The entrance really is very narrow. I wouldn't like to try it in any kind of sea, when (if need be) it might be better to aim for an easier target - for instance, the commercial harbour at Blyth, which you can see in the distance in this next photo.
On a sunny day in early June (which is when I was there) Seaton Sluice looks rather pretty. Here are some more views.
As you can see, there is always a breeze! A mild one on the day, though. The harbour is actually the tidal part of the Seaton Burn, with nature altered to turn it into a rectangular-shaped dock for small vessels. The tidal part extends under the A193 Whitley Bay-Blyth road bridge and then into a sort of riverside park, with more sheltered moorings.
I was there for two reasons. First, the pleasant couple on the pitch next to mine had strongly recommended the fish and chip shop there. I had just arrived, and was booked in for eight nights. Although fish and chips wasn't a regular part of my diet, I thought it highly likely that I'd indulge while staying at Hartley, so I wanted to check it out.
Second, this was a classic Vera location. The production team had clearly considered that it would make a distinctive (indeed, iconic) background to any episode that involved a murder on the Northumberland coast. Tynemouth Harbour was another such location, and I planned to go there, too. (I had a whole programme of Vera locations to work through, on and off, during my stay!)
I recalled that there was one episode (involving the murder of a retired police detective) actually set in Seaton Sluice - and in particular, at a social club there. You saw sequences inside and outside that club. When contemplating the harbour from the A193 road bridge, I spotted the club building. It stood out. It's the building you can see in the picture above that shows the road bridge railing on its right edge. Follow the railing upwards in the shot, and it leads your eyes to the club.
Naturally I had to take a closer look!
But first I explored some of Seaton Sluice on foot. Away from the main road, it was attractive, with a wide greensward between the houses and the cliffs overlooking the sea. There were a couple of intriguing buildings, like this round stone turret, which now accommodated an art gallery, but must once had an official use:
The social club I wanted to see was just around the corner.
It was a big place. Many social clubs are single-storey affairs, just a couple of lounges with perhaps a snooker room too, but this one looked as if it might have many rooms and quite possibly a large function room for discos and stage performances. It was all neat and tidy. Even the shelter outside for die-hard smokers looked salubrious. It was mid-morning and nobody was about, not even delivery people. I made a closer inspection.
There you are. It welcomed visitors. Temporary membership was available. I wondered whether the couple on the pitch next to me had joined, so that they could have a friendly place to go to in the evening.
I didn't know what the procedure might be for getting into a club like this. Why would I want temporary membership at all? Well, it would be an alternative to venturing into a local pub full of men. If they were open at lunchtime, and surely they would be, perhaps I could drop in for a friendly coffee and sandwich, and chat with the locals, relaxing with them in their space? A slice of straightforward, down-to-earth North-Eastern life. I wouldn't be interested in the low-cost drinks. Nor the evening entertainment, unless it was a quiz.
Did you just walk in and fill in a form? Or did an existing member have to introduce you, and speak for you? What reception might a single lady expect? Would it matter, my not having a Geordie accent?
This was silly. Belonging to a club like this wasn't my style. Was I simply curious to step into a real-life TV backdrop? Because an episode of Vera had been filmed in there? It wasn't a good reason to test the reality of that 'Welcomes Visitors' on the side of the building.
I did have some past experience of social clubs. But it was all long ago...
The only members' club I ever entered as a member was the Civil Service Club in Southampton, which I went to now and then, with colleagues, during the years 1971 to 1978. I didn't go for cheap drinks, nor for snooker. I went there to play lighthearted skittles or darts as part of an office team.
The CS Club always seemed a bit old-fashioned, set in its ways. There were retired old codgers on the door, who seemed very suspicious of me, scrutinising my membership card every single time. I found this anything but friendly. The trouble was, I think, that I went too infrequently to get known. And for all I know there might have been something about me that jarred with these narrow-minded old codgers, set off warning bells in their heads. This was the 1970s. Prejudice was rife. Women were talked down do as if simpletons. The men on the door would feel within their rights to quibble about letting you in. Gay men and black persons might not get in at all. (I suppose lesbian women were off their radar) If they didn't approve of what you were wearing, or your presumed attitude, they'd keep you out. So punkettes with spiked hair, boots, and a few piercings might well be refused entry. I imagine it was the same with social clubs everywhere at that time. If your appearance was in any way unusual, or your face didn't fit, or they didn't like your accent, or if you seemed unlikely to share their prejudices - or laugh at their jokes - they didn't want you, and would find a Rule to keep your out. These were very tribal places.
Occasionally - from time to time up to 1980 - I entered these clubs as a guest. It was exactly the same - instant suspicion, excessive scrutiny, stony faces as soon as they saw me, or when I said anything.
I remember going to a club in Redbridge in Southampton. It was mid-1977 and I was still twenty-four. I admit I looked young for my age, but surely not juvenile? I had just dropped off my friend and her son and girlfriend, before finding a parking space.
When I arrived - unaccompanied - at the entrance, I expected merely to say that I was 'with Edwina' (my friend was a club member) and I'd be let in. But no. The old man guarding the place from undesirables looked me up and down with cold eyes and snarled 'How old are you?' He'd never heard of my friend. He was going to refuse me entry unless I proved who I was, that I was a club member, and convinced him I was old enough to enter the premises. It was the Rules.
I was shocked. He completely wrong-footed me. I didn't know what to do. I was seriously thinking that I'd have to slink away, defeated by this implacable person. (This was twenty years before mobile phones were commonly available: I couldn't ring my friend, and ask her to come to the entrance and rescue me) Fortunately Edwina then appeared, wondering where I was, and vouched for me. Grudgingly the old fool let me in, muttering. I suppose he knew deep down that he had been too officious, and hated having to back down and let me in.
But that kerfuffle at the club entrance spoiled my afternoon. I felt embarrassed, awkward, unwanted, out of place, even though Edwina's family - son, girlfriend, mum and dad - people I'd known for a while, and 'on my side' so to speak - were all there. I felt unable to move away from our table. I didn't go to the loo, just in case somebody thought I was an intruder and showed me the door.
To cap it all, the club had a guest that day, a famous cricketer called Barry Richards, then playing for Hampshire, and every adult there had to pop a five-pound note (big money in 1977) into a bowl that was going around. Apparently he'd just pulled off some amazing cricketing feat - I don't know, ten thousand runs in a game against Nottinghamshire or something - and the club had organised this collection. He was going from table to table, smiling broadly and accepting the fawning congratulations. Clearly he felt himself very worthy of all the adulation. I knew nothing about cricket, and grew acutely worried that, when he came to our table, he'd ask me something that I couldn't reply to. I'd look a total idiot. But more disastrously, my ignorance of who he was and what he had done would seem insulting. Luckily for me, my status as a moron from another planet wasn't exposed. He had time for brief conversation with Edwina's dad only, then to my great relief he moved on.
But making a forced donation, for somebody I couldn't care less about, just intensified the bad feeling left by the sour incident at the club entrance. I'd never felt comfortable in social clubs; now I was minded to avoid them completely in the future.
That reluctance to go near clubs soon had to be put aside. A job transfer to London saw me serving under a boss who in his leisure time was Chairman of the Chiddingfold Ex-Servicemen's Club. Chiddingfold was a Surrey village for well-heeled commuters. Perhaps a world away from Redbridge and Seaton Sluice. The Chiddingfold Club was much more than a local social centre. It functioned as a performance venue for very well-known entertainers down from London and elsewhere. It drew audiences from many miles around. It was smart, and on performance nights - perhaps any night really - you'd dress up a bit to go there. It may be that it was a bit too posh for the working men of the village, and wouldn't have kept going without these acts coming in - singers, comedians and so forth.
There must have come a point when putting on these sophisticated performances stopped being profitable. The Club must have gone into decline, and it closed down some years ago now. But in the late 1970s it was doing well, and my boss was a big figure there.
He was constantly inviting his staff to come down and see this or that performance at the Club, or perhaps the Village Hall, and I attended more than one Old Tyme Music Hall evening in Chiddingfold, with perhaps Leonard Sachs, who was the Master of ceremonies on the TV version, The Good Old Days, introducing the acts one by one. The audience, would, of course, all be dressed up in Victorian or Edwardian costumes. Whether authentic or improvised, the standard of dress was high. Here, for instance, is my friend Edwina in my London flat, all ready to go to a 1978 event:
And here is Mum, Dad, friends Rose and Les, and another friend of mine Deborah, all dressed up for another evening in 1980 (Dad's captioning, not mine):
Ah, the Good Old Days! Well, perhaps not.
I pleased my boss very much by buying tickets and turning up with friends and family, and it may well have helped my career. By 1980 he had recommended me for the prized Final Course Technical Training that would project me towards higher things in the Revenue, if I passed excruciatingly difficult exams and possessed the ability and ambition to pursue that golden career path. (I didn't have what it took)
But none of this dressing-up stuff was really my cup of tea. And certainly not regular visits to any local club. After 1980 I reinstated my policy of staying away from these places. And for most of the ensuing thirty years I have kept to that. The closest I've got in recent times is being part of a team on Quiz Nights at the Mid-Sussex Golf Club in Ditchling.
All this flashed through my mind as I contemplated the Seaton Sluice Social Club. Temporary membership? No, not for me.
That left the fish and chip shop to check out. I couldn't spot it at first. Then realised that it must be the posh-looking establishment across the road, that was also a coffee shop, and other things.
Fit for the Queen. So assuredly good enough for me! I resolved to give it a whirl one evening.
But I never did. I'd booked eight nights at Hartley, but stayed only three. I would explain why, but this post is already long enough.
