Lynemouth

Lynemouth, Northumberland a still elemental linear town, birthplace of Sid Waddell, a great Englishman, who describes in, The Road Back Home: A Northern Childhood, and in rich and evocative unreconstructed vernacular, growing up and returning to Lynemouth. The interlacing of pit villages of Ashington, Lynemouth and Ellington with the Duke of Northumberland's* Alnwick, Morpeth and Cresswell acted out at the edge of industrial towns is emblematic for All of England.

Sid Waddell notices the polarities of Manse versus Presbytery, County versus Town and Red and White versus Black and White and Land versus Sea with Cresswell in between. Newbiggin by sea he says is a rough fishing village, astute, because Sunderland FC, during the General Strike and Miners Strike 1926, offered Newbiggin by sea free season tickets to Roker Park. (Newbiggin by sea is just visible from South Shields Pier on a clear day.)

Morpeth, like Market Harborough, children are the most eloquent speakers in England, and Morpeth is The Prettiest English Town.

*Owns dredging rights of The River Tyne. Note that delineation of Northumberland is a clean line changing from rural to developed along the line of Killingworth New Town. Durham land use is more fragmented. NB Cycling from North Shields to Berwick upon tweed it is possible to penetrate into the Alcan/Coastal Power Station but not cross the outflow and this is the only obstacle on the whole of the Northumbria Cycle Path.