It should be bought from the Ritz Cafe and consumed in a red vinyl and Formica booth. This is true, for me, of Millport – although I also go for the ice-cream. To return, year upon year, to the same seaside town is to lay down layers of memory so that, as you stroll along the beach, you are passing over the remembered joys of the past. ‘We’d sit in the heat and look at the seals lolling on the tiny islands offshore’īeach at Millport with the Arran hills in view. The locals were astonished, but they’re getting used to the idea.Īnn Cleeves, author of the Vera Stanhope novels and The Rising Tide (out in September) Millport, Firth of Clyde The Guardian once named Park View one of the best shopping streets in the UK. But this is a promenade not a stagger, and idlers are drinking cocktails and cava, not brown ale. On weekend evenings, there’s still a pub crawl of sorts along Park View, Whitley’s main street. There’s a champagne bar, a fine-dining restaurant and, on the ground floor, fish and chips – so something for everyone. Now restored, it’s as grand as it ever was. Its crowning drama was the dome, which fell into disrepair in the 1990s. Spanish City was built in 1910 (a replica apparently of some unnamed town on the Mediterranean) and attracted thousands, the holiday park of its time. I often take visitors for a fancy afternoon tea in the newly refurbished dome.
The most energetic can climb to the top of the lighthouse for a spectacular view. They go pond-dipping with the rangers, and back at the centre they identify the contents of the nets before they devour the cake. My grandchildren have had birthday parties at the visitor centre there. Photograph: Clearview/AlamyĪ longer walk takes me to the tidal island of Saint Mary’s to look at the seals. If the weather’s good, I’ll get a takeaway at Di Meo’s hut on the seafront, sit on a bench and watch the big ships making their way to the Tyne. I work early, and by mid-morning I’m ready to stretch my legs and head for coffee. Cullercoats hosts paddle-boarding and kayaking – you can hire both in the village and take lessons. It has a wide sweep of beach perfect for building sandcastles.
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The seafront was tacky then: the fairground at Spanish City on its last legs, the clubs and bars attracted stag dos, and on bank holidays the streets were full of pub-crawling drunks.īut it has reinvented itself as a place for family holidays. We went into Whitley for shopping but not to play on the beach. When my kids were little, we lived in a village a little way inland. Whitley is that sort of place now: arty and liberal. Cullercoats, the little cove to the south of Whitley Bay, is sheltered and contained. The sun rises over the sea and whether it’s midwinter with frost on the sand or midsummer when it hardly seems to get dark at all, there’s a glory to it.
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