies with Jimmy Saville introducing Demis Roussos. Looking round it was hard to spot anyone over 40 so I wondered just how many people had actually ever heard of Demis Roussos, or Jimmy Saville for that matter. At this point we thought we’d try the other bar. “What’s that lady screeching for “I asked when entering the other bar, “Its karaoke night” came the reply. We decided to go back to the van for a nightcap.

We’d had a very wet night and in the morning, although the rain had stopped, it was very windy. At the back of the site there is a coastal walkway that goes straight in to Cleethorpes, and a narrow gauge railway which for £2.50 saves you the walk. Unfortunately the train was just leaving the station as we arrived, so it was a walk in to a very fierce North Easterly wind. As we were a mere 2,517 miles from the North Pole the wind was a tad frosty and, although the path was a very flat tarmac one, it took a bit of effort to walk through the wind.

Cleethorpes has everything a typical English seaside resort would be expected to have. A nice wide seafront, a sandy beach, a funfair, pier, fish and chip shops, and the typical English seaside shops selling buckets and spades and other essentials for a day on the beach. Except Cleethorpes is a bit of a fraud. It’s not on the sea and is therefore not a seaside town. Cleethorpes looks out over the Humber Estuary, and the sea doesn’t begin for a few miles further round down the coast. In fact when we looked directly over the estuary and slightly eastward we could see the light house we walked to on our last trip.

The town itself, however, does look as though it is in need of a makeover. The Southerly end looks neat enough, but the further you walk in to the centre the more run down it started to look. We stopped at the entrance to the pier and bought a cup of tea, but then made the mistake of venturing on to the pier. By the time we got halfway most of the tea had been blown right out of the cup. This was one serious wind which, to make matters worse, had started to pick up steam and some dark clouds were looming over us. We tried to walk a little further along the edge of the beach but gave up, as even the dog was trying to find shelter. “Not a good day’s business for the donkeys” I heard someone say as I looked at 4 donkeys huddled together on the beach. Their handlers looked very miserable as they sat in front of them with their backs to the wind. I can’t say I blame them.

We took it in shifts to go and eat in the fish and chip restaurant, and look after the dog. I was more than ready by the time it was mine and Kim’s turn. The restaurant offered a little respite from the weather but not completely as the place was a little draftee to say the least. However for £6.50 we had a sit down meal of Haddock, chips, mushy peas, bread and butter and a cup of tea (with free refill). It was just marvellous.

On the way back we decided to shelter in a pub called Willys which served its own brand of Willys best bitter from its very own brewery for less than £2 a pint. The kids had gone back to the campsite, so we found it very hard to pass by without checking out how good the brewery was. It was excellent and as it also sold Kim’s favourite cider, “Old Rosie”, we were both very satisfied. I’m not much of a cider drinker, but have to agree that on a warm summer day “Old Rosie” does taste really good and very refreshing. It tastes like the apples have been freshly picked and squeezed that morning, so sitting in the sun drinking a few pints of the stuff is a very pleasant way of spending an afternoon. It’s only when you then get up to try and walk anywhere you realise that at around 8% ABV it does do some very strange things to your general co-ordination.

The following morning we decided to get up early and venture further up the coast. I’d like to say it was because we wanted to make full use of our day, but the real reason was because if we stayed on the site after 10am we would be charged an extra £2. This task was made even harder by the fact that today was the start of British summer time and so the clocks had gone forward, meaning the loss of an hours sleep.

The weather couldn’t have been any more different from yesterday with a bright blue sky and no wind at all. We stopped at Saltfleet to give the dog a run on the beach. We did hit a couple of problems. First of all to get to the beach we had to walk through a flooded Salt marsh and then there was a sign informing us that anything we touched there may explode and kill us. We were less than 2 miles from a RAF firing range, and that was close enough for the odd missile to land off target. We decide to walk the path along the marsh instead and then back to the van for a full cooked breakfast.

The area around Saltfleet is part of the Humber Estuary Conservation area, which is one of the 10 most important sites in Europe. It is home to literally hundreds of rare and endangered species of birds, animals and fish. It is also a breeding ground for seals and we were told that, if we came back in the autumn, the beach would be full of seals with their pups.

We stopped off at the Seal Sanctuary on the Northern end of Mablethorpe, but before visiting the sanctuary we thought it would be a good idea to give the dog some much needed exercise. We have a dog who loves to run, and so what could be better than a few miles of almost totally deserted sandy beach. The beach didn’t have as much as a pebble on it, just clean golden sand stretching for miles in either direction. As soon as we let him off his lead he just ran and ran until he was no more than a black spec in the distance. Just as we started to panic, thinking we had lost Ollie for good, he turned round and came back towards us. He stopped for just a moment to see if we were alright before running off in the opposite direction until he was a black spec at the other end of the beach.

I loved the Seal Sanctuary and I think the rest of our party did too. The place was originally set up to look after stricken seals, either as cubs which had lost their mothers or older seals that had been involved in accidents with fishing lines. The idea of the centre is to nurse them until they are either old enough or well enough to go back in to the wild. There are a handful of seals with injuries too severe to be let back in to the sea, so they became permanent residents of the seal sanctuary, spending their days entertaining the visitors and being fed fish.

It’s not just seals that are cared for at the sanctuary. Just about any wild animal or bird can be accommodated and cared for until ready to go back in to the wild. There was a large collection of birds such as owls, kestrels, pigeons and assorted sea birds, along with foxes and badgers. All the animals seemed to be there as a result of an accident involving humans, mainly from road traffic. I felt a lot of admiration for the people who run and work the sanctuary as their dedication to the animals was very evident for all to see.

We wanted to park up and take a look around Mablethorpe, but the difficulty with parking a Motor home was to find a car park that allowed us in. If it didn’t have a height barrier it had a large sign saying Motor homes prohibited. We eventually found a space further down the coast next to the sea and so, after another run for Ollie, we set off home to plan the next part of the Mission.