The Blaydon Race

Let's get this out of the way: I had never heard of The Blaydon Races before I went to Blaydon.  Never.  If you said "Blaydon" to me, I thought of the safe house from The Living Daylights, and that's spelt "Blayden" anyway.  After I went to Blaydon, and discovered the song was kind of a big deal on Tyneside, I searched for it on YouTube and found this, which I think is the most Geordie video in the world:

Obviously that was no help with regard to the enigma of The Blaydon Races, because I couldn't understand a single word they were saying, but at least I know what the tune is.

Blaydon doesn't get the greatest levels of service in the world, which is why I missed it last time I was out this way; I had to make a choice between Blaydon and Dunston.  It took me two years, but I finally got back to Tyneside to cross it off my list.

The station is scythed off from the town centre by a heavily used dual carriageway, so they've provided a footbridge for access.  I did not appreciate this.  I think I'd have preferred a dingy underpass that stank of piss and horror.  I clambered up the footbridge, the cars whizzing beneath me, creating a dizzying effect.  About halfway across I realised I was making a kind of panicky moan, issuing it between gritted teeth as I tried to avoid plunging to my death.  At one point I reached out for a railing for support, and the railing moved; to be honest, I'm surprised everyone back home on Merseyside didn't hear my petrified yelp.  I was ridiculously pleased to make it down to ground level.

I probably over-appreciated Blaydon town centre as a result - after all, at least it was flat.  It was a reasonably put together suburban shopping centre, though a bit down at heel; there were empty shops, and the ones that were occupied were pound shops and charity shops and bakeries selling pasties.  The reason for the lack of variety became clear when I got to the far end of the pedestrianised precinct and encountered a massive Asda with its own car park.  Why go to eight shops when you can go to one?  Why even leave the hallowed halls of Asda for the outside precinct when you can move straight from the car park to the store and back again?

Seriously, this song is such a big deal, and I had never heard it.

Beyond the shopping centre the road curled up a hill, past a small industrial estate and then a church with a pretty bell tower.  One side of the road was lined with neat houses, but on the other side, there was a wide expanse of grass leading down to woods and a pond.  Volunteers with grabbers were picking up spots of litter.

A sign for Blaydon Youth Centre provoked an immediate reaction.  A youth club?  In Tyne & Wear?  Why, that's just like Byker Grove!  I'd been an avid watcher of the Grove, back when it was Grange Hill's gritty Northern cousin (they alternated in the post-Newsround slot).  Despite her years of soap acting and Strictly-conquering, I still see Jill Halfpenny as the posh girl who copped off with a bit of rough, and for all their fame, Ant and Dec still have a barely-visible coating of PJ and Duncan.  And why has Spuggie not turned up on Coronation Street as Fiz's long-lost sister?  It went downhill a bit, of course; the last time I tuned in was for Noddy's censor-baiting kiss of that boy with the awful pony tail.

All these thoughts of the Grove lead to me singing the insanely catchy theme tune to myself as I walked along.  I stifled these instincts; I didn't want the locals to think I was taking the mick.  Of course, then the only songs that went through my head were stereotypical Geordie classics - Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads!  The Fog On The Tyne!  Let's Get Ready To Rhumble! - so I just clammed up in case I was accused of perpetuating a hate crime.

The last warm day of 2015 (apparently) beat down on my face as I walked.  Past the leisure centre, I darted across a busy road leading to the A1.  I took a chance and ducked down a back alley, rather than continuing on the road, and I encountered the old bridge over the river Derwent.  Long since bypassed, it was now just an access route to a garage.  Hard hatted men in high-vis jackets leaned over the parapets, dealing with the pipe that crossed the river alongside.

I'd planned on following the road to MetroCentre station, and I'd resigned myself to a tedious trudge across acres of exposed tarmac car parks.  Luckily, my diversion offered a different path.  A tiny blue sign pointed down the side of the river, indicating a cycle route to the shopping centre.

Soon I was beneath cool tree branches away from the roads and traffic.  It wasn't quite the ideal country stroll; I could still hear the A1, and the path was covered in litter and dog muck, but it was infinitely preferable to a trek along baked pavements.

It's amazing the pieces of railway engineering that still lie around the country, unused.  The Swalwell viaduct crossed the river; once it carried a branch line to Consett, but that was lifted in 1963 and the bridge remains.  Too big to destroy, too difficult to find a new use for, the fine piece of Victorian engineering is just a canvas for graffiti artists now.

I passed round the back of the MetroCentre's retail park, catching glimpses of B&Q's service entrance and the blue and yellow bulk of Ikea.  I was glad I had found this more scenic route, until I realised that if I'd passed Ikea I could have nipped in and bought a box of Pepparkakor, the thin ginger biscuits that are like crack to me.  I don't get them much - the BF despises Ikea for reasons I've never really understood - and when I do get them I have a tendency to consume an entire box in one sitting.  It was probably for the best that there was a fence between me and the Swedish Food Hall.

Under an impressive concrete viaduct, avoiding some dog turds that had been spray painted pink.  I assume this is some kind of attention-grabbing device so they can be cleaned up at a later date, and not a radical piece of modern art.  The path spat me out on the back of an industrial estate, but another dart down the side of an ugly engineering firm took me to a stretch of vacant land crammed between road and railway bridges.

I was suddenly aware that I didn't really know where I was.  I hadn't planned on walking this way, and I didn't know where it would deposit me; I relied on that one sign pointing towards the MetroCentre a mile back.  Passing under another road bridge, dark and cold, with rough grasses poking through the pavement, I began to envisage being mugged and thrown into the river.

I was now wedged between the railway and the foot of the road embankment.  Sharp brambles snagged at me through gaps in the fence.  At one point I acquired a companion, about ten yards behind me; I clutched my phone in my hand, ready to use it as a weapon if I needed to (it has a very bulky case) but he disappeared not long after.  I'm not sure where, as there didn't seem to be any exits.

Finally I was on the road itself, and I could breathe again.  I saw the MetroCentre station but there was no way to get to it.  Apparently it never occurred to the designers that people might want to access the station from the road.  I found myself walking right past it, frustrated by a series of fences and vegetation.

I ended up crossing the dual carriageway, darting across the apron of the bus station, and then crossing the same road I had just been on via a footbridge.  It added an extra five minutes to what should have been a simple stroll.

Still, the bus station is very nice.

The Bridge And The Ridge Near The Wressle And The Hessle

Sometimes, when I go on trips for this blog, I'm going somewhere new and exciting that I'm genuinely thrilled about.

And sometimes, I'm just mopping up bits of the map I missed out on last time.

Wressle was firmly in the second category.  I'd planned on visiting it back in August 2013; unfortunately, a bout of depression took away my enthusiasm for station collecting and I just gave up on it.  It left it as an uncollected spot, along with its neighbour Howden, and since it was quite literally on the opposite side of the country and only gets half a dozen trains a day, I never really got round to doing it.

Finally I bit the bullet and took the three trains necessary to get to this quiet little halt in Yorkshire.  I was the only person to get off the train.  My eye was drawn to a cottage further along, a riot of colourful flowers, with blooms on sale for passers by.

Actually that's a lie.  I mean, it was a very pretty cottage, don't get me wrong, but the only reason I saw it was I'd walked the wrong way.  After five minutes of gentle strolls I checked Google Maps and realised I was going in the wrong direction.  This seems to be happening more and more often lately; my normally reliable internal compass seems to need recalibrating.  Perhaps I'm just getting old.

A 180-degree turn and I was going the right way again, past some railway houses; number 1 was named "Norty Korner" and I think it's a sign of personal growth that I didn't immediately kick the door down, murder everyone inside and burn the house to the ground.  Instead I continued on my way, grinding my teeth down to the stumps, crossing the road to enter Wressle village.  Quiet roads curled by brick cottages.

I left the perfect English village behind and walked out into the perfect English countryside.  It was a warm day, just the right side of hot, with dramatic clouds hovering over the flat landscape.  Pregnant grey skies, heavy with rain, promised to douse the landscape with a storm.

There was no pavement, so I wandered into the middle of the road.  There were no cars, no trucks to drive me into the ditch.  The only sound was the whispering of the trees, leaning in close to murmur about me as I walked by.

The alien noise of a siren broke the silence.  Somewhere behind me a level crossing had activated, then, a few moments later, a TransPennine Express train to Hull sped through.  A blue and purple streak amongst the greenery, then it was gone, and the sirens stopped.

I took a right turn, towards Brind, behind a tractor cutting the verges.  More silent lanes with dew-wet grass.  A cathode ray TV had been dumped in the hedge, face down, a piece of technology so out of date it actually looked more at home in the countryside than in a modern front room.

I checked the map on my phone, because I was sure I should have reached the village of Brind by now.  Turns out I was actually right in the middle of it; the i in Brind was right over my head on the map.  It was a single road lined with old houses and redeveloped farmyards; one house was called The Farm House Lane Farm, which made me imagine a war between a couple of homeowners over who Farm House Lane was actually named after.  There was a phone box; inside was a notice from BT advising that they were considering removing the kiosk due to low use.  I wondered if the low usage had anything to do with the fact that there wasn't actually a phone inside?

A field of pigs cheered me immensely.  Who doesn't love pigs?  In the world of livestock, they are easily the cutest and most fun, better than lambs even.  They seem so jolly and happy; in fact, one pig padded over to the fence as I passed, almost as if he wanted to say hello.  Also, they taste great.

Another right and I was on a B road, normally a quiet country lane, but after the silent streets I'd been walking it may as well have been the M6.  There were suddenly cars burning past me as I walked along the grass verge, past more farmhouses and black bags on the front drive by a sign saying Manure: £1.  There was a caravan site which proudly advertised it was "adults only"; I immediately thought of all sorts of Carry on Behind-shenanigans involving strippers and swinging.  Admittedly, a great deal of that thought was motivated by Elke Sommer, one of those minimally talented 1970s dolly birds with whom I have a bizarre obsession (see also: Anita Harris, Aimi Macdonald, Lorraine Chase - basically anyone who sat on the bottom row of Blankety Blank).

A wail of sirens signalled another level crossing, and more importantly, Howden station.  It was a couple of platforms and a signal box either side of the road.  I was twenty minutes early for the train, but the pub next door (the Barnes Wallis - he worked on airships near here) was resolutely closed.  I remembered the strange opening hours from the last time I was on this side of the country.  It was almost like they didn't want people to get drunk in the middle of the day.

There was a sign pointing to the town centre, but a quick look at the station map revealed that the town was actually about half a mile away, so I took the sign picture then lodged myself on the platform to wait for the train back to Hull.

One disappointing sandwich on the platform at Hull Paragon later and I was on my fifth train of the day - pleasingly, one named after Barbara Castle.  I was on my way to Ferriby, a village turned commuter town on the banks of the Humber, and my train was full of tired looking office workers on their way home.

It had a pretty looking station, and there were some jolly women having an earnest discussion on the platform, but I didn't have time to hang about.  I had an hour to walk the three and a half miles to my last station, Hessle, or I'd miss my connection at Hull to get home.  I dashed over the footbridge, took my sign pic, and dashed back again.

The front gardens of the houses down to the river were filled with notice boards demanding that we Save North Ferriby.  It seems that the village was protesting against new developments on some former industrial land, though as usual, it seemed to be the people in the newest houses who were objecting most vociferously.

I found a badly signed footpath at the side of a house, and ducked down it.  I always find this curiously thrilling; following back alleys and rights of way that are ignored by the locals.  I followed the path between a high fence and roughly maintained trees before the vista suddenly opened out and I was staring out at the river.

The Humber is a strange, maudlin waterway.  So wide and silent, a crack in the side of England.  As it approaches the North Sea it becomes so vast and empty.  The tide was out and it left black stones and thick mud behind while the water rolled by.

I turned east, following the waves and getting my first view of the mighty Humber Bridge.  So huge and delicate, black traces of concrete and steel threading against the sky.  Even from a distance it astonishes.

I followed the path on a recently reinforced ridge above the waterline.  The coast here was reinforced by the Environment Agency to protect against flooding; the railway line to Hull was on the other side of the path, and so a rising water level would cut Hull off from the rest of the country.  Even more than it already is.

I was glad the tide was out; I'd spotted the coast path on the train earlier and it had looked a bit anxiety-inducing.  I didn't actually think I'd be swept off to my death in the river, but the gap was so narrow, it would have been a constant concern.

The path left the riverside as I closed in on the bridge.  I surprised two teenagers snogging under the trees; he was white and she was Asian and I immediately wrote an entire novel about their love across the cultural divide and how they had to sneak off for furtive fumbles.  The path gave way to the car park of the Country Park Inn, a bland looking building that seemed to exist mainly for wedding receptions and funeral teas.

But what a fantastic spot.  I walked under the bridge, awe-struck, totally captivated by it.  When I'd done the stations on the other side of the river I'd seen the bridge, of course, but I hadn't got this close.  Its bulk and its efficiency was inspiring.  I bitterly regretted that I'd not actually crossed it, and now that I was finishing off the Hull line, I'd have no excuse to come back and do it.  Why didn't they put a railway across the bridge as well?  Why didn't they slot in an extra deck, so that you could have a sort of Far East Coast line from Grimsby to Scarborough?  Instead there are stations either side and a bus to take you between them.

I suppose, in the Sixties and Seventies when the bridge was planned and built, rail travel was the past.  It was the motor car that was the future, so why build for a dying technology.  I wish I could say things had changed now that rail passengers are at a new high, but the Mersey Gateway bridge lost its second deck for public transport only a couple of years ago.  Short-term win for long-term loss.

There was a tiny development of new cottages under the bridge, and I thought how romantic it would be to live there.  Wake up every morning to gaze at that colossal piece of engineering.  Of course, the traffic noise would soon drive me mad, and the clunk-clunk of each car passing onto the bridge deck would give me a nervous tick, and the stream of tourists taking a look would mean I'd have my curtains closed permanently so they couldn't peek in, but the point is, for a while I dreamed.

Back up the hill towards Hessle station.  A couple of big old Victorian houses had been converted into flats; one was called Dykes House, which I only mention because I'm incredibly immature.  The road had been superseded as the main route by the Humber by a busy dual carriageway which roared to my left.

The local rugby club was marked by a poster begging the local dog walkers to keep their pets off the pitch; it brought, unbidden, an image of men diving for a rugby ball through a mound of dog turds and I felt quite ill.  I crossed the dual carriageway via a narrow footbridge and came down to land by Hessle station.

It was a surprisingly old fashioned station.  The former ticket office sat above the platform - a beauty company had failed to make anything of the building, and now it was advertised for let again - and then ramps ran down to track level.  It felt like a really early station, like Edge Hill perhaps, where the same lines were used for goods and passengers.

I whispered a small prayer of thanks that I wouldn't have to walk across that rusting hulk of a footbridge and instead leaned up against the wall to wait for the train.  I was joined by a couple of young men in suits, probably from the solicitor's over on the other side of the road.

On the opposite platform a man who was old enough to know better performed tricks on a BMX, bunny hopping and twisting around the big empty space.  He'd occasionally stumble and fall over, and every time I imagined him falling onto the tracks and a train neatly slicing his head off his body.  And then my train would be delayed, and I'd end up stuck in Hull overnight.

That was another line crossed off the list as complete; everything between Leeds and Hull was gone from my map.  Not long until the end now.

1923 and All That

Another station, another Cheshire Lines design straight out of their big box of generic plans.  It's actually an idea that the railways have returned to in recent years; Network Rail now have a bunch of pieces that mean they can simply assemble a new station in kit form, as at Buckshaw Parkway for example.  It's a good way to save design costs and speed up the construction process, but goodness it's dull.  I'd like the stations to look different from one another, so I feel like I've actually traveled somewhere.

Another way of saving money is to not put up a decent station sign.  Glazebrook's got a distinctly rubbish looking way of marking its territory.

From there it was a brief walk until I reached the local village.  It's the fringes of Manchester, so while it had a village green and a parish council, it wouldn't be suitable for a Miss Marple location shoot.  It was a bit grimy and base.

The community notice board was absolutely full of anti-HS2 posters; the connection to the "traditional" lines for trains to Scotland will branch off and pass by Warrington on its way to Wigan.  I sighed.  I know I wouldn't want a giant piece of railway infrastructure built through my back yard, but that's progress I'm afraid.  The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  After a certain point you just have to accept that these things are going to happen and invest in triple glazing for your windows.

Incidentally, I apologise that my photography is not up to my usual high standards (LOL).  Somewhere between Birchwood and Padgate my camera stopped responding; it refused to recognise that the lens was open.  I was left with the camera on my phone, which is how this blog started before I got ideas above my station so it was pleasingly retro, if a bit inconvenient.  It added a frisson of tension too: would I get to Irlam station before the iPhone's finicky battery decided all this "use" was just too inconvenient and gave up?

A turn off the bypass and I was walking through Irlam.  The lamp posts were still wrapped in Christmas tinsel, which is an admirable way of saving time and money for next year but isn't it bad luck?  (Though I once left our Christmas tree up until spring because I couldn't be bothered and I didn't end up with a horrible run of misfortune.  Well, no greater than usual anyway).  There were a couple of factories, and then I was approaching rows of small shops and pubs that had been converted into office blocks.

Irlam's retail offerings seemed to be, let's say, "quirky".  In addition to the above pun-based cafe, there was one called "Bready 2 Go", a woodwind instrument shop, and a letting company with an inappropriately glamorous looking sign called "Property Showcase".  There was also a shop that didn't have a sign board, but which I can only assume was set up to supply all your anti-social behaviour needs.  Its neon window signs advertised sale prices on air pistols and ammo, BB guns, darts, bikes and scooters.  It was a one-stop shop for the local drug pushers.

The first railway viaduct carries a goods line, so I passed under it and down the hill to the second route.  Irlam station was tucked somewhere behind a new business park, so I followed the inadequate signs to the subway.

For decades, Irlam station was empty.  The building had been abandoned, with no ticket facilities, and vandalism and arson took their toll.  Its boarded up face groaned at passengers as they passed.

Finally, last year, the local council, heritage groups and private investors got together and spent some money on the station building.  And it's a triumph.

It's been carefully, lovingly restored, with all the features repainted and repointed.  Even the water fountain has been scrubbed clean.  I did a circuit and then went inside.

Irlam station is now home to 1923, a cafe/bar, and it's been charmingly done.  Yes, it's full of railway memorabilia, as is legally required, but it's also fixed with contemporary furnishings and lighting.  I ordered a couple of pastries and a pint of beer and went looking for a seat.  The place was incredibly popular, particularly with nice ladies of a certain age, but I found perhaps the best seat in the house.

The booths have been done out as railway compartments, with plush seating and luggage racks.  I slid in place opposite period-appropriate repro posters.

It was utterly delightful.  I chomped on my pork pie and sausage roll with a grin on my face.  I should have ordered something a bit classier, a bit more Orient Express, but I didn't have the time.  Instead I just filled my face with pastry and washed it down with beer and smirked.

Even the toilets are period appropriate, though surely this sign can't be real..?

Making sure I wouldn't be liable for a sixpence fine I made my way across to the Liverpool platform for my train home.  It was inevitably a disappointment after the riches on the Manchester side.

There was an intriguing sign, however.  On both sides of the station, towards the end of the platform, the Irlam sign was replaced by a curious set of hieroglyphs.  It looks like something from the far east, but I couldn't work out what it was for.  Is there a large Chinese community in Irlam?  I hadn't seen one.  It just seemed odd.

It's the best sign at the station though, because God knows the main one is dull as heck.  Still, when you have a station cafe as gorgeous as 1923, who needs a decent totem?