THE ANGELS OF GATESHEAD

October 2023. Gateshead.

Gateshead is brilliant, isn’t it ?

Cheap hotels, proper fry ups,

and in Saltwell Park it has one of the great public spaces.

We spent Sunday morning in Saltwell, a wondrous rambling place with little zoo, eco shop, artisan coffee and rose gardens.

In Guildford you’d pay £12.50 for such a park; here it’s free.

Mrs RM got annoyed I scared away the squirrel she was trying to take a pic of; “Schnell !” I said.

Gateshead is assumed to be the grim bit of Newcastle, and only in Low Fell to the south did I see anywhere to eat, but of course the residents are protected by a special Angel.

We caught that Angel on a gorgeous morning. Some folk don’t get it, a bit like some folk don’t get Blackpool.

In the shrubbery at the western edge families had built memorials to their own “angels”, lost too soon.

It was a touching sight.

Beats Stonehenge every time.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

8 thoughts on “THE ANGELS OF GATESHEAD”

  1. Delightful coincidence that you mentioned Guildford and The Angel of the North in the same post. There were plans a few years ago to erect an Angel of the South in Guildford, on Stag Hill. The plans came to naught, though, as it became obvious that such frippery was unnecessary as Guildford already had such stellar tourist attractions as the Prince Albert, the bus station and Tunsgate shopping centre.

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      2. They were demolished last year. I heard it from our back garden.
        In a Rugeley pub last week I heard “When I was at the power station” and “Oh, my husband worked at the power station”. It’s not the town it was with that and the colliery gone. There’s a massive Amazon warehouse but they’re not seen as proper jobs, and that’ll be closing soon.

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      4. But in that Rugeley pub last week I overheard them saying that the Power Station Social Club had been too far out of the way.
        From my August and October trips there I concluded that it’s not bad town though for pubs and beer.

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      6. No, there’s still a Bass lantern outside but only four Vine beers inside. I had the Best Bitter which strongly tasted of diacetyl. I was the only customer and just watched the flickering flames of a log fire, so very much nicer than the television screens that blight so many pubs nowadays. I think it was my first visit since over twenty years ago when the licensee hosted a meeting of many Punch lessees angry at how they were being treated and I had gone to report on it for the branch magazine.

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