Photo:  Richard Miles

Spurn Point is a unique, astonishing place – a sandspit stretching 3½ miles into the Humber estuary, for much of its length hardly a hundred yards wide.  The access road is uncertain, because the spit is literally on the move, gradually repositioning itself to the west as the sea coast erodes and sediment builds up in the calmer waters of the estuary.

The entire peninsula is a nature reserve, administered by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust [www.ywt.org.uk/nature_reserves.php?id=51] with free admission for pedestrians and a small charge for cars.  It’s a delicate environment, and dogs are strictly prohibited.

The last pub in Yorkshire is the Crown & Anchor, Kilnsea, which has a superb setting and has had a variable reputation over the years.  (The reviews are patchy, but the last time I visited we were well looked after.)

Up the lane on the sea coast are the shattered remains of the Goodwin Battery, a First World War installation which was finally abandoned in 1957.

Some distance north, standing back from the coast, is a sound-mirror, an acoustic precursor of radar, designed to focus the sound of advancing aeroplanes before they became visible over the horizon.  (A practical demonstration of this ingenious technology can be found at the Jodrell Bank Telescope in Cheshire.)

The road down to the Point repeatedly crosses railway lines, often to the puzzlement of modern visitors.  The Spurn Railway was laid by the Army in 1915 to carry supplies from the pier at the end of the peninsula up to the Goodwin Battery.  It was never connected to the main railway system, which approached no nearer than Patrington.  As well as steam locomotives, the line operated petrol railcars and a railed racing car, as well as sail power, there being no shortage of wind. The line was scrapped in 1952-3.  [www.skeals.co.uk/Articles/Spurn%20Railway.html]

Spurn Point is the base of the only fully-manned RNLI station in the British Isles.  Because of its remoteness and its strategic importance the Humber Lifeboat has a long history dating back to 1810 and a proud record of lives saved.  Two of its coxswains retired with outstanding records of service:  as well as their RNLI awards, Robert Cross was awarded the George Medal and Brian Bevan the MBE.  Details of the station can be found at www.spurnpoint.com/lifeboat.htm.

Last time I took a group to Spurn the Coxswain, Dave Steenvorden, and his crew showed us round and told tales of the estuary over tea and biscuits, until suddenly Dave clapped his mobile to his ear, declared “It’s a shout!”, and the crew disappeared down the jetty and sped off in their lifeboat.

Nothing I could say would persuade my group of Nottingham University students that I hadn’t set it all up.

The 80-page, A4 handbook for the 2016 ‘Humber Heritage’ tour, with text, photographs, maps and a reading list, is available for purchase, price £10.00 including postage and packing.  To order a copy, please click here or, if you prefer, send a cheque, payable to Mike Higginbottom, to 63 Vivian Road, Sheffield, S5 6WJ.

Withernsea Pier

The life of Kay Kendall, the Withernsea-born film actress, was brief and poignant. Shortly after she began an affair with Rex Harrison, she was diagnosed with leukaemia. As was often the custom in the 1950s, the diagnosis was concealed from her – she apparently thought she had an iron deficiency – and Harrison divorced his second wife, Lilli Palmer, in order to marry Kay and take care of her.  The agreement was supposedly that Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer would get back together after Kay’s death, which occurred in 1959, but by that time Lilli had found another lover.

This story sheds an interesting light on Rex Harrison, who is often portrayed as an unpleasant character.  Sheridan Morley told a story of his father, the actor Robert Morley, bumping into Rex Harrison in the Burlington Arcade the day after Morley’s appearance on This Is Your Life.  Harrison congratulated his brother actor with the remark, “So brave,– and not a programme I would ever dare have done, not with all my divorces and the suicides.  But for you, Robert, life has been so different:  one wife, one family, one house and, if I may say so, one performance.”

There was a similar encounter between John Gielgud and Michael Redgrave, shortly after Redgrave’s belated knighthood in 1959.  Gielgud would have known a thing or two about Redgrave’s private tastes, because he breezily greeted him, “Ah, Sir Michael Redgrave, I’ll be bound!”

There’s also a wonderful street-scene involving Noël Coward.  Being gay and wealthy, Coward was in great demand among his straight actor colleagues as godfather to their children:  he gave good presents and customarily took the young ones out for tea on their birthdays.

David Niven’s story is that as Noël and Niven’s young daughter walked towards Harrods on her birthday they encountered two dogs copulating on the pavement.  The little girl asked, “Uncle Noël, what are the doggies doing?” to which Noël replied in the blink of an eye, “Well, my dear. The front little doggy has gone blind, and his friend is pushing him all the way to St Dunstan’s.”

The 80-page, A4 handbook for the 2016 ‘Humber Heritage’ tour, with text, photographs, maps and a reading list, is available for purchase, price £10.00 including postage and packing.  To order a copy, please click here or, if you prefer, send a cheque, payable to Mike Higginbottom, to 63 Vivian Road, Sheffield, S5 6WJ.