Time and Tide

It is an historical fact that the County of Yorkshire has always been on the front line where the intention of others has been to invade or just attack and pillage England.

To be more geographically explicit it is the Yorkshire coastline, a broad swath of mixed landscapes onto the North Sea that has received the brunt of conflict and warfare.

The Romans used the Humber Estuary as a maritime gateway to their major garrison and administrative centre at York and beyond the northernmost reaches of their Empire.

There followed the insurgent forces of the mixed Germanic Tribes including Jutes and Frisians under their collective name of Anglo Saxons and then the Vikings.

After a bit of aggression and mayhem these peoples largely settled and became the ancestors of a good proportion of the modern day British population.

In the Middle Ages powerful families vied for control of the coastline and fast forward to the relative near history of the 18th Century and even a squadron of Franco Americans took on the British Navy at the Battle of Flamborough Head.

Towns were targeted by naval bombardment in 1914 with fatalities suffered but serving as a rallying cry to recruit to the British Armed Forces in those opening months of the First World War.

Adolf Hitler saw Yorkshire in an important strategic role in any post invasion subjugation of the nation.

It is speculated that he thought that the Grand Hotel in Scarborough would be suitable for his Northern Area Command HQ and if he also took the major Port of Hull he could drive a wedge across to Liverpool and split the country into manageable parts.

If you study any map of the Yorkshire Coast your eye is immediately drawn to the majestic sweep that is Bridlington Bay.

It stretches from the north and the chalk promontory of Flamborough Head all of the way South before the great curl of Spurn Point at the Humber mouth.

I have always thought that this would have been an ideal WW2 invasion site and it must have been considered by the Nazi military alongside or as an option to Operation Sealion which was the codename for the planned amphibious invasion across the English Channel.

Such intentions were easily second guessed by British commanders and a formidable string of observation and gun posts were constructed all along the cliff line to the full extent of Bridlington Bay.

Other defences comprised huge coarse concrete obstacles to, hopefully, impede the progress of Nazi tanks and vehicles and prevent the establishing of a workable bridgehead from which to strike inland.

The structures to be manned were substantial reinforced concrete blockhouses and bunkers with narrow slit openings to give line of sight and line of fire coverage of the sands or emplacements to lay down a cover of shells and bullets.

Large numbers of such Pill Boxes or "Baddies hideouts" as we used to call them (although incorrectly as they housed home defence troops) survive to this day although many have become associated with impromptu lavatories or for fly tipping.

Unfortunately for the Bridlington Bay structures the fragility of the cliff line, composed of boulder clays and amongst the fastest eroding in Europe has resulted in the rude depositing of the buildings onto the beach itself where they have, over the last few decades, been attacked by the tides.

Salt water and metal reinforcement are mortal enemies and the onset of corrosion has fractured and dispersed the cast elements across a wide distance.

I took these photographs just this morning of one of the main emplacements which is now well out in the tidal zone.

I recall visiting the beach as a teenager back in the late 1970's and seeing the same Pill Box and its neighbours well back on the crumbling cliffs and seemingly impregnable against time and tides as they were intended to be versus the Nazis.



The low ridge in the background is the current position of the cliff line onto a narrow footpath and agricultural fields. This shows fast pace of erosion.


The whole mass of concrete has taken a bit of a journey and rather than face out to sea is now with a north eastern orientation looking towards Bridlington.

This will have been a rough representation of
the outlook of an observer or sentry in the wartime years.

The wide expanse of the beach resembles the 1944 D Day images of the main Normandy Landing Sites of the Allied Forces

The inside-out view was startlingly bright on this August morning.

The interior was basic but functional for its occupants.

It must have been a bleak post in the winter months and at the time of the Spring Tides when onshore winds would chill to the bone with the Arctic air.

Under Blackout restrictions there would not even be any sparkling, welcoming lights from Bridlington nor the comforting sweep or booming foghorn from the Flamborough Lighthouse,

The marine growths have firmly taken to the concrete shell.

It is no coincidence that the shoreline around the old Pill Box and tank trap blocks was today a graveyard of the shells and limbs of crabs who have sought refuge in and under the mass of concrete sections only to be picked off by seagulls at the change of the tides.

The bunker is a very sad sight at low tide being lopsided and twisted and destined  to deteriorate further into an unstable and potentially hazardous structure for the holidaymakers and day trippers who frequent the Bay.

It may take some considerable time for the bunker to reach the same stage as its immediate neighbour.

This similar sized structure is in a precarious state and something to avoid although still excites considerable interest and curiosity even now.

Buzz Stop

I am not really sure what has happened to all of the wasps this year. 

I can honestly say that I have not seen a single one so far this year , nor anyone in the Park outside my window doing that panicky dance and swatting movement that usually announces the curiosity of a Jasper. In recognition of the service of the wasp to mankind here is a bit of an old piece from a few years ago....when there was an abundance of the stripey insects.

I told the prospective buyer of a house that he had a wasps nest in the void under the floor of his sitting room.

A few months later after he had purchased the property he rang me up and confirmed that yes, he had found it.

It had been active and had taken all the expertise of an exterminator to get rid of the nuisance.

He then expressed amazement at how I could possibly have known about it given that there had been no loose boards or other means of access. The contractor too had been mystified about a call out on the basis of the unqualified hunch of a third party.

I was reluctant to disclose my secret.

I could have spun a fantastic yarn about being a wasp-whisperer. Perhaps I was actually in tune with nature. A hyper sensitive ear could allow me to detect the faintest of insect noises and interpret them as an indicator of the nesting intentions of a swarm. In my youth, having been stung numerous times by a persistent wasps I may have developed a super-hero trait. My favourite jumper had been a black and yellow striped one giving me the instincts and behavioural characteristics of the species. I was a fan of The Police after all.

I managed to maintain an aloof air out of modest professionalism and my inquistor finally gave up. I wallowed a bit in his parting comment that I was just " a bloody good man for the job".

Between you and me I had stumbled across the whole thing more out of accident than a determined investigation.

If you simply stand still for a few minutes outside a house, as I often do, in order to observe the construction and condition, chances are that you will blend into your surroundings and so assume a degree of relative invisibility to the creatures of nature.

This has been the case where a cat has not seen my static form until the last moment when wandering nonchalantly around the corner. The panic and horror is a sight to behold. I am sure it is the same for the cat as well.

I have had a similar experience with birds in flight who have been genuinely shocked to find a human being just stood motionless in a particular position on a regular flightpath around a property.

On this particular occasion I just happened to be in the right position at the exact moment that a swarm of wasps returned from harassing a family picnic or the queue at an ice cream van.

After a brief period of reconaissance they duly filed, in some semblance of hierarchical order, through the regular holes in a clay airbrick, just one of many similar vents around the lower courses of that particular house.

On the basis that they did not re-emerge led me to speculate that they resided there as a permanent home. I may have thought about placing my ear at the perforated hole to confirm my hunch but recollections of those very painful stingings in childhood remained very strong. I just scribbled down a note and in such a simple act established myself as a living legend, at least in the perception of one impressed client.

Take a Bowie

There is a certain timelessness in classic rock and pop music.

It is a quality, an endearing and emotional one that is completely lacking in the over-produced anthems by talentless wannabees and one hit wonders of more recent years.

I can recall immediately, upon hearing a certain intro to a song from my youthful years in the 1960's and 1970's the exact situation and circumstances that I was in when I heard it for the first time.

My earliest memories revolve around such pop tunes as The Beatles and Penny Lane, Petula Clark's Downtown and the hits of The Seekers such as The Carnival is over.

Of course I could have heard them second hand rather than upon their respective releases in the mid to late 1960's although I firmly believe that as I was brought up in a very musical family, particularly on my Mother's side it is entirely possible that they will have been audible to my very infant ears.

Such great pieces of music and accompanying lyrics are deeply rooted in my hard wired memory and can be reactivated at the smallest prompt or by a familiar sight, sound, smell, taste or touch.

I am now in my mid 50's and to my own children let alone anyone younger I will be regarded as a bit of an oldie and yet there can be expressions of surprise when I take on the common subject of music and show what is a reasonable depth and breadth of knowledge and appreciation.

Some artists from my own teenage years are being listened to by the current generation largely as a consequence of parental influence and raids on record collections of their own parents and even grandparents.

I can reel off an impressive list of gigs that I have attended over the last 40 years including Bowie in 1983, U2 in 1981, The Stranglers 1980, The Jam 1979 and many, many more. I still attend now but principally to see performers before they pop their clogs.

For all of my own experiences of rock and pop I must admit that I was mightily confused by a conversation that I had with a 70 year old lady a couple of weeks ago.

To me, 70 has always been an ancient age.

Grandparents were always that age and there existed an enormous gulf in culture, tastes, etiquette, outlook, politics and musical genres across such a wide age difference and this mindset, for all of its ignorance and insensitivities persists with me even now,

I think our chat started off with the weather which is always a safe and non-contentious subject before suddenly turning to David Bowie.

I cannot remember the sequence of niceties and generalities that brought us around to Bowie.

I suppose it could be the new thing to replace that assumption that whatever topic you start out to discuss with someone it always ends up with Adolf Hitler.

The lady, a small frail figure but very heavily nicotine based, told me about her love of the artist and how she had been to many concerts in the 1970's and on one occasion had actually met the man.

I had a strong image of her in a hat and smart but modest attire and clutching her handbag when coming across Bowie in one of his creations such as Ziggy or The Thin White Duke.

In my minds eye she was then as she appeared in front of me now, an old lady.

That was of course completely disrespectful on my part.

If I had bothered to do any arithmetic to put some sense of time on my imagined scenes then I would have realised that, yes, the lady and Bowie were in fact born only 1 year apart.

His first commercial album release in his own name rather than David Jones was in 1967 when he was twenty years old.

At the peak of his first phase of performance perhaps his greatest fan had been and still was this senior citizen.

I came away from that brief meeting with a strong note to myself to be less quick to make judgements and sweeping assumptions about people and especially those of such unquestionable credibility in rock and pop.

Flares make a comeback

Yes, I was promised a Jet Pack. I have mentioned this before.

That was way back in my youthful years but such was the pace of technology then, the 1960's and 1970's ,that I fully expected to at least have daily use of one for business and leisure use by the time I was a fully grown adult.

Other inventions, gadgets and gizmo's were still in the fertile minds of Science Fiction and Fantasy writers but many of these have subsequently emerged or are pending as viable commercial products such as the mobile phone, driver-less cars and drones to name but a few.

There were doubts and second thoughts amongst scientists, philosophers, humanitarians and politicians over the development in the 1940's of the Atomic Bomb. Oppenheimer who was the Director of the Manhattan Project issued his ominous warning over the sheer power of the weapon repeating the words from Hindu Scripture " Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds".

There is no doubt that humankind has meddled with nature and natural forces and thrown in a few terrifying self made concoctions as well.

The overriding intentions, generally, have been to benefit the human race and there have been great leaps forward in medical practices, food production and education but as yet not in some instances distributed equitably.

We are now firmly in the realms of science fiction becoming science fact with talk of the first manned missions to other planets in our solar system. This is an indictment of the natural curiosity of the human race although cynically it may be a chance to have a quick look around for another host planet as we are proving to be very poor custodians of the one we live on now.

I do not want to sound like an enemy of progress and betterment but there are still many aspects of Earth and its immediate environments that we have not really studied in detail or physically explored.

Much of the ocean floors remain unfathomed and recent dramatic changes in climate and weather patterns have yet to be researched and explained as to cause and effect.

The launch, just a few days ago, of a NASA Solar Probe is a dedicated project to try to find out more about the electrical and magnetic fields and waves of our Sun.

The Probe itself, about the size of a small car, is to carry out 24 fly-bys of the Sun in the next seven years.

It will, when in position, be at some 3.83 million miles distance from the Sun's surface setting a new record for a projectile from Earth. It will also attain the highest ever velocity by a man made object at 430,000 miles per hour or the equivalent of seventeen orbits around the earth per hour.

The behaviour of the sun, and in particular the phenomena of solar flares or massive ejections of geomagnetic solar energy is of concern to scientists.

Coronal eruptions from the sun even from its 93 million mile separation can create magnetic storm conditions in the magnetosphere above the Earth. These have been regular events in documented history and there are tell tale indicators of other similar occurrences in pre-history.

The first real observation and measurement of a solar storm was in 1859 and this was named after one of the main scientists who realised the significance and potential of this to the Earth.

The Carrington Event was first seen in the formation of dark spots on the surface of the Sun from terrestrial telescopes. From August 28th to September 2nd in that year there were Aurora's visible globally giving a spectacular light show and in some parts of the world turning night time into day.

The bursts of geomagnetic energy caused the main communication system of the era, the wire telegraph to fail with Operators suffering shocks down the equipment and pylons and wires connecting up the stations were seen to emit sparks. Even after the power supplies to the telegraph network had been disconnected for safety reasons the Operators were still able to send and receive messages because of the absorption of geomagnetic waves.

Fast forward to the present day and our reliance, in many aspects of daily life wholly, on electrical equipment and you can appreciate the impact of a Carrington magnitude event on everyday existence on Earth.

Solar Storms in 1921 and 1950 caused disruption to radio signals and in 1989 the power supply to the Canadian city of Quebec failed from such an occurrence.

In 2014 the Scientists at NASA revealed that a Carrington sized eruption from the Sun just missed Earth some two years earlier.

The recently launched Parker Solar Probe will be able to shed some light on this solar phenomena but by the time we know about it we may already be hunkered down in our caves catching up on some long overdue contemplation by candlelight and bemoaning the frazzling of our phone, lap top, microwave and just about everything else upon which we had previously relied.

Herring Aids

It is very much the summer holiday season in the UK.

The sudden invasion of coastal resorts by those taking their annual week or fortnight at, or just day trips to,  the seaside brings with it a welcome boost to many a struggling seasonal economy.

An unwelcome side effect however is the aggressive and quite frightening behaviour of seagulls towards the visitors which always gets a lot of coverage in the media with the poor birds receiving extremely bad press indeed.

The main point of conflict appears to be the clash between the British tradition of eating out in the open spaces of the seaside and the very natural instinct of the seagull to seek out sources of food in its natural environment.

A newspaper wrapped or polystyrene tray of chips and sauce makes for a very good target for the attentions of large herring and black headed members of the species who spend their own summer vacations in our main resorts.

Us humans do tend to relax and be off guard on our hols and so whilst strolling alongside the quayside, harbour or on the Promenade enjoying a fish and chip takeaway the last thing to be expected is a swooping attack by a lone predator or Hitchcock-esque flock.

The gulls are fearless or, as is more likely to be the case, entirely disrespectful of people and their sensitivities.

In a roundabout way that preamble brings me to a very popular bit of seaside related humour.

The joke is very well known in its own right but also in a particular genre revolving around male and female names.

It starts off with the question "What do you call?" followed by insertion of a man's or woman's name and then a seemingly random connection that ties back into the name mentioned.

For example, what do you call a man who is always there to help? Andy. What do you call a man with a spade in his head? Doug and what do you call a man in a pile of leaves? Russel.

The formula is very, very clear isn't it.

Well, returning to the seaside and pesky bird theme the joke is as follows;

"What do you call a man with a seagull on his head? "The answer, the most expected one is a little too obvious although none the less funny for that.

I have come up with a few alternative answers which give a bit more depth and breadth to the comic effect.

If you think on the subject of seaside attractions, sights and sounds you could come up with the splendid answer of Piers.

Thinking laterally you also come across huge numbers of seagulls around waste tips and other dumping grounds so you could answer the question with Phil- as in Landfill.

The are around the UK a number of Estuaries that spill out into the sea such as the Humber in my own part of the world, the Thames and on the western side of Scotland that historic watercourse that passes by Glasgow .

A seagull in that particular location might be sat on the head of a man called Clyde.

That river is famous for many things but mostly for a great history of shipbuilding. The skyline of the towns along the Clyde will have been punctuated by the grey metallic skeletal features of cranes above the dry docks and slipways and so it would not be unusual in such sites of human activity and therefore opportunistic possibilities for seagulls to have one such bird sat on the head of a man called Derrick.

Celebrity heads are not immune to be used as a perch and so you could expect to see the likes of Rock Hudson and River Phoenix under the scrawny legs and distinctive plumage of a sizeable herring gull.

That succession of rather cheesy, tenuous and cliched associations I can only apologise for and if it is any recompense I will leave you with the best and most traditional answer to "What do you call a man with a seagull on his head?"

It is of course, Cliff.

No joking matter

A grubby faced coal delivery man in our street was always a bit of excitement for us youngsters.

This emotion was partly down to the sights and sounds of a labouring, gear crashing flat back lorry as it crawled its way down the residential cul de sac laden in a methodical way with stacked and overlapping sacks of coal but mainly as we thought that the character of our attentions was the embodiment of the Bogey Man. 

You could easily see why, what with the bright whites of his eyes staring out from the soot strewn skin above a good set or pearly teeth amongst demonic red fleshy lips. 

His clothing also marked him out as something a bit unworldly. 

There was a flat cap, rakishly offset and with streaky stains of perspiration in the tweed thread, heavy trousers with patches sewn on where the abrasion of the coarse sacking had ripped the heavy duty denim, steel toe capped boots which sparked as the metal Blakey shoe protectors did their job and of course the trademark uniform of a leather blouson or as it was more commonly referred to- a jerkin. 

A jerkin was a down to earth practical garment giving an almost armoured thickness of animal hide between jagged lumps of coal and the body and yet its tailored shape, even if roughly fashioned by a tailor's shop gave the essential freedom of movement to stretch, twist, heave, lift, support and carry and then eject the contents of the sack into a fuel bunker or shute. 

You never saw a new, unblemished  jerkin although they must have been at some time. They were standard military issue in the two world wars and so there will have been many finding their way into army surplus stores or simply not handed in by the combatants to whom they were given out. 

Our coalman had a well matured and deeply hued one which had seen good service for many years and in all weathers. The ex army origin was therefore likely.  

The leather had a beautiful patina, almost like a grainy fingerprint in spite of a dusting of fine carbon.

As for warmth and waterproofing qualities, well, there must have been some although not evident from our scrutiny as the blackened figure would sweep by from lorry tailgate and up the driveway to the side of the house. I suspect, looking back, that there was a woollen lining and if the donor of the leather, a cow, can tolerate from drizzle to a torrential downpour in the open meadow then there must have been natural resistance to airborne moisture.

My description so far may have conjured up a monochrome image of a distant past but I am hearkening back to the near history of the late 1960's and early 1970's. 

Mine was not a Lowry-esque upbringing amongst dark satanic mills, matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs but a tidy housing estate with neat semi detached houses in a Suffolk market town. 

The deliveries were not of the best quality anthracite, bituminous, lignite or subbituminous coal but the derivative smokeless coking coal or just coke for the Parkray solid fuel fire and back boiler in our living room. 

Those delivery days were certainly an event in the street and sadly, long since gone what the convenience, lower cost and infinitely better environmental connotations for natural gas which is piped silently and efficiently directly into our homes. 

But what of  the classic jerkin? 

You could say that the emergence of the gilet or padded sleeveless jacket is the modern equivalent of the jerkin with the emphasis on style, comfort and lightness rather than sheer durability and longevity. 

The jerkin is still around but now as a fashion item with some very well crafted and by definition expensive versions available to the market although you would not find one within a few hundred miles of the contents of a  mucky old coal scuttle.

Corridors to nowhere

There are a few clues as to their previous existence. 

The sudden sight of a straight line amongst the randomness of nature, a functional building or structure somehow out of context in a modern urban environment, a severed former bridge span over a neighbourhood road, the shaped stones of what looks like a low wall which stretches for some distance, a dominant copse-like group of Japanese Knotweed and an abundance of well used cycle and pedestrian routes where it would not otherwise be practical or financially viable to create them. 

These are all features attributed to and inherited from the railway lines which fell to the scything cost cutting measures of Beeching in the 1960’s. 

I like to study archived maps of my local area and what is most evident is the huge former network of what would be called branch lines founded by the great old railway companies such as the London and North East, Great Northern and many others prior to coming into State ownership. 

I can take a bike ride from just across the road from my own doorstep all the way to the seaside which is a linear distance of only 12 miles when the same car journey is close to double that distance. 

The old lines give a unique view into the inner city environment before passing suburban back gardens and out into the Greenbelt . 

There are some sad sights of abandoned and derelict factories and warehouses although still retaining the scale and a ghost of their grandeur and contribution to the wealth of the city. 

Ironically there are more people using the course of the old coast line for their leisure and exercise than those pitiful numbers that gave Beeching his justification for ripping up the rails on purely economic criteria. 

For all those now benefiting from the amenity of a national cycle and footpath access network along the old lines there are countless more who have been deprived of a cheap and easy transport link to what are now rather remote and parochial towns and villages out in the rural hinterland. 

The seaside towns are worse off for not having a railway link to the population centres where their most loyal and frequent visitors and patrons reside for the other 50 or 51 weeks of the year. 

The halcyon years of the steam railways were intrinsically linked to the bloom and affluence of seaside and coastal resorts and in their disappearance heralded bleaker and more austere times. 

There is some talk of reviving these mass transit systems in a few locations and enthusiasts and entrepreneurs have taken a few initial steps in the right direction but it may already be a lost cause. 

So I will continue to make use of the old rail corridors, perhaps sit on the worn dressed stone of a stranded former platform, ride my bike and gawp into back gardens and thoroughly enjoy the shallow gradients and shortest routes possible between points A and B.

I think that the lyrics of the song “Slow Train” popularised by the crooners Flanders and Swann are a poignant tribute and lament to the ripped up rails. It was written in 1963.

Miller's Dale for Tideswell
Kirby Muxloe
Mow Cop and Scholar Green

No more will I go to Blandford Forum and Mortehoe 
On the slow train from Midsomer Norton and Mumby Road
No churns, no porter, no cat on a seat 
At Chorlton-cum-Hardy or Chester-le-Street
We won't be meeting again 
On the Slow Train

I'll travel no more from Littleton Badsey to Openshaw
At Long Stanton I'll stand well clear of the doors no more
No whitewashed pebbles, no Up and no Down 
From Formby Four Crosses to Dunstable Town
I won't be going again 
On the Slow Train

On the Main Line and the Goods Siding 
The grass grows high 
At Dog Dyke, Tumby Woodside 
And Trouble House Halt

The Sleepers sleep at Audlem and Ambergate
No passenger waits on Chittening platform or Cheslyn Hay
No one departs, no one arrives 
From Selby to Goole, from St Erth to St Ives
They've all passed out of our lives 
On the Slow Train, on the Slow Train

Cockermouth for Buttermere ... on the Slow Train
Armley Moor Arram 
Pye Hill and Somercotes ... on the Slow Train
Windmill End


As a footnote the song may have had a protest and populist impact in that out of the lamented stations and connections listed in 1963 some nine remained open and still continue to do so, to my knowledge, in the current national rail network.

These are Chester le Street, Openshaw, Formby, Ambergate, Selby, Goole, St Erth, St Ives and just up the road in my local area, Arram.