Battered West Coast

Finally, finally, after 5 weeks of being locked up in a bedroom smaller than Ravi Bopara’s batting average (miniscule!) I feel recovered enough to begin mystery shopping once again.

This time, instead of a nice local shop to break me back into the undented mould, I grabbed the chance of whisking off to the delightful Cumbrian coast. I’ve been twice before and thought it was a fairly miserable place, but nothing prepared me for the delights of two – how should I say – ‘unfortunate’ towns.

So, my mini adventure would take me to the towns of Workington and Whitehaven. One sounded like the shelter for the mutants formed by Sellafield radiation leaks with the nation’s turds washed up on the shore, whilst the other sounded like an idyllic seaside getaway, where butterflies would populate the brimming flowerbeds of each and every beautifully trimmed front garden.

To be frank, both were closer to the former. I arrived late in Workington after the train to Carlisle had to be stopped for half an hour whilst they figured out why the doors wouldn’t shut. Thankfully the driver told us over the tannoy that the staff had ‘successfully managed to override the safety system’ and the doors were shut. Relieving to know that when the train falls off the tracks at least the doors will be closed.

So, late in Workington, I rushed to my store and completed my visit. Strangely, there was a man behind me in the queue for the till who was clearly a coastal kind of guy. As I stood waiting, he uploaded 8 four-packs of tuna and salmon chunks onto the conveyor belt thingy. Now I like fish, can eat it with anything, but I seriously struggled to figure out what this sea dweller was going to do with 32 cans of fruits de mer. Maybe one massive toastie?

After my visit I began walking back to the station, when I realised I had 50 minutes to wait for my train. I gave up half of this time to sitting on a bench in the platform eating the spoils of my mystery shop, watching a podgy kid chase after a coin his sister was throwing to him; he looked like a pug dog, and not running much faster either.

This entertainment could only enthral me up to a point, whereby I went for a look around the centre of Workington. What I found was not too dissimilar to Market Rasen, a town in Lincolnshire I visited where all the shops were charity shops. This time, there was a newsagents or off license on every other street corner. They were everywhere! Advertising birthday cards, confectionary and tobacco. Most were next to very run-down pubs as well, maybe not surprisingly.

I also walked past a policewoman on my travels. After looking into the eighth DIY shop window in 200 yards, I noticed a young blonde lady in police uniform walking towards me. “Phwar! Get in!” I hear you say. However, this isn’t what I was thinking. She was walking like certain ladies do after just a couple of jugs of straight vodka, and texting vehemently on her phone. This got me thinking: ‘is this town policed by a staggering young lady more interested in the vanity of her social life than preventing crime?’ The non-tabloid part of my brain kicked in and thought: ‘probably not.’

Eventually I got the train down to Whitehaven. This is no ordinary train however. This single carriage golf buggy runs on a track so close to the sea that the sheer drop down to the crashing waves made me feel ill. We must have been going at a steady four miles per hour for at least 20 minutes to get past the cliff face. Luckily we had a safety system in place, so if we had of crashed into the sea, at least the doors would open.

Whitehaven was as similar to Workington as two pieces of white A4 from the same tree. The thing is with these towns on the west coast is that they need to be somewhat protected from the prevailing westerlies. Therefore, the visually evocative thing to do is to pebbledash every square inch of building, and use nothing but the most beautiful shades of grey to cover it up. Whitehaven looked like a large-scale model of a concrete pavement that’s been left alone so long, weeds are starting to grow out from underneath it.

Unfortunately for me the rain didn’t help either. Instead of sitting on a platform waiting for my train, I was forced to walk around to keep warm, ending up on the ‘beach’. I won’t comment on this beach, apart from the fact that I was the only person there and the ground was more dismal in colour than the buildings.

Happily my journey home was normal, and I arrived in Huddersfield station 12 hours and 10 minutes after I had set off. What a delightful way to spend the day.