Surely to the Sea(Ham)

26 May 2022

This one was always going to be the hardest. 

We got up in our usual order: me first, Dan not long after, and Harry eventually. We didn’t have all that much planned. First we would go to Wheatley Hill for family reasons and then to Durham City to see the Castle and Cathedral. To round out the day we would go out for a meal with all the family.

We had breakfast and spent a bit of time with Uncle Harry and Eileen, next door. Uncle Harry gave us the most complicated directions for finding parking in Durham and I think I could see Dan’s eyes glazing over while his mind was thinking “Satnav’s got this!”

Our first stop was Wheatley Hill, the pit village I was born in and where my paternal grandparents, along with a number of other relatives, are buried. As someone who is not religious, this was about as close to a spiritual experience as I get (though had the SoL been open yesterday? …). I’m really not sure how the boys experienced this. They were respectful of my desires to see the graves but I’m not sure how they felt about it. Strangely, I didn’t ask them. Another strange thing was that I stopped taking photographs after I took this one of my grandparents grave, for which, sadly, I was unable to find flowers. As Dan said later, quite profoundly, I was in the moment and not observing the moment, so my phone stayed in my pocket even as we came across some fairly significant and interesting people and things. 

For example, the accompanying photo of Roy Lonsdale's sculpture, 'The Last Shift', was taken by Dan, who seemed at some deeper level to understand its significance.

Roy Lonsdale, 'The Last Shift'

The statue commemorates the closing of Wheatley Hill pit in 1969. It also symbolises the main reason I became Australian. In 1969 my parents decided to emigrate to Australia, recognising that my father having had a ‘limited occupational experience’ would find trouble obtaining work and a new career into the 70s in the post-mining North. Australia represented a land of opportunity (excuse the cliché) and I, at least, have few regrets.

When we arrived at the Wheatley Hill Cemetery we had little idea where the graves were. I phoned dad's cousin Robert to enquire and he said he’d pop down with his wife Irene to direct us. It was great that the boys got to meet another member of the extended family. I remembered Robert from my previous trip 25 years before and to be honest it felt like he hadn’t changed all that much. Now in his 70s he still looks fit as a fiddle, which is just as well for the racing pigeons that he inherited from his father and still maintains.

Irene suggested we go into the Wheatley Hill historical society, located perhaps appropriately in the cemetery, and we saw an excellent collection of photographs, documents and artifacts from the village’s history. Here I came across another example of a contradiction I’d noticed at the heart of English working class culture—an adulation of royalty, especially the Queen, while also respecting opposition to the status quo via such institutions as unions and the Labour Party. It’s a little like some of the Sunderland fans happy to sing, “F*** the tories” and “Keep the red flag flying” who then go on to belt out the national anthem at Wembley. But maybe that’s just my problem.

I asked Robert if he would take us up to look at the pigeons. He happily agreed. The boys seemed a bit confused by this moment. Why would I want to do this? I suspect they do not admire the art and culture of pigeon racing in a way that I do (where’s Bill Lawry when you need him?). There’s probably a degree of cruelty and control to the sport that I forgive while younger people just don’t get it. Forty years ago someone like Robert would have also taken us to see his racing dogs. I can’t imagine Harry or Dan having much truck with that. Anyway, I didn’t take a photo of the birds either, which I also regret.

Irene invited his back to their place for a cup of tea and a chat out of the cold and rain. We met their wonderful little dogs who kept us all entertained for an hour or so. Robert dragged out a couple of his old Sunderland tops for us to look at. One was from 1973. Robert insisted we take them but we but we declined. It was a strange moment because we felt that we probably had enough Sunderland tops already; but later I felt some regret about refusing his generosity. Anyway, not much to be done about that now.

My original plan had been to visit the house in which I was born, but by this stage I had been so convinced of the extent of the decline of the village that I felt seeing it would depress me. Probably silly but that’s how I felt. So we said goodbye to Robert and Irene and the dogs and made our way to Durham city.

  

 
Durham city is like Harry Potterland. It even has its own Diagon Alley. We found a car park not far from the city and walked over the river and towards the Cathedral. The pictures tell the story. I was taken aback by the Cathedral shop: a mix of religious iconography, local history, coal mining stories and Harry Potterness. It’s a beautiful Mediaeval (or even earlier) city but it seems to be being swamped by the inevitable franchise café/restaurants/shops that are the advance guard of commodification.

Clearly copied from the Quadrangle at Melbourne University

Lunch, cake, coffee. Then back to Easington.

We wanted to take Mark's family out to a nice restaurant to thank them for their generosity and love but also to celebrate our trip. After some argument, Eileen point blank refused to go to a Greek restaurant called Spread From the Med because it was located in an industrial zone in Peterlee—I agreed with her but more on cultural-linguistic grounds. In the end, we decided to go an Indian restaurant in Seaham. This was a good choice. The food was delicious and we had a terrific time.

Seaham Harbour

The Durham Coast is a beautiful region. I commented on Twitter that all it really needed was sand and climate a little like Brisbane’s in order to become a resort Paradise. As it stands, however, it’s too bloody cold even in summer and you’ll hurt your feet on the rocks on the beach. Seaham is particularly beautiful. It has a harbour, the wall of which is assailed by waves coming from the north in the winter storms. I’d love to see that. On the seafront, near the restaurant, is another statue, ‘Tommy’, also by Roy Lonsdale. As the title suggests it represents a British soldier. Now I’m not an admirer of military symbolism. And I especially don’t appreciate the glorification of war. However, this statue's impact is the entire opposite of that. It’s poignant, beautiful, and it captures the expression of multiple emotions: grief, sadness, regret, weariness but also dignity in those emotions. I loved it. If only all military iconography could capture such a diversity of sentiment.

We headed back to Easington sated and tired. Our trip was coming to an end and the adrenalin on which I had lived for 10 days was just about used up. Three more nights and we were off back to Melbourne.