Day 4: Saturday 24th September

Breakfast at a Holiday Inn is a pleasantly manic affair, self-serving juice, croissants, muffins &c. whilst trying to watch Sky News over everyone else’s heads and read the complimentary Indie. After checking in with Grandma (who reveals something of the gritty side of the town, telling us of the young couple, child in tow, she’d seen at the pharmacy collecting their methadone) and Uncle-and-Cousins A, it’s time to indulge my interest in industrial heritage. We cross the Tees on the landmark Transporter Bridge and drive through the industrial district of Seal Sands; the steelworks may be gone but petrochemical industry still appears to be thriving. This is mostly reclaimed land and, characteristically, seems very spacious. Pipelines, old railway tracks and lots of metal fencing are very much in evidence, but there are also nature reserves and, strangely, a golf course. The latter, affords an excellent prospect of Hartlepool nuclear power station (a grand day out when I was twelve, as I recall), the road to which is itself lined with playing fields. I’m excited to spot the famous ‘ghost ships’ at Able UK’s docks, though I’m inclined to suggest that by now they should be in a million tiny pieces… We walk through the nature reserve to a crumbling concrete breakwater, where we see no seals but do spot a couple of ships. I seem to have come to associate grassy, windswept areas by the sea with a certain medically-qualified red-haired television presenter as I read ‘no AR’ in my notes for here and for Ravenscar. I’m pleased to spot three wind-turbines a few miles inland, and reflect upon how elegant they look and indeed how hard they can be to spot from certain angles.

Although there are some distinctly bleak areas round about, Hartlepool shows the clear signs of redevelopment, with new marina developments of shops and flats. D stops for a panini at a trendy pavement café; I eat some of the salad. From Seal Sands we’d seen smoke rising inland, and by now it’s clear that something somewhere is seriously ablaze. As the smoke blocks the sun and a notable chill comes over the place, we beat a retreat to the car, particularly as we don’t know what it is that’s burning… Heading north around the Headland (the smoke still visible, as – we later hear – it is some ten miles or so to the south in Redcar) we keep to the coast as we enter County Durham. We drive through old colliery villages where the smell of coal still lingers, literally as well as figuratively. Near Sedgefield a Hurricane is performing aerobatics, and we stop to look down upon a small airfield, absent from our map, at which a procession of light aeroplanes (and a helicopter) is landing and taking off. D isn’t keen to carry on into Sedgefield just so we can say we have, so we head back to Teesside, passing the Wynyard golf course near Stockton where Great Britain and Ireland were busy beating Continental Europe in the Seve Trophy. No, of course I hadn’t heard of it.

It’s time for more Civil Engineering Appreciation as we cross the Newport Bridge, built like the Transporter Bridge to allow the passage of large ships; these days the craft of choice is very much smaller – at the Tees Barrage the river feeds a white-water course for canoeing and rafting. Incidentally, whichever family member one is with, they will observe that the Newport Bridge ‘doesn’t go up any more… or, I don't know, perhaps once or twice a year, just to check that it still works’. I'm not sure how true this is, but judging by the crowds in that photo, it must have been a rare event whenever that was taken. [Addendum: I've just done some googling, and the answer is that the bridge was finally rendered immobile in 1990]

The evening is spent, again, at Aunt C’s, though this time the whole family is there. We watch Shrek 2 followed by Peter Kay. I don’t doubt he’s a very good stand-up but comparing my reaction to the others’ I suspect one has to be a lot more Northern and a lot more drunk truly to appreciate him. There being no room at the [Holiday] Inn we return to Hartlepool late at night to a Travel Inn on the marina. On the way, I’m struck by the drama of the oil refineries at night; light, smoke and flame. Midnight check-in seems pretty unorthodox to me, but the guy is cheerful enough. I note that the TI is pleasant, and has a warmer feel to it, being orange where the HI was blue. I’m impressed by the heating system that allows the guest to set a higher temperature at night if they wish, but will automatically cool down again from late morning, thus saving energy when the room is unoccupied. And so, to bed.

Posted at 0051 on Monday, 17th October