Crap towns?

Description

I earn as much of my living these days from the talks I do around the country as the books I write and one of the side-benefits is that it has introduced or reintroduced me to parts of Britain I have either never seen or have not visited in years. So I’m on a semi-permanent circuit of what a friend of mine would rather uncharitably describe as “crap town tours” but in fact, no matter how unpromising some of my destinations might seem, it’s rare that I don’t find some gems in even the least promising-looking destinations and some are nothing less than a delight. 

Just last week I gave talks in the characterful town of New Mills in the foothills of the Derbyshire Pennines, the lovely small town of Bingham near Nottingham and, perhaps best of all, Parkgate and Neston at the far end of the Wirral peninsula, between the Dee estuary and the River Mersey. I’d never been there before and was blown away by the bleak beauty of its marshes and reed-beds, alive with birdlife, including the first white egret I’d ever seen. There was also a damn fine cup of coffee at The Elephant in Parkgate, plenty of independent shops, a couple of promising looking pubs and the Ness Botanic Garden. I was too early in the year for the magnolias, rhododendrons, witch-hazels and camellias, but the carpets of snowdrops were well worth the effort.

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