A Summer Day In Cleethorpes

For generations of trippers, the train was the main way of travelling to Cleethorpes. These days cars are more likely to be used, but it is easy to find your way to the seafront either way.
Cleethorpes station, complete with Victorian clock and wrought iron cafe, is within yards of the beach itself!

So much to see! The seafront stretches for a mile, the golden sand stretches even further. The tide is out so far we can't swim yet, but there is donkey riding, sandcastle making and, yes, those fairground rides.... Off we go to explore beyond the pirate flag!

Moving over the road from the children's rides, we can find plenty of other amusements for young and old alike. Noisy arcades full of shove halfpenny machines, video games and cranes, bingo, putting, cafes, fast food, sweets and rock to tempt sweet toothed grandmothers and grandchildren alike.

Here you can two pence pieces into the shove halfpenny machines (inflation? decimalization? who knows?) Never have so many lost £5 trying to win a toy woth 25p and still walked away smiling. Meanwhile the professionals with bags full of change look for machines just ready to tumble down an avalanche of copper. One play - two plays - and another bag is full! Such is the glory of the British summer!

After all the noisy machines in the arcade, the big meal in Brown's Cafe and the bustling crowds, we envied the gulls their lightness!

What we really wanted was a nap too - but you can't snooze on a day trip, so off we went to take a walk on the wild side....

The tide was high, the sun was sinking, amusement arcades were winding down after their long day. Soon revellers would fill pubs while families returned to seaside boarding houses to dream of what they would do next day!

I drove home - train connections not being what they used to be and home being only an hour away. It had been a glorious day!

Having lived for many years in Cleethorpes, and having cycled vigorously up its small hill when much younger and fitter, I find the whole idea of any sort of clifftop a little funny. To me, this rise of maybe thirty feet is a little bit like calling a Crown Green Bowling area a hill! However, any search on the net will find that Cleethorpes does indeed have a clifftop castle, albeit a very small castle on a very tiny cliff!

This castle, Ross Castle, reputedly a medieval tower was, we are told, in fact built by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Company between 1883 and 1885. The name comes from company secretary Edward Ross.

Little as it is, Cleethorpes Clifftop Castle has been the scene of accidents, the last being the tragic death of a 64 year old Cleethorpes woman, Jacqueline Borum, who fell from the castle on January 9th this year.

The photo here is from wikipedia, under Creative Commons license and kindly submitted by John P A Carter. (www.johnpacarter.co.uk)