Blue Moon's trip around the UK

Doesn’t work does it? Cumbria doesn’t remotely sound like Georgia, although I have to say the one time I went to Georgia (a very long time ago) it rained almost as hard as it does in Cumbria. It just wasn’t quite so cold, or dull. And I bet the people of what is referred to hereabouts as North West Cumbria (now there’s a distinction to conjure with – as if there was anywhere more North West than Cumbria) hate the word. What was wrong with Cumberland and Westmorland, two of the best county names? I was very disappointed to find that all of Whitehaven put together couldn’t muster half as many Cumberland Sausages as you could pick up in five minutes in Tebay Services. In fact, I think I would rather spend 48 hours stormbound in Tebay Services than in Whitehaven, as it has cracking cafes and the best farm shop. What a shame it doesn’t have a marina.

But back to the rain, which is the point. It rained so hard that large parts of Cumbria were cut off for a few hours. This probably occurs more frequently here than in Kentish Town as no-one appeared at all bothered, even though a village up the road had twice the rainfall of the UK average overnight, according to the BBC. It also blew a full gale, and the noise of wind and rain on the hatches was so deafening that I was glad I had got up at 0100 that morning as I slept through the lot. My rain radar app went blue and stayed there, while the wind was so strong it shredded my Itchenor burgee overnight, so doing anything other than staying down below writing blogs and catching up with admin until it had literally all blown over was out of the question.

Sadly that turned out to be the most exciting part of the day, because when after lunch it started raining just normally, and occasionally merely spitting in the wind, and I ventured out, it turned out that I had actually seen all of Whitehaven in ten minutes the night before, and every street corner I turned revealed another row of closed banks, shuttered shops and boarded up pubs. The man in Milletts was so pleased to see a customer that he kept me there for what felt like half an hour explaining about his friend who’d gone to the Isle of Man for the TT and had the whole campsite washed away overnight. Serves him right for going camping on the Isle of Man with bikers, I decided not to say out loud. In W H Smith, two people fought to serve me, even though they had one of those really annoying self checkouts that tries to upsell you a bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk when you only came in for some rubber bands. In Boots, three qualified pharmacists worked as a team to explain that the plasters were in the section behind me clearly labelled ‘First Aid’. And that was Whitehaven.

This is a real shame as it has a fascinating history. It proudly claims that it was the last place in England to be invaded, but that is pure tosh. It turns out that John Paul Jones (the American naval captain, not the Led Zeppelin bass player) set fire to one of the forts and then ran away. He attacked it because it was at the time the biggest port in England after London, apparently, and combined coal mining with shipping – most of the coal burned in Dublin’s Georgian fireplaces came from here, I read in a particularly dull moment on a civic plaque. Hence the Georgian architecture, but to describe it as beautifully preserved is simply wrong. It’s been preserved simply because no sooner had they built it than the town began a steady decline which has continued unabated to today, so nobody replaced the ageing buildings. Except that is for the most notable one, a strange bridge that carried coal wagons over the main road to the harbour, which they demolished in the 1920s to replace with an art deco bus station which is now the Wetherspoons.

But the marina was snug in a gale, the staff were all friendly and the showers were hot. So to encourage other yachtsmen to visit their marina here are some pictures of Whitehaven’s interesting side.

There seemed to be an unusual degree of humour in the signs:

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I’ve got to admit I’m clutching at straws. If you find yourself at a loose end in North West Cumbria, and it happens not to be raining, I would recommend you pay Whitehaven a visit as it is a fascinating town in a beautiful setting.

Then head off to a fancy hotel in the Lake District. Or just pick up some supper at Tebay Services on the way home.

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