Dérive - a journey where a traveller spontaneously forgets about their life for a while in order to feel and absorb the vibe of the landscape, art and architecture surrounding them and be moved.
The Minds’ Journal
While I cannot say that I know every part of Newcastle-upon-Tyne like the back of my hand, I know most of its streets and buildings very well. I may not have the famed ‘knowledge’ that a London black cabbie has of getting you from A to B by the most expeditious route. Still, I would get you between two places in Newcastle without much hassle. Indeed, I would also say I could do the same around much of London, having lived in and around it for several decades before my return to the northeast.
But back to Newcastle and encouraged by a Substack 'Note' by
on a dérive route around Bath he took with friends a few weeks ago, I thought I'd try the same technique, thinking it might offer me an unfamiliar perspective on my home city. So armed with a download of Andrew's ‘directions’, I set off to see if I might discover a new side to the old place.My walk began at Newcastle's imposing Central Station. I wrote of it in my piece "I'm sittin' in the railway station" but did not mention what happened when Queen Victoria opened the station in 1850. The local dignitaries had planned quite a show for the visit of the royal personage with a grand buffet and large marquees erected within the train shed, where the queen might rest and take refreshment after the opening ceremony. Alas, they did not know that Queen Victoria had little time for Newcastle. No one knows why, although it may have been because her son, Albert Prince of Wales, was almost accidentally decapitated when taking part in a military parade through the city.
That's a story for another day, so back to the royal visitor and Central Station. Victoria's train arrived, and the queen alighted. Her train then moved out of the station and, while Her Majesty started declaring the station open, was turned around to re-enter that station. In the brief time it took for that to happen, Victoria completed her task and promptly got back on the train. Then, waving farewell to the now somewhat bemused welcome party of Newcastle's finest, Victoria departed southbound. All that those gentle folk could then do was watch the receding rear of the royal railway train.
The first dérive direction from Andrew’s list was "to pick any direction and walk in a straight line (if you hit an obstacle, turn left)". As I stood at the main exit of Central Station, I realised that walking in a straight line would take me into the Victoria Comet pub opposite. For a moment, I thought of recreating that atmospheric early scene from 'Get Carter' (the classic 1971 version, not the dodgy remake in 2000) when Michael Caine walks out of Central Station into a rainy Newcastle night and crosses the road to enter the now sadly long-gone 'Long Bar'. However, as much as I love that film, this was an urban meander, not a pub crawl, so I turned right before walking in that directed straight line.
The next direction was "Turn down the next street that begins with a vowel". Ummm, I wondered where this might take me, given no street names starting with a vowel sprung to mind, and yet after not too long a walk, I came upon Orchard Street. Now, the name might conjure up some pleasantly scenic countryside-type lane. But remember, this is Newcastle. Sadly, the walled orchard that stood in this spot in the 18th Century was replaced by the industry of the 19th. Today, the whole street length is umbrellaed by the wide railway viaduct carrying mainline trains northward. I'd only use the word scenic if you enjoy railway architecture.
Emerging from beneath the viaduct at the end of Orchard St., I sought my next direction: to "turn right at the next opportunity", which took me into Forth Street in the ‘Stephenson Quarter' of the city, where in 1823, George Stephenson, his son Robert, and their business partners opened the world’s first purpose-built locomotive works. They built many locomotives, including the 'Locomotion', 'Rocket', and 'Planet' in those works. Since those pioneering days of steam locomotives, the site has undergone significant redevelopment, and a business and hotel complex now stand on that ground.
Walking down Forth Street, I glanced at my next direction, "to head in the noisiest direction". While reading the words, the loudest sound I heard was the Central Station railway announcer (I was now behind the station) offering guidance and the occasional apology to those passengers heading north, south, east and west from the station. To follow Andrew’s instructions to the letter would have seen me attempting to scale the wall at the back of the station. I am beyond the age of climbing walls. Even if I tried, I suspect some beady-eyed security camera would have espied that attempt, and relevant authorities called; Andrew's added suggestion of "smiling and waving" at security cameras would not have helped. Going straight to jail is part of Monopoly, not dérive, so I headed toward another noise instead: traffic noise and one particularly rickety old scooter that sounded like one of Stephenson's ancient steam engines powered it rather than a combustion engine.
Following the scooter, I realised that if I stuck to Andrew's next direction to "turn left", it would quickly lead me onto the Scotswood Road made famous in the chorus of the Geordie anthem, 'Blaydon Races'. I also knew that the road that hugs the north bank of the Tyne was some five miles long and that along its route, I would find myself back home in Blaydon. Don't get me wrong, I like Blaydon, but this was supposed to be a dérive around Newcastle (I may try a dérive around Blaydon on another occasion, although given the size of the place, I can’t see it taking an exceptionally long time). So, instead of taking the first left, I took the second. I was cheating here because although it too took me to the start of the old Scotswood Road, I knew taking the second left would allow me to follow Andrew's next direction and avoid the long walk home.
And that next direction was to "turn 90 degrees and walk on". I did just that, turning 90 degrees off Scotswood Road and entering St. James Boulevard. And a boulevard it is. An expansive landscaped avenue running north and south, dotted with trees and carrying several lanes of traffic. It did not have the rich character of a typical French boulevard flanked by grandiose classical buildings on either side. Still, St. James' does have the excellent 'Discovery Museum', housed in a building of the grand Victorian style that was once an extensive branch of the Co-operative Wholesale Society. The museum is now testimony to the engineering and industrial history of Newcastle and the northeast. Reminding the old and young today of the area's rich cultural history of innovation. The museum has many examples of ‘firsts' from northeast inventors. For instance - 'Turbinia' the world's first steam turbine-powered ship, and Swan’s first incandescent light bulb (I've shared before that he and not Edison got to that particular invention first).
Along the boulevard, I took the photo above of the large wall decoration that has been there for many a year. The building it graces stands on the corner of the boulevard and Westgate Road and looking west up that road brought back a memory of the early 1970s. My journey to watch Newcastle United play was usually by being chauffeured courtesy of the Newcastle Town Council bus service within one of their bright banana yellow buses (London may have iconic red buses, but van Gogh would have preferred those of Newcastle). However, on rare occasions, someone might offer me a lift in their car. Many drivers would try to park on Westgate Road. Parking was free, but a small charge was made by the young teenagers of the area who would "look after your car". And one way or another, they would certainly look after it depending on whether you paid the requisite shilling ...
Back to the dérive, and I was already achieving my next direction to “Go north,” as that is where the boulevard heads. Reading further on in Andrew's directions, they told me to continue until I "saw something red or yellow". In Newcastle, the combination of black and white would take far less effort to spot, especially as the magnificence of St. James' Park football ground was rising before me with every footstep. And then I spotted something both red and yellow—a branch of the National Tyres and Autocare business. So, taking this as my prompt, I followed the next direction and took "two lefts".
The first took me to a large plaque; not a blue plaque but a blue star one because where I now walked once stood the Scottish & Newcastle Brewery. Before its demise, its blue star emblem hung outside many a pub in and around Newcastle. However, there is no evidence of the brewery today as my path took me through a modern business park. The second left turn took me back to the Westgate Road. But this time, heading east into the city. As its name suggests, the road was once an entryway into what, from the 1200s, would have been the heavily walled city. In fact, I could see remnants of that great wall over to my left as I walked. However, it wasn’t that I sought, nor the grand early Victorian 'Tyne Theatre and Opera' on my right. As per Andrew's directions, it was: "find a fancy car".
This direction was to be my biggest challenge. We are talking Newcastle here. The city might have once had bright yellow double-decker buses, but otherwise, it doesn’t do fancy. As I walked, I scanned the streets for some vehicle that might make the category of 'fancy'. Now, I am no car enthusiast. I’ve had many in my time, and some may have been seen as fancy, but to me, all of them were just a means of getting from A to B. So, I’m not the best person to decide what is a fancy car and what is not. I am not excited by sleek lines nor purr over classic curves. A car is a car is a car. If it has an engine that runs, a wheel at each corner and one with which to steer, I’m happy (oh, and it's good if the car has brakes. Brakes are good).
My first car was an 850cc mini. It was not one of these super-duper modern variants; mine was basic. Very basic. With four up, I could just touch 75mph going downhill and with a following wind. I then traded up. Well, sideways, really and bought a Hillman Imp. It was not a desirable choice for driving in wintry weather, as with the engine in the back and a heating system that generated less heat than a candle, the windscreen iced up as you went along and not just on the outside. As my career progressed and I moved further up the corporate food chain, I benefitted from company cars. I recall one in the mid-nineteen-nineties that felt like driving an armchair and that, at the touch of a button, moved the ‘internals’ of the car to suit whoever, out of my wife or I, were driving. Yet still, it and all the other cars I’ve possessed were much of a muchness. As I shared in a piece during my driving days a few years ago, ‘Cars are great until they are not.’ And I don’t miss owning or driving one.
I digress. Realising that if I did not find some ‘fancy’ vehicle soon, I would end up knee-deep in the Tyne, I chose a BOC delivery vehicle whose driver was trundling a gas cylinder into a nearby pub. My logic at this point was I fancied a pint, so that lorry was my fancy vehicle. However, I again resisted alcoholic refreshment and, returning to my dérive directions, followed that which said, “walk in the direction the vehicle's front wheels point and then take the next right".
That right turn took me to Waterloo Street. It is a tucked out-of-the-way street these days, but one mentioned in the 'History of Newcastle' book that my mother gave to my father for Christmas in 1950. The mention is of the beautiful architecture of the Co-operative Wholesale Society Drapery - a fine red brick building that the writer of the book regretfully describes as "being dwarfed on either side by much taller constructions". The 'Co-op' building is still there but looking careworn and no longer under the ownership of the Society. The 'constructions' on either side are still there too. As I strolled by, I passed many construction workers busy building another tall 'construction' opposite.
I continued and stumbled upon the monument that is in my photo below. It's a poor testament to a great man. Yet, as with Wren and St. Paul's Cathedral in London wherein is inscribed "si monumentum requiris circumspice," the same could be written of Richard Grainger as his actual monuments are the beautiful buildings, he helped create that can still be seen in Newcastle today. Indeed, he made such an impression on Newcastle that a significant part of the city carries the title Grainger Town in his memory.
I’ve mentioned Richard Grainger in other pieces and that Grainger Town is the historic commercial centre of Newcastle with some of its finest buildings. They are predominantly of four stories, with vertical dormers, domes, turrets and spikes - an architecture described as ‘Tyneside Classical.’ Nearly all of that centre is now deemed a Conservation Area, one of the first designated in England. The site includes the mediaeval 'Black Friars' Dominican friary, pieces of the 13th-century Town Walls, The Theatre Royal and over four hundred other buildings, of which over two hundred are ‘listed’ - twenty-nine of them at Grade 1. People said of Richard Grainger that he “found Newcastle of bricks and timber and left it in stone.”
I should also mention Grainger's collaborators, John Clayton, Newcastle's town clerk and the architect John Dobson, who is most remembered in Newcastle for the design of the magnificent Central Station I mentioned earlier. Queen Victoria may not have thought much of it, but most others did and indeed still do.
The next dérive direction was to "turn around and go in the opposite direction". So back along Waterloo Street, I went, replicating Napoleon’s similar retreat at the said battle, to be directed to “meander to a nearby tree” (me that is not Napoleon - although who knows?). Returning to Westgate Street, I espied such a tree near St John the Baptist's church at the bottom of Grainger Street (just had to be, didn't it?) and headed towards it.
When Andrew included the next direction, “Follow a phone user until they put their phone away,” it should’ve come with a caveat. About ten seconds into such following, I realised a sixty-something-year-old man following a twenty-something-year-old woman was maybe not such a clever idea. Therefore, I left her to her conversation and followed a middle-aged man of beefy build. Ten seconds into that follow, I again began to wonder at the wisdom of my action. For instance, what would I do should the chap in question notice and then have an issue with why I was following him? Offering him that I was on a dérive and following directions may not appease him. Fortunately, it was just at this point he put his phone away, so I peeled off to seek out the next direction: “to look for something unreasonable”.
Thinking the most unreasonable thing I could see on a main street in Newcastle would be someone sporting a Sunderland football shirt, I scanned the many passers-by. Yet, I could not see a single red and white stripe. And then I saw a brave young lad wearing a Tottenham Hotspurs shirt. That was unreasonable enough for me.
The final guideline was “Go west”; in so doing, I found myself in the wonderous Grainger Market - yep, it’s that chap again. Given it’s one of my favourite places in Newcastle (see my piece 'Grainger Market'), it seemed an ideal place to cease my wanderings and peruse its many stalls.
So, this dérive was an enlightening exercise that took me to some places I rarely venture to in Newcastle and certainly for those who enjoy strolling urban areas, one they may wish to try (but maybe skip the following a phone user step...)
Now, I wonder if I'd turned left out of central station ….
Marvellous tour Harry with some fascinating snippets of local history and humorous tales. I'm glad you used your nous and took a cavalier disregard of the rules where appropriate (although I would have paid good money to see you scale the wall of the railway station).
I have a book of photos of Scotswood Road by Jimmy Forsyth (bought from the Side Gallery - https://www.amber-online.com/collection/scotswood-road/#). I have taken it down from the shelf and will take another leaf through its pages later.
Like you, my first car was a Mini 850. Surprisingly comfortable (I thought at the time) - even for a 6' 4" person like me.
Oh I loved this, Harry!