The Regional Monitor

Aah Cleethorpes…with its stumpy remnant of a pier (the rest was demolished after the Second World War with the timbers sent to rebuild Leicester City’s bomb-damaged ground), and the tide that goes so far out, you can walk to Denmark.
Brighton, Blackpool and Scarborough – we are not. We are South Yorkshire’s playground. Choose any sunny Sunday and charabancs from Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster head east for a taste of traditional British seaside – as they have for generations. Buckets and spades at the ready, the progeny hit the golden sand (sorry Brighton, but stones do not a beach make) to build their castles. Others head for the donkey rides. Pleasure Island is our own theme park and the Cleethorpes Coast Light Railway plies its trade up and down the sand dunes – the price is right, and they always run on time. Candy floss and rock await for a sugar rush and, of course, there are the fish and chips. Yes, I’m biased, but our regular portions of haddock (cod is not a favoured fish) are huge and the jumbo-size resembles the entire fish quota for a small country. Our fish and chips are the best I’ve tasted anywhere.
But Cleethorpes is more than Cleethorpes – most of the constituency don’t even use Cleethorpes in their postal addresses. It’s an area of contrasts: from the market town of Barton upon Humber, connected to Yorkshire by the Humber Bridge, with its listed buildings and one of the oldest church towers in the country, to the practical and utilitarian nature of Immingham with its busy port; from the prairie-like barley fields to the villages of the rolling Lincolnshire Wolds; from windmills to the power stations and refineries of the Humber Bank – lighting up the sky at night like some science fiction film.
And where else can you sit in the main stand of a football ground and if the game is slow, marvel at the container ships lining up on the horizon waiting for the tide to turn, so they can head for port? Grimsby Town FC is – as every quiz addict knows – in Cleethorpes. The Mariners will soon be moving to a new ground and we will lose the view. As one fan in favour of the new ground suggested, when the move happens, supporters will have to start bringing books to read to while away the moments of not-so-inspiring play. But the ground will still be in the constituency of Cleethorpes.
Our prices haven’t caught up with the real world yet. You can eat out for less than the cost of a sandwich in London, and our house prices make Southerners swoon – Victorian houses sell for less than the cost of a flat in London and the suburbs. In fact, you could buy a whole street for the same as you would pay for a family home in London. Money goes a lot further in Cleethorpes, and so our quality of life is better than anywhere else.
And what of the people who inhabit this heaven on earth? They’re down to earth – even the posh ones. They don’t suffer fools gladly. And they can prick the pomposity of a puffed-up politician at a hundred paces. Yet they are kind and sweet, too. My office is adorned with thank-you cards and messages. Why do I love the place so much? – it’s the people. Like our fish and chips, they are the best.