Day 3 of 4.
If anything, the wind had strengthened through the
night. As the dog and I drifted onto the promenade for our early morning meander, the tide was rushing in, the
agitated waves hammering against the glistening black boulders that form part
of the sea defences. The ocean was brown yesterday, today it was almost black. Long strings of foam, whipped up by the sea, lay
like frogspawn on the rocky beach. The wind, though strong, was benign, blowing
from the south-east. If it had been
blowing from the north-east, it would have cut you in half. The great spread of
the North Sea was empty apart from the
windmills and a single speck on the horizon that was a ship.
We walked into the wind as far as the end of
the promenade. During the whole of the walk, we saw not one seabird, not even
the ubiquitous and voracious herring gulls.
The violence of the sea and the fullness of the tide had presumably
discouraged them. The promenade was more
or less empty. A couple of women walked
dogs and a few council workmen stood idly looking at the pier gateway, but that
was all. We wandered back through the
town. On the way back to the caravan, I
wondered what the citizens of Withernsea did for work. Apart from a gas distribution terminal a
couple of miles to the south, there seemed to be little industry and I doubted
if the tourist business supported people throughout the year.
After lunch, wife, dog and I drove to Hedon, a small town
about fourteen miles to the north, en route to Kingston-upon-Hull . It turned out to be an attractive little
market town. We parked near the tiny
museum and walked along the ribbon of main road that contained all of the shops
and the petite market. It was market
day, but I had all the bin bags I needed, so I moved on. At the eastern edge of the village stood what
had obviously once been a stationmaster’s house and, opposite that, stood a former
goods shed. A path separated them, all
that was left of ta long-dead permanent way.
I hastened back to the museum and asked the bearded
curator, who was just pouring himself a cup of tea, about the railway. He called down his colleague, a slight,
white-haired, bespectacled man in his late sixties. ‘Peter’s a PhD in local
history,’ the curator explained. ‘He
knows everything about the railway.’ ‘Took me ten years to get my doctorate,’
the historian said. ‘I started when I was
fifty-five.’ He led me to a scale model
in an adjacent room. ‘That’s the Hedon station layout circa 1950,’ he said. ‘The Holderness
Line. Hull Hull Brighton
of the North’. Never quite made it,’ he
said, with a wry smile. I asked him if the lines had been steam-hauled to the
end. He shook his head. ‘Diesel multiple units from the late fifties. Didn’t help.’
I thanked historian and
curator and picked up a pamphlet about the impressive and massive parish
church. Building had started in 1188 and
finished two centuries later. Hedon had been an important port at one time, but as the waters silted up, the town was more or less forgotten.
In a corner of the museum, behind a glass case, was a jug. The curator told me it was the only
example of a complete 12th century jug in the
After dinner, as the golden sun started to sink, I went
back out with the dog. The wind was
still very much in evidence, and the temperature had dipped markedly. We walked past the lighthouse into the town
centre, as far as the library, then cut down a side street and strolled a
couple of hundred yards to the promenade. We turned about and wandered back
with the wind behind us, making progress much easier. Breakers lashed the
promenade with unabashed fury. A
solitary seagull hung pensively on the air currents. Again, there were very few
people about. The amusement arcade lights twinkled invitingly, but there was no
sign of people going in or coming out.
The sun had fully set by the time we reached the caravan. Darkness was
almost upon us. I looked at my
watch. It was a minute before
six-thirty.
