The Blyth yacht club is housed in an old wooden lightship. They bought it in he 1960's for £600, which as they say up here, 'was an arm and a leg' then. It used to be the Calshot light, so came all the way up from our home waters.
Blyth used to be a busy thriving port with plenty of industry around it. They speak fondly of the Aluminium works the water pollution from which kept the weed off the boats and made antifouling unnecessary for many years.
There are no active coal mines in this part of the world any more. The one I thought I saw was a potash mine. All the ports up here used export coal, now apparently its imported, you do 'bring coals to Newcastle.'
One chap said of Blyth "it makes the local paper if a commercial ship comes in."
A guy in the bar said he commutes to Carlyle for work now, but he did manage to buy his boat with his last redundancy settlement.
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