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Out & about in the North Tyneside towns & villages of Tynemouth, Whitley Bay, Cullercoats, North Shields & Wallsend & beyond into the outer reaches of the beautiful Northumberland countryside

21/10/2026

Back in January 2006 I bit the bullet & crossed the big divide (The River Tyne) & made my way to the banks of the River Wear where, recently, a scheme of improvements had been completed. As part of this scheme a number of new artworks had been commissioned & I was eager to have a gander. Here are a few/random photographs of that trip. I have only returned a couple of times since, Once passing through briskly on my bike, but not for a number of years. Much will have changed, of that I have no doubt, but hopefully the majority of these artworks are still in situ & perhaps a few more may have been added in the intervening years. Sadly, on a negative note, the glass centre is now no longer open (Closed July 2026).

09/10/2026

Wow, what a week to choose to have a mini break visiting North Northumberland, a mere hop, step & jump from our North Tyneside home. First a pit stop at Cresswell`s ever-popular The Drift Cafe facing the southern end of glorious Druridge Bay. Then, suitably refuelled we headed up the coast to Amble, the Friendliest Port in England & so named by the captain of the RMS Mauretania as it sailed past Amble on its way to be broken up at Rosyth in 1935. Then, after a wee potter along the pier at the sandy beach called Little Shore, watching the odd fishing boat returning to the harbour, we were off to Alnwick & the Hogs Head Inn our base for the next couple of nights. Wednesday dawned bright & fresh, so off we went northwards to the border town of Berwick, a town with more than its fair share of history & one which has strong links with the renowned Lancashire artist L. S. Lowry. With time to spare, what better than a wee explore of some of the street, alleyways & buildings of this fascinating town on the banks of the River Tweed picking up along the way the recently installed statue of 19th century strongman Jimmy Strength & another point on the wonderful L. S. Lowry Trail. This town never ever disappoints. Then, it was a case of "Both Sides of the Tweed" (todays musical reference....If you know you know!), & off to Spittal for a first ever visit, long overdue after a lifetime tramping Northumberland. With the sky an almost perfect blue, the coastline looked spectacular & the walk along the beach-hugging promenade to rugged Hud`s Head was an unexpected delight with a couple more points on the L. S. Lowry Trail to ponder on. After catching our breath at our Alnwick base, it was off into the town for a stomach-bulging Italian meal at di Sopra . Next day, our final day, was another Autumnal stunner, so we headed home via the very familiar & much-loved Breamish Valley (aka Ingram Valley) where it would have been extremely rude (& unbelievably silly) not to meander along the banks River Breamish as it slipped through this most beautiful of Cheviot Valleys. Satisfied with our all-too-brief visit to old & new haunts we were homeward bound with a slight diversion en route to the market town of Morpeth for a coffee & a bun. Well, you have to don`t you!

04/10/2026

Mission Impossible:
The Search for the Lost Dudes

By the 1980s the area around the Albert Edward Dock at North Shields had largely become disused and derelict and the now-defunct Tyne & Wear Development Corporation was given the task of reclaiming and redeveloping the area. This was a major, multi-million pound project of a 200 acre site, carried out in partnership with the local council and the private sector, which, when officially opened in 1998, had created the Royal Quays area of the town.

Simultaneously, as part of the 'Art on the Riverside' project, a number of artworks by local, national and international artists were commissioned for the area with the object of enhancing the public open spaces and fostering community involvement. In the event, artworks such as 'Tyne Anew', 'Lightning Clock', 'Prophecy Monolith', Sea Dreamer's Rest' and the 'Dudes', along with a few other works, were installed at various visible locations around the well-designed open spaces.

In 2005, inspired by the quality of the overall development and the delightful and thought-provoking artworks, I devised a 2.5 mile Royal Quays Art Walk for publication by the local council as a free, full-colour fold-out leaflet. It proved to be extremely popular and was soon out of print. As I had fully enjoyed my wanderings around this spanking new development when I was preparing my walk, I continued over the following few years to occasionally visit the slowly-maturing Redburn and Chirton Denes.

Sadly, as time passed by, I noticed that a number of the metal-based features which added to the interest of the area had disappeared, stolen I believe so that they could be melted down for scrap metal. A particular loss was the rather lovely 'Pointing Child', stolen not for the sculpture itself, which remained on the ground where it had been unceremoniously dumped, but for the extremely long metal pole on which it had stood.

In time, as yet another year slipped away and a new spring had well and truly sprung, I had a sudden hankering to revisit one particular artwork that I hadn't seen for some considerable time. Located close to the entrance to the Port of Tyne Authority's International Ferry Terminal, it is easy to forget about the 'Dudes' installation, an intriguing and colourful work by Nottingham-born Permindar Kaur.

Consisting of thirteen bright blue and red, powder-coated figures, with their shiny helmets and boots marching over a small grass-covered hill towards the terminal, they seem to have a story for us to interpret. Are they warriors retreating or attacking, or are they more playful, like toys searching for new playmates, from another country or continent? Where have they come from, why are they here and where are they going? Undoubtedly we will all have our own interpretation, as I did at the height of all the Brexit malarkey back in 2019 when I was inspired to write this poem:

DUDES: ARE WE COMING OR GOING?
(WITH A NOD TO THE BREXIT PROCESS)

Are we coming or going
which way should we turn,
confused by the landscape
with energy to burn?
Are we leaving this country
with the wind at our backs
or should we say simply
it's best we should stay?
Should we just set our compass
and book a posh berth
on the DFDS ferry
to the ends of the earth?
Should we set down our roots
by the banks of the Tyne
and put our feet up
with a glass of fine w**e?
Are we coming or going
which way should we turn,
if we're thinking of leaving-
will we ever return?

And so it was, on a bright and breezy June morning, that I set off from the Fish Quay car park, coffee cup in hand, on a four mile riverside walk with the firm intention of finding out how the 'Dudes' were getting along some quarter of a century after their installation.

How time flies, I thought as I wandered along quiet Union Quay, the cafes and restaurants yet to burst into life, the 'Herring Girl' sculpture by Ray Lonsdale a timely reminder of an industry that once dominated this part of the town, the last vestiges of which were due to soon disappear with the demolition of the former Tyne Brand factory. Disembarking ferry passengers spilling onto the New Quay added a brief flash of movement and colour before I passed beneath a waterfall of red valerian tumbling over the Plateau's near-vertical wall and on past the derelict Wolsington House.

I was taking the most direct route I could think of so, after little more than ten minutes, I was standing outside the main entrance to the International Ferry Terminal, not a passenger in sight. As I stepped inside the large open gates I fully expected to find thirteen figures in all their blue and red glory striding out across the open grass-carpeted hill, coming and going as they must have done these past twenty five years. I had no reason to think otherwise, but, as I looked around, there was absolutely nothing to see but a hill heavily clothed in trees.

I was stopped in my tracks, totally baffled by the complete lack of any powder-coated figures and I began to wonder whether my navigational skills, honed over a lifetime of roaming the lonely ups and downs of Northumberland, had finally failed me. Perhaps I had come to the wrong entrance, confused by a fading memory. I even considered the unthinkable, whether the 'Dudes' had all disappeared, gone forever like some of the other metal-based features, stolen over the years for their meagre scrap value? I began to contemplate turning back and aborting my mission.

But I am made of sterner stuff and strongly believe in that local colloquial expression, “shy bairns get nowt”. So away I went across the grass verge heading towards a small gap between two groups of fairly substantial-looking trees. The ground was as springy as a trampoline as I picked my way cautiously uphill. On reaching the top, I spied the vague semblance of a path through the tangle of trunks and branches and, after little more than a few metres walking I spotted a figure, half-hidden by a mass of foliage, red in colour and sporting a natty gold crown.

Eureka! I had reached my goal, a single 'Dude' trapped in the trees, seemingly a prisoner of nature struggling to be free. But what, I mused, had become of the remaining twelve figures, where were they hiding, were they doomed to spend the rest of their lives in this suffocating green mass? I was determined to find out. So, with the bit between my teeth, I continued on towards the edge of the trees and soon spotted another red, crown-sporting figure struggling through the undergrowth towards open ground.

And then, once beyond the figure, I was out of the trees and there, in front of me, were six more purposeful figures, arms swinging in unison, marching downhill towards another clump of trees. I had now finally found what I had been looking for, alive and well in this shrouded green oasis and as 'happy as the larks ' They had, I believed, discovered their place in the world, somewhere they could co-exist with nature whilst remaining untroubled by the crazy world outside. It seemed to me that there would be no more “coming or going” for this once restless group. This was their Camelot.

This article first appeared in the Winter 2025 edition of ilovenorthshields Magazine https://ilovenorthshields.com/

02/10/2026

A beautiful day for a walk in the park; Chirton Dene & never a place that disappoints. Urban regeneration at its very best.

24/09/2026

Published in 1971 in a limited edition of 75 individual numbered screen-printed posters each signed by the photographer & the poet, this poster has, after 55 years, many of which were spent at the back of a rarely-visited cupboard feared lost, now been beautifully framed by Thompson Art of Albion Road, North Shields (www.thompsonart-shop.co.uk/ ). So, a huge thanks to Thompson`s for the first class work & advice given which will hopefully preserve this poster for another 55 years. The poem reappeared after a rather lengthy hiatus & was published (in slightly altered form) in the March 2025 issue of ilovenorthshields magazine (ilovenorthshields.com & ) & the December 2025-published Mim Robson-designed North Shields Fish Quay Heritage Map. The poem still resonates after all these years & despite the substantial changes in the North Shields fishing industry.

11/09/2026

Banks, Stairs & Memories

It is Tuesday morning and I am standing outside the kiosk at the Fish Quay car park eagerly waiting for my kick-start coffee to be brewed. I glance out towards the Narrows and the skeleton of the extraordinarily photogenic wooden walkway that once led to the white-painted cabin housing the long-gone Lloyds Hailing Station.

This slowly disintegrating structure is a throw-back to a less technological age when the manual recording of shipping movements in and out of the Tyne seemed like the height of sophistication. These days its multitude of crossed legs, unseen feet firmly sunk into the murky river bed, now serve as a resting place for a squadron of cormorants and the ideal spot on which to stretch out their wings to dry.

It must have been the mid-1960s when, as a young trainee based in the town, I was sent down here by one of the partners in the law firm I had recently joined, with instructions to inspect the Lloyds Register of Shipping Movements that was kept in that tiny wooden cabin. I was looking for the details of one ship in particular but otherwise I had little idea of what my visit would entail.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I reached the relative solidity of the north groyne and looked out along the flimsy wooden walkway to the small hut which appeared to me to be painfully exposed way out in the middle of the river. However, keen to experience everything that my first job since leaving school could throw at me, I started off along the walkway, and as I did so, I felt as if I had become a character in the fictional world of Peter Pan, a simple cabin boy forced by Captain Hook's pirates to walk the plank.

Unscathed after treading the boards, I entered the cabin, introduced myself and then went about my task, noting down the information I needed as I took in my unusual surroundings. I was surrounded on three sides by the River Tyne, and with no ships of note passing by, I could only imagine how vulnerable it must have felt to have been sitting here when the large Vickers-Armstrong built aircraft carrier HMS Victorious was slowly guided past this wee cabin on the 14th April 1941 with a bitter and bloody war raging in Europe..

At this distance in time I feel hugely privileged to have had the opportunity to experience, at close quarters, this small but important piece of North Shields shipping history. The visit was relatively brief but the memory has lasted a lifetime, a visit that was the beginning of my long and fragmented relationship with this riverside stretch of the town.

Coffee now brewed, it is time to start my walk, a regular routine intended to keep legs and lungs in reasonable fettle involving a few of the historic banks and stairs that climb sharply up from the riverside. I quickly pass the old Low Light, once an 18th century lighthouse and now home to a popular heritage centre. However, back in the 1980s, as I stood inside the shell of this now fine building beside an architect from the Tyne & Wear Building Preservation Trust, the roof open to the elements, floor boards nothing but a distant memory, I wondered how the proposed renovation project we were both involved in could possibly save this historic pile.

But survive it did, slowly growing from a seemingly lost cause once threatened with demolition, to a sympathetically restored landmark building which was an important part of the story of safe navigation in and out of the River Tyne. After completion, the building became the headquarters of North Tyneside Sea Fisheries Training Centre, a valiant, but ultimately failed, attempt to make the town the prime east coast centre for the training of people employed in the sea fishing industry.

Sipping my piping hot coffee, I continue along Union Quay and into Bell Street where I pass Quayside Court, better known to me as Bell Street flats. Formerly housing ground floor workshops, this building was transformed into its current housing configuration in the 1980s with the assistance of an Urban Development Grant and was the catalyst for further improvements along the quayside over the following few years. Whilst it is easy to slip past this building without a second glance, it is not without its merits and is considered to be a building, “that contributes to the character of the conservation area”.

As I pass into Liddell Street, I turn my head and look up towards the mightily grand Union Square housing development, a project I was initially involved in before moving on from my North Shields-based job to pastures new. I can still visualise the pre-development plan of the area, a warren of mainly small plots of land in multiple ownerships some of which once formed the stairs and passageways serving the topsy-turvy properties that clung onto the steep bank side. It was a complex project which eventually came to fruition in the late1990s.

Now I turn onto Lower Bedford Street, known locally as Wooden Bridge Bank, the first and steepest on my planned morning walk. I first came across this interesting local name in the 1970s when I briefly worked alongside an ex-North Shields beat bobby, a bear of a man but with the gentleness of a fawn, and I have continued to use it ever since. These names, which are handed down by word of mouth and never appear on any map, are an important part of the rich history of the area and, if not kept in regular use, are in danger of being lost for all time as the years slip by.

What goes up must, as they say, come down, and once I am back after my exceedingly brief lung-bursting visit to Saville Street, beside the beautifully curved corner of the handsome brick-built property now going by the name of 'The Haswell Building', I turn into Clive Street and make tracks towards the next bank on my list, the well-used Borough Bank. As I pass the adjacent steep bank side, now a tangle of impenetrable stabilising greenery, I think back to the time when there were a set of stairs down to this stretch of road from Yeoman Street, a nifty short-cut from the town to the nearby ferry landing.

I am now well into my stride and, as I turn sharply onto Borough Bank, I cannot help but smile at the memory of the night, not long after we were first married in 1969, when there was a heavy knock on the front door of our small terraced house on the far side of 'Shields. I opened it to find a soon-to-be well-known local playwright standing there, accompanied by a recently released from prison would-be poet and his current girlfriend.

Despite our mild protestations, they seemed hell-bent on dragging us to the Northumberland Arms, the infamous North Shields watering hole known to sailors worldwide as, 'The Jungle', an establishment I had heard many an eye-watering story about from a reporter friend working for a local newspaper. Once there, we met up with the would-be poet's wife, an unusual ménage à trois arrangement I admit, but it was after all the 1960s. Then again, that is a totally different story altogether so, with the memory of that unexpected, slightly out-of-the-ordinary night jiving around my head, I pushed hard up Borough Bank.
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This article first appeared in the Spring 2026 Issue of the Ilovenorthshields magazine ( ilovenorthshields.com )
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09/09/2026

It is amazing what you find when you are belatedly doing a bit of spring cleaning (in September) of a very dusty, musty & out of easy reach cupboard. It is hard to believe that this Sunday edition of the News of the World has survived for over 114 years, a broadsheet newspaper which reported the tragic events of the 14th/15th April in some considerable detail to the newspapers 2 million+ readers. In this day & age when news from all corners of the globe reach a digitally focused worldwide population in the blink of an eye it is worth remembering that in 1912 news was slow to travel. Whilst the world shed a tear for the passengers and crew who lost their lives when the Titanic finally sunk on the 15th, life went on back in Britain relatively normal as advertisers tried to persuade the readers to buy a host of goods such as this high desirable Coventry cycle.

07/09/2026

BRIERDENE

Woods were once swung here,
sand wedges, chips and pitches,
fairways and manicured greens,
golfers aiming putters with precision,
brightly patterned sweaters,
and a wee flagged hole
at the end of it all.
They took the rough with the smooth.

Now, sandwiched between houses,
surrounded by a rich variety of trees,
the burn slips quietly past and,
a pebble`s throw away,
it spills out across the sands.
I have often wondered
just how many culverts
has it flowed through on
its journey from its source to the sea.
I have wondered how many farms
have seen its rise and fall,
its cargo of water borne debris,
logs, sticks and branches,
rich pickings from upstream.

From this sheltered dene,
far removed from the seaside hurly-burly,
I watch the seasons change,
the migrants come and go,
the trees cast off their leaves.
And when, in time, it is all said done,
I will watch the cycle start again.
Nature has me in her grip.

This poem first appeared the 2020 book, `Green Spaces: Parks, Poetry and Hidden Nature in North Tyneside`.

05/09/2026

Bought in early 1991 from the Terence McArdle`s studio in Cullercoats this watercolour depicts a scene looking across Cullercoats Bay one which would be all too familiar to the artist. Born in 1940, little seems to be known about Terence although a large number of his paintings that have been sold in recent years suggest that the bulk of his work featured local Northumberland scenes although he was also known to paint Northumbrian Pitmen, some of which might be familiar. A very competent local artist in an area with a rich artistic bloodline.

26/08/2026

A poem & some random Fish Quay related photos.

AS THE LIGHT GOES DOWN

As the light goes down on canny `Shields
a young lad kicks a can down Brewhouse Bank,
an old man sups another pint,
a cold wind sweeps across the Groyne.
There is change afoot where herring girls
prepared the catch, a haul of silver darlings
for the hungry Tyne Brand cans, an east coast
catch for appetites across the world.
Where fish merchants plied their briny trade,
where trawler men hung tired nets, now only
the hum of cosy, confidential conversations,
the clatter of coffee cups, only the whiff
of sizzling battered cod compete with the comings
and goings of the pared down North Sea fleet,
and the timeless cry of greedy gulls.

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