A Trip to Goole Part 1 - Cleethorpes & The Briarcroft

The beach at Cleethorpes

When we were little our East Coast seaside visits meant Sutton on Sea. I remember a lovely stretch of beach, beach huts and a walkway, I'm not sure if it was a promenade.

I'm also not sure how we ended up there rather than any other East Coast resort like Skegness or Mablethorpe, but we loved going there. Well, we loved being there! The journeys were not pretty in our Vauxhall Viva with it's red vinyl seat,s which heated up to a skin scorching temperature when the sun came out and gave off a nasty odour that soon turned the "are we nearly there yet?" questions, to the urgent cry of "I'm going to be sick!". Once one of us started the other was bound to follow and there would be a short interlude as we stopped in a lay by to get it all over and done with.......fabric seats, tinted windows, air conditioning - the child of today may not know it but they have a lot to be thankful for!

On one memorable occasion we did attempt a day at Skegness, we were both sick, I can't remember what my brother had to wear, but I had to wear my dads Royal Wanstead swimming shorts and my mums purple coat with the triangular buttons the whole time we walked around the town. We braved the beach behind a windbreak, the beach, the sea and the sky were all merged into one steel grey mass. As you can tell, it was memorable if nothing else.

Nowadays when we think of the East Coast we head out to Norfolk, or less frequently to Southend-on-Sea, the (almost) place of my birth.

A couple of months ago, we heard that an amateur dramatics group The St Paul's Players of Goole were putting on a performance of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit. Now Blithe Spirit, the David Lean film, is in my Top Ten all time favourites and I'd recently missed a chance to see the play in Nottingham. So, when there was a chance to see this production with a hotel stay too, how could I refuse?

The hotel, or guest house in question is called The Briarcroft and is located in Goole. They have a room converted into an intimate theatre, with tiered seating a floor level stage at which The St Paul's Players put on their performances several times a year.

Goole, is not too far away from the seaside town of Cleethorpes, which we all lovingly call Seacorpse, which is what my niece used to call it when she was little. I've never been, but my in laws assured us that we would get a mean portion of fish and chips there. They have been a few times and eaten at Steels, but this time they wanted to try out the Ocean Fish Bar which had been recommended to them by a fishmonger.

Strolling along the sea front

We all arrived and met at the pier at midday and headed straight for the restaurant. I noticed straight away that Cleethorpes was a nice little typically British seaside town, a pier, a prom, the pleasure beach, a string of ice cream parlours, amusement arcades and gift shops eventually giving way to the main town and shopping area further back from the sea front.

It was a brisk walk through the rain to the Ocean Fish Bar. We were seated in a family booth which looked quite spacey but once we were all sat down it was a little claustrophobic. The hosts were two fearsome looking women, impeccably done up to the nines and dressed in lovely blue dresses, they looked more like they should be in a cocktail bar rather than serving up portions of fresh fish and chips! The lady who seated us said she was the joint owner with her husband. She asked where we'd travelled from, if we'd been there before.."You will enjoy it" she commanded rather than suggested.

Jumbo Haddock - also came with mushy peas

We all decided on Jumbo Haddock and Chips with bread and butter, except Barbara who went for the Skate and Lauren who had Sausage and Chips.

The portions were enormous. I've never seen anything like the skate, you can see from the photo, it was at least as big as two hands!...and no room on the plate for the chips and peas, they had to come in separate bowls.

The enormous skate

The batter was very light and crisp, really good, no soggy bit in between the crunch and the fish. It was thin too, no big greasy mouthfuls. The fish was tasty too, but really we shouldn't have expected anything less as it's brought into Grimsby not five minutes down the road and you can't ask for fresher than that.

I didn't care for the peas, but Tony loved them. I am a mushy pea heathen though, it's Bachelors tinned for me with lashings of mint sauce, unless they have been made by Helen Manning on bonfire night!

The chips were not greasy, they were typical chip shop style, fluffy but not crispy. I found them a little dry, but I was in the minority. Lauren gave her sausage a thumbs up but couldn't manage many chips. It was all served with thick slices of bread and butter and I'm sure we could have had a cup of tea too!

Cake!

We had to wait before a break in the torrential rain allowed us to get back down to the sea front. We were taken onto the Pier and into The Tides Bar for coffee and some very nice cake (I know we really shouldn't have)!

After coffee we decided to have a walk up and down the promenade, Lauren had a donkey ride, we walked up to the Pleasure Beach but it was closed, I suspect due to the weather. We went back and decided to try our hand on the 2p pusher machines in one of the arcades. We won, we won, we won....oh...and then we lost it all again, but we did have fun, you can't beat the sweet smell of donuts and candy floss mingled in with the sounds of an amusement arcade to whisk you back to childhood.

The weather was against us and the afternoon was drawing on, so we decided to head off to The Briarcroft to see what the evening held for us.

I'll tell you all about it next time, in part two.

A traditional British donkey ride