Morcambe

We’ve just come back from a holiday up North but it involved some soul-searching. The Lake District came to our minds first but the hotels were underwhelming and overpriced. The weather didn’t look promising, and I just didn’t fancy trudging around in the wet surrounded by anoraks, the determined and intrepid. I can’t be doing with intrepid. 

And so, we settled on the seaside. You can’t go wrong with sky and sea, whatever the weather; though you can go wrong with resort. We settled on Morcombe because of one very distinctive hotel: the Midland, which featured in the Hercules Poirot episode Double Sin in 1990.

We stayed two days with my brother and his wife in Chorley, where we sampled gentlemen of a certain age playing bowls in Astley Park. 

It was so restful sitting on a park bench with nothing better to do, and later another park bench watching a ducks and a fountain doing its thing. I remember, as a child, throwing conkers at old men playing bowls and getting chased. Now here we were, sitting on a bench appreciating nothing in particular and enjoying every moment.

And then on to the Midland Hotel, which didn’t disappoint. Nor did the sea and sky.

Your host for today.

Now you see him.

Now you don't

Courtesy BMK

The Pier

CourtesyBMK

A view of the hotel from the beach, the promanade running for miles past the ground floor windows. Behind them was the restaurant, where we sat eating splendid food watching fleets and battalions of joggers running by. Huge amount of joggers in Morecambe. I remember feeling guilt and a degree of smugness as I tucked into my moules mariner and chips as they struggled and sailed by the windows.

We didn't run but walked in search of the legendary Eric Morcombe. And believe me, the promadade is very long., five miles long. Eventually we found him enjoying the sea air.

Courtesy BMK

The Midland Hotel from the front

Instead of this motley collection of cars, there would once have been Lagondas

The hotel was built in 1932/33 and is an art deco gem with its Eric Gill sculptures and Ravouille murals. 

Inside is dominated by a beautiful spiral staircase and I imagined walking up it with the legendary penny lodged between my buttocks,* but took the lift instead. 

Such is the fragility of life that by the late C20th this beautiful building was fast fading into a derelict ruin destined for flats or care home. Thank God for the determination of activists and the visionary hotel group that took it over and brought it back to life.

*David Suchet, the actor who played Poirot, explained how he created the detective's distinctive mincing gait by clenching a penny between his buttocks; whether imagining it or for real, I'm not entirely sure