Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

Dad exacted retribution for such wrongdoings by giving us a beating with his leather
razor strop (he used a cut-throat); this hurt, but not unbearably and we thought
considered it a fair punishment. My Nanny, Mary stayed for many years and was a
tower of strength in the household, and we boys got on well with most of the maids. But
none of them ever stayed for long; usually they had a row with my mother and left - she
had high standards and could be a difficult taskmistress.
Some time around 1933 or l934 we moved to Jesmond, a suburb of Newcastle-upon-
Tyne, for a while. There we lived in a terraced house of three stories and a basement -
13, Woodbine Avenue. I don't remember much about that time except for enjoyable
walks in Jesmond Dene, and on the Town Moor, where there was an exciting summer
fair every year, with coconut shys, helter-skelters, dodgem cars, gypsy fortune tellers,
etc. After a year or two we moved back to Whitley Bay, where we resumed living at 20
Brighton Grove, about 300 yards from the sea inland from the "Panama Gardens". It
was a large four-bedroomed house with a small garden front and back. The garden was
not at all well-stocked, but at the back there was a beautiful creamy-petalled rose, with a
delicate scent, probably my first remembered floral experience. I also remember
Montbretia with its bright orange racemes. Although it was all on a small scale, I was
young and so there were serious challenges like climbing over the gate into the
backyard, or up a drainpipe to break in when locked-out. Everything is relative to the
state of one's development! Further down the street there was a vacant plot, with two
wooden garages; it provided a mysterious adventure to climb along, or under them to
explore the plot behind, cut off from the street - and forbidden territory.
Of course it was a splendid place to grow up in, for Whitley Bay had a long beach of
silver sand, stretching from St Mary's Lighthouse in the north to the "Spanish City" (a
permanent fairground) in the south. From time to time we had a dog to exercise (I
remember a wire-haired terrier succeeded by an Irish setter), and there were always
cliffs to climb. For the most part they were undistinguished boulder clay, but at the
southern end were quite impressive sandstone cliffs on which we climbed. There were
also several long drainage ‘moles’ that went out to sea and we used to go out along
these at low tide. One could approach closely the few remaining steel plates of a
shipwreck near the lighthouse. We caught crabs and shrimps and had a go at fishing.
One of my early natural history memories is of coming to the edge of a large rock pool,
at low tide, far out in the bay, and seeing, framed by the dark brown seaweed, a wrasse.
The fish seemed to me monstrous in size and shape, looking up through the clear water,
with its big lips spread as it respired - a very exotic and colourful creature. We also used
to take chances dodging the big waves that flooded the esplanade when the tide was
high and the sea was rough. As I got older I was able to make longer expeditions to the
lighthouse to the north and to Seaton Sluice, a small harbour few miles further on.
There were people to watch fishing off the rocks at St Mary's Island and fishing boats
laying and retrieving lobster pots. We used to explore the golf course in Briar Dene,
collecting lost golf balls.
At night our gang would lurk around building sites, which seemed to be numerous;
I suppose it was quite dangerous, because we would climb to the upper storeys or ‘dare’
each other to walk planks over lime pits - had we fallen in there would have been no
escape. On cold winter nights we could be found crouching round a fire we had made
from wood off-cuts from the house-building, on which we roasted potatoes dug-up
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