Reviews

Blow Our Trumpet

My Sunday paper recently devoted its whole magazine supplement to stay-at-home seaside holidays.

But guess what? They didn't come any further north than Scarborough.

They instead trundled out the same old Suffolk beach huts and flat sandbanks of Dungeness.

No Sea houses, no Cruiser, no wild and empty sands around Buddle Bay.

As usual, though, I found myself torn: half-cross, half-glad that our beautiful Northumbrian shoreline remains one of our best kept secrets, undiscovered by the Islington chattering classes.

But they missed out at South Shields as well, and that I do care about.

And then came the confirmation the other day that we have some of the best seaside fish and chips and ice cream in the country.

Lets here it for Colman's and Minchella's (you have to imagine Catherine Cookson doing a Mexican wave here!)

The BBC Good Food magazine confirms what we have known for years: that you can't beat the traditional seaside fish and chip restaurant, with its bread and butter and fortifying pots of tea: and old fashioned ice cream in deck chair colours.

And it goes back to a point I made the other day, that Shields has so much going for it as a traditional seaside resort, if we only exploited the fact a bit more.