Rover’s return

Beneath the walls, Dave Blackburn has just opened a quirky ice cream parlour, called Loovre, in the former ladies’ toilets built in 1899 and “with Mrs Jamieson in attendance.” Berwick’s womenfolk really did spend a penny, gratefully contributing £5 12s 6d in the first week. Mrs Jamieson was paid half a crown.

When not soaking up Salford, the artist L S Lowry was also a regular visitor and painter. The Lowry Trail passes the cliff top mansion, guarded by two pot lions, which he considered buying. “They look like they have false teeth,” says the Lady of the House.

For £1, Dave also sells People’s Front for the Liberation of Berwick badges. “That’s £62 so far,” he says.

The 13 04 takes us to Leeds, then onward to Ilkley, chiefly so that the lady can indulge her expensive addiction to Betty’s Cafes. Afternoon tea is £18 95, with a glass of pink champagne £7 more. Basically a buttered scone, a Yorkshire fat rascal is £4 and for that price should be as corpulent and as rascally as William George Bunter. At 5pm it’s still thronged. Lovely riverside walks are free.

Weather: Warm and sunny.

Highlight: as always, the morning sun on the sea off the Northumberland coast.

Lowlight: Strident Scots, of both sexes but equal intoxication, between Berwick and Leeds (and in the Quiet Zone, too.)

Ice creams one, fat rascals one, pints one (at the York Tap, on the station. They sell “Hartley’s sandwiches”, too – jam, presumably.)

Local news: RNLI, police and HM Coastguard warn against drinking and diving (Berwick Advertiser). “Residents may have wondered if Ilkley was seeing s second Norman Conquest at the weekend.” (Ilkley Gazette.) The French twin town was visiting.

Miles 380, punctuality 100 per cent.

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Monday May 12. The familiar doggerel about being delivered from Hull and Hell and Halifax apparently acknowledges the fearsomeness of the gibbet, and not of the flibbetty type.

We head for Hull, where the station was formerly called Hull Paragon – as in virtue. A chalked blackboard advises not to believe the information screens – “the IT has failed again!” It said the same five years ago, when last I was there.

It’s the lady’s first visit and she loves it, particularly a huge aquarium called The Deep which even has Gentoo penguins. So why is that social housing provider called Gentoo?

Hull particularly acknowledges William Wilberforce, the university embracing an Institute of Slavery and Emancipation. At noon, the Guildhall carillon plays “There’s no place like home” and if locals sub-consciously substitute “Hull” for “home”, then maybe they have a point.

Thereafter via Bridlington to Scarborough, where the sun’s breaking through but the coffee shop lady says it’s been her worst weekend since February. Home via York. Hell and Halifax will have to wait – the former, it’s to be hoped, for all eternity.

Weather: nice when the sun shines.

Highlight: Hull old town and museum quarter.

Lowlight: The £50 ticket awaiting our return to the council-run Park Lane car park in Darlington because, on a wet day, the inadequately gummed parking ticket has fallen off. How many others have similarly been obliged to fill the miserable municipal coffers?

Pints two, including Alexandrina – named after East Rainton pit – at the Lion and Key in Hull. Fat rascals nil.

Local news: Stone tortoise pinched from garden of 100-year-old man is found after 1,500 “messages of outrage” are posted on Facebook (Hull Daily Mail.) Real tortoise stolen from Scarborough pet shop; number of messages of outrage not recorded. (Scarborough News.)

Miles 225, punctuality 100 per cent. Total miles 605.

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Wednesday May 14. Information boards describe the Humber Estuary as “a service station for birds.” The sanderling, for example, winters on the African coast and then wings it for a breeding season in Greenland or the Canadian Arctic.

Cleethorpes might thus seem as good a stopping-off point as any and no matter that, unless they’ve discovered an unexpected taste for Grimsby fish and chips, the menu might chiefly comprise a worm or two or the occasional pulled mussel. Beats some of the motorway places, anyway.

Signs indicate the sea front, though that’s the Humber estuary, too. The place greatly rewards exploration, nonetheless.

In mid-afternoon we migrate inland through Doncaster to Sheffield, thence on the lovely line through Penistone and Denby Dale – home of the giant pies, first baked in 1787 to celebrate the recovery of King George III from perceived lunacy – to Huddersfield, that most solid and reassuring of woollen towns.

There’s a statue of Sir Harold Wilson outside the station, a first class Head of Steam pub on the platform. The music machine sings of being on The Eve of Destruction but we’re not quite, not on days like today, anyway.

Weather: glorious.

Highlight: stopping-train Britain on a wonderful Spring day.

Lowlight: If Teesside Airport’s a ghost station, just eight passengers a year at the last count, then Cleethorpes to Gainsborough Central (via Kirton Lindsey) is a ghost line. It only runs on Saturdays, and not very often even then. It’s Wednesday.

Ice creams one, pints three. (Is this what’s meant by rising exponentially?)

Local news: Daily Mai and BBC feature the case of 74-year-old woman who tripped over the pavement. (Grimsby Evening Telegraph.) Prisoner serving “substantial sentence” charged with stealing tin of deodorant. (Huddersfield Daily Examiner.)

Miles 308, punctuality 100 per cent, total miles 913.

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Friday May 16. Once even the smallest halt had its own station master, a man who would clip tickets, sweep platforms and shout “Right away, Mr Perks” as the train chuffered about its business.

Now there are station managers, with their picture on a poster on the railings, and the curious thing is that they all seem to be the same chap, called John.

Even when the station manager isn’t called John, he looks like John. What multi-tasking, what ubiquity! The railways would clearly be lost without him.

We head north to Newcastle, then along the lovely Tyne Valley line to Carlisle where there’s even time for a quick football meeting in the hotel next to the station. It’s promoting Christmas which on so glorious a morning seems a mite unseasonal.

Thereafter on the Settle and Carlisle line, joy of joys, and to Saltaire, between Keighley and Leeds. Once the Victorian mill kingdom of Sir Titus Salt, it’s now a World |Heritage Site.

Fascinating as it is, you can really tell it’s a World Heritage Site because they don’t have second-hand shops, they have vintage shops. Posters even advertisie a “vintage home and fashion fair.” A jumble sale, the lady translates.

The week’s success is toasted in a retro pub called Fanny’s, the effect only slightly dissipated by Bargain Booze next door.

Weather: wonderful.

Ice creams one, pints two, Timothy Taylor’s Landlord steak and ale pies one (and beats a fat rascal any day.)

Local news: Ex-NFU chairman had sick cow (Cumberland News). Morrison’s Supermarkets founder Sir Ken Morrison has dropped two place sin the Rich List. Poor chap only has £900m left. (Bradford Telegraph and Argus).

Low point: the stifling 18 31 from Leeds. Whatever happened to aircon?

High point: when we get home, Darlington Council has cancelled the parking fine, a good end to a great week.

Miles 269, punctuality 100 per cent. Total miles for £60 75: 1,180. Details northernrail.co.uk

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