Welcome to B-List Britain, a new and exclusive Metro Travel series with Ben Aitken, the author of the book Shitty Breaks. Ben argues it’s time to ditch the UK’s hotspots and explore unsung cities instead, starting with England’s ‘Queen of the North’.
I didn’t so much arrive in Sunderland as wake up in it.
My train got in late, you see, and when I emerged from the station it was raining old ladies and sticks, as they say in Welsh, so I blew a fiver getting cabbed the three miles along the coast up to my digs, The Seaburn Inn (doubles from £85, including brekkie).
It wasn’t until the next morning, when I drew the curtains and stepped out onto the balcony, that I got what I was looking for – an eyeful of Sunderland.
I was confronted with a massive outdoor swimming pool (known as the North Sea) and a sizable stretch of sandy coastline.
People were jogging, lots of them, and one couple was even rollerblading while holding hands. I could have been in LA.
Sign up to The Getaway newsletter
Fuel your wanderlust with our curated newsletter of travel deals, guides and inspiration. Sign up here.
Due to their historic habit of making things, the good people of Sunderland are commonly referred to as Mackems.
As well as ships and beer, another of Sunderland’s old industries was glass. At The National Glass Centre, which I found beside the River Wear as I ambled into town, I enjoyed the spectacle of a young blower turning a portion of molten glass into a vessel fit for tulips or pasta.
It was a genuinely beautiful and revealing half-hour. I’ll never look through a window the same way again. (Free entry.)
Behind the Glass Centre is St Peter’s, an Anglo-Saxon monastery where, back in the late 600s, a clever clogs called the Venerable Bede wrote the pithily titled Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, a feat that earned him the title ‘The Father of English History’, and made him, technically, somewhat responsible for such things as corned beef and Nigel Farage.
Sunderland is a good place to be hungry.
North does cracking seafood and was named in this year’s Good Food Guide; while Propa is spearheaded by Si King (one half of The Hairy Bikers), and does the sort of pies you’d want at your wedding.
On this occasion, I sourced a trio of local oddities from a bakery called Dickson’s – pink slice, pease pudding, and something called a saveloy dip. I’m happy to say that I’ve been dreaming of the threesome ever since.
The first thing that occurred to me on seeing Sunderland’s outdoor ski slope at close quarters was that there wasn’t a flake of snow on the thing.
They’re taking the piste, I thought.
Turns out the slope is basically an old slag heap that’s been transformed into 160m of potential catastrophe. There are some who lament the demise of British industry, but if skiing is the result of post-industrialisation, then count me in. (£20 for three hours, including ski hire.)
And what of Sunderland’s après ski scene? In short, it’s not bad.
After umming and ahing about whether to see a play at The Empire or a comic at The Fire Station, I eventually plumped for a poetry recital at a place called Pop Recs.
This was followed by a visit to Mexico 70, where the menu is about as posh as the people of Sunderland will tolerate, I fancy. My hand-pressed tacos were filled with Vietnamese beef shin, torched sweet peppers, agave syrup, watercress crema and Pico de Galla, who I thought played for Leeds.
I chased my tacos with a pint of Sticky Toffee Porter at a pub around the corner called The Ship Isis, where a local band were singing about inflation and elephants.
During a lull in proceedings, I was told by the drummer that when Sunderland lost the ’92 cup final to Liverpool, and the players went up to be consoled by the Queen, she gave them winners’ medals by mistake.
‘Or maybe it wasn’t a mistake,’ said the drummer, tapping her nose. ‘Maybe the Queen knew something good when she saw it, and made the decision to ignore the statistics and give Sunderland its due.’ As far as conspiracies go, it’s not a bad one.
The next morning, I put on a wetsuit, a helmet, and a look of genuine foreboding, and set off for a stint of coasteering, which is a bit like mountaineering, only along a coastline and dressed as described.
Despite the competence of our instructor, as we jumped off this and clambered up the other, I found myself in a state of near-constant apprehension. I’m not inclined to danger, you see, no matter how modest. My idea of a thrill is unloading the dishwasher. For me, the best part of the coasteering experience was just bobbing about in the sea. (Adventure Sunderland; £25.)
On the train back to London, I decided I could live in Sunderland.
I’d run on the beach listening to Roxy Music. I’d become an expert skier and an amateur glassblower. I’d explore Northumberland Park and the North Yorkshire Moors.
I’d look out for those famous local faces, back home to see their mam, like Lauren Laverne or Gina McKee.
I wouldn’t be Sunderland until I die. But I’d be Sunderland for a while. A good, happy while.
Until some other complicated metropolis dug its claws into my heart, and I was compelled to skip town for a rival, better and brighter for having briefly been a Mackem.
Ben Aitken is the author of Shitty Breaks: A Celebration of Unsung Cities.
Come back next Monday for the latest instalment of B-List Britain.