Places We Have Visited

Okay, so this was my idea. What I thought is we could all say something about locations - we like, we hate, we can’t make up our mind. Short, long…up to you.

Here, and overseas. Here goes:

Great Yarmouth (Norfolk)

I went there for a three day visit last year. It was like going back to my childhood - street gangs and rubbish! No, sorry…must take this seriously.
But it did have another world feel. Garish lights, arcades, feral grannies feeding one arm bandits, kiss-me-quick hats, town-idiot faces. There was a feel that whichever way modernity was travelling, the town had decided to steer in a totally different direction.

I also have to say if you want to see where all governments have gone wrong, this is the place to marvel at their ineptitude. What the area needs are REAL jobs, REAL investment, not sticking plaster policies, low paid jobs and patronising slogans. I wonder if the metropolitan politicians ever see beyond Westminster Islington.
I spoke to one resident. The Council got a grant of some £20 million from the EU, as a deprived area. Immediately the politicians sprang into action. A regional development agency was set up with expensive salaries, pensions and offices. That accounted for a lot of the money. Then to bring employment to the area they….put in new paving and street lights. I kid you not.

Such a pity. It has so much going for it. Sand, sea and sandwiches!
But it was depressing. A monument to the failure of our so called elite to see beyond the end of their expenses fuelled life styles.

Misty

Morecombe: a wretched town

A few years back I had the unfortunate experience of spending a night in Morecombe. Everwhere seemed so delapidated, aged, and downright grubby.



From the moment we parked the car and stepped out onto the broken tarmac, you could sense a town well past its prime.

That is too weird I was just going to do Morcambe but from a different angle

I'll do it in a moment

Bella wrote:

That is too weird I was just going to do Morcambe but from a different angle

I'll do it in a moment

Two minds in harmony, Bella! :23454565: :23454565: :23454565:

Aren't so many seaside towns

Perhaps the elite are just waiting for rising tides to wash them away

Very sad


Misty

Morecambe.

On the surface one of the most tatty depressing places you could ever have the misfortune to visit.

How ever take the time to open your mind and the place can take on a different view.



The famous Artdeco building The Midland has now been fully restored to it's former glory,If you stand in front of this building facing away from the cheap tat on the high street,you have a decent beach and aview of the bay.Ive spent many a happy afternoon there with my building sandcastles and collecting bit's of washed up coloured glass.The bay is also famous for it's lethal sands and guided walks over them

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/morecambe-bay-a-stroll-between-sea-and-sky-407923.html

Shine wrote:

Bella wrote:

That is too weird I was just going to do Morcambe but from a different angle

I'll do it in a moment

Two minds in harmony, Bella! :23454565: :23454565: :23454565:

Oddly enough I was supposed to go this Afternoon to assist with a house clearance sale ,I could'nt face it it's grimness is too much in winter

Why is it so many 'odd' people land up at distressed seaside towns? Is it something to do with the land falling away to the coast, so all the unstable people roll down to the sea? Sort of genetic tenpins. Just a theory. A stupid one, granted...but hey, it's Sunday.

Misty

Morecambes full of weird one's,Misty,I think the cheap accomodation in B and B attracts them,the owners need DHSS money when the seasons finished

Strangely enough I could bang on all day about places I've been but I'll wait till the next page as this one is doing my head in

Still not there yet

Speaking of odd, dont ever set foot in Stevenage in Hertfordshire. Complete dump, full of gormless looking people!




:758960:

Anyway as you were saying many seaside towns in Britain are run down and full of odd people.

Brighton's full of odd people but it's hardly run down and there is always plenty to do there. I lived for awhile in Brighton and if you include Hove which is slightly more genteel you are talking of a borough (it's not a City, unless they've given it that status recently) with over 250,000 people living there.

It's mainly not decayed like other seaside towns as it's large and close to London and the Brighton conference center insures that it's busy all year round. The pubs and clubs and resturants etc are great and it could match most places for entertainment.

I've visted Great Yarmouth myself and it is exactly as you say Misty - a dump but not as bad as Lowestoft which seemed almost deserted when I visited there a few years ago. Southend-on-Sea is another run down dump although I have some very happy memories of the place from when I went there as a teenager in the 1970's. I had my first ever job there when I first left home in the mid 1970's working at the Kursall amusement park. It was the gateway to the wild side of life for me.

I know Bournemouth quite well to as I had a friend who lived there for many years and I used to visit it quite often but being more of a city person I've never been one for seaside towns much. Saying that Bournemouth isn't run down at all and it is well kept and looked after. Poole on the other hand which is like a dormitory town to Bournemouth is a dowdy place and I didn't think much of it at all. The same could be said for Hastings as I found that run down as well. Eastbourne is commonly known as God's departure lounge as it is rare to see anyone there under 70

If you want a real depressing place on the south coast though go to Folkestone in Kent - what a shitehole :twisted:

I once got to within five miles to Hastings. This is true. We met this strange man who kept asking if 'We'd had an epiphany on the road to Damascus?'

We took it as a warning about Hasting and went to St.Leonard's

Now doesn't that sound waiting for Godot like. "They never got to Hasting, landing at St. Leonard's"

Misty

Lowestoft, or as the locals say, 'Lowe...stoft," is really a dump. My man was once offered a job there. One visit and we decided Beirut looked good.


Misty

Brighton hmmmm



i lived in eastbourne for years and we used to go there for a drink and a fight there are several clans of "vampires" there freaky little people


they live life only at night and have weekly meetings like scouts but with role play you can recognise on of the them by the tattoo of a blood drop on their bottom lip

i don't remember which clan possibly the malkavians (probebly spelt very wrong)


but the good thing about Brighton is the little shops in the lanes



eastbourne is a strange place the age gap in the residents is massive it seemed like there was millions of pensioners a few middle aged folk and then thousands of drunken drug fueled youths

Misty wrote:

I once got to within five miles to Hastings. This is true. We met this strange man who kept asking if 'We'd had an epiphany on the road to Damascus?'

We took it as a warning about Hasting and went to St.Leonard's

Now doesn't that sound waiting for Godot like. "They never got to Hasting, landing at St. Leonard's"

Misty

st leonards?????


that makes hastings look nice


i lived there for a while too a nice basement flat on the sea just around the corner from warrior square i used to drink in the carlisle up the road

these are very hazy memories you are bringing back

very hazy indeed

One of the most beautiful places I've ever been was Co Galway in the Republic of Ireland. I lived in Galway city for awhile in the mid 1990's and I had a wonderful time there. I worked for a woman from Kildare selling celtic and ethnic jewellery on the streets and at markets and festivals and we travelled all over the west coast of Ireland. I visited a delightful town called Clifton right on the Atlantic coast which was where Alcock and Brown the two men who first flew across the Atlantic landed and I saw a school of porpoises swimming in the sea there and a Whale
Galway itself is full of swans that swim in the Corrib river that flows out into the bay and you hardly ever see a seagull there, unlike Brighton whre they're huge.

lol sure enough truth they dont want your chips in brighton they go for the wallet and jewelery

I had a lot of good memories there but it has got it's down side as well.

Norwich was another place I didn't like either the people there seemed rather odd to me and as for Tavistock in Devon they were just plain wierd.

Before you stop in any town have a good look at the locals. Eyes too close together - move on. Same rule applies to certain forums. Prejudices too close together - give them a miss :shock:

Misty

anyone ever been to Corby?



that is a very fucked up place


i got chatting to a bunch of "Scottish people" there and when i asked where they were from the responded in an accent far thicker than my own

"ive never been tae Scotland i wis born in fuckin Kettering!" and to his friends he said "this guy's a fuckin ba heed"

apparently the mass migration of the steel workers in the 70s kept the Scottish accent through the generations

"ive never been tae Scotland i wis born in fuckin Kettering!"

Correct me if I'm wrong. But isn't that the opening line from a Jane Austin novel? :study:


Misty

I've been to Corby or rather through it and a lot of the folks there are of Scottish origin. I've also visited Kettering. I don't care for Northants at all.

Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry are all dumps as well. Liverpool had character but most of the city was a dump from what I could see of it.

Takeaway football and the Beatles and you're not left with very much.