April 1998 Back to the Crown PasadaHad I been a really dedicated travel writer I'd have jotted down the reasons why this skinny little bar, near the bottom of the The Side, one of Newcastle's many precipitous thoroughfares, is called The Crown Pasada, but I was too busy enjoying a pint of Theakston purchased for me by Sam — a token first as he has reached the legal drinking age, but had to be lent the money... Newcastle has changed somewhat since I last drank there. The Side, once pretty deserted at night, was swarming with young women wearing tiny miniskirts split to the upper thigh, giggling as they negotiated the steep pavement in high heels, on their way to one of a score of nightclubs, each of which was marked by a doorway guarded by a pair of shaven-headed bouncers, a queue of eager females and a burst of insanely loud music and cigarette smoke. The Quayside, too, is no longer a sad collection of abandoned sheds and warehouses, but now sports some of that retro architecture that is all the rage, producing that odd feeling that we are entering the new millenium by going back 100 years. At the moment it feels as dead as the dockside used to, but perhaps that will change as trendy flats are built along the north bank of the Tyne. But Newcastle still manages to feel uniquely itself, probably because of its geographical location, its seven bridges crossing the deep valley of the Tyne, its ever-present poverty, its soot-blackened castle and churches, the musical accent of its people, the roads and railways that thresh their way through its centre, its plethora of pubs. Just as the Side Gallery, one of my favourite photographic galleries, is long gone, so is the Bagpipe Museum that used to be located in the castle gatehouse, and the Joicey Museum, almost obliterated by overpasses, is gathering a thick layer of road-dust since it was closed "for a security review". We are here to see Claire and Sam, my grown-up children. We stay with Sam, who kindly gives up his bed for us. He lives in a council flat just 15 minutes walk from the city centre, and is able to walk to work in Gateshead, across the High Level Bridge, one of the Industrial Revolution's most impressive monuments, built by Stephenson and still carrying trains on its upper deck and road vehicles on its lower. Like many Victorian cities in Britain, Newcastle is an industrial archaeologist's delight. There are bits of old stone and brick wall everywhere that are traces of this city's heyday as a port and manufacturing centre. Along the steep banks of the Tyne you can still make out traces of the waggonways and inclines that brought coal down to the staithes that once tumbled black gold into the holds of ships moored within sight of the castle. Every year the evidence grows fainter and is destroyed by development and gentrification, but Newcastle still has one of the most interesting roof landscapes of any city that I've been to. On Sunday we wander through the quayside market — the usual mixture of cheap clothing and vegetables made special by its location. The stall keepers bark out their familiar patter: "C'mon ladies..WHO wants a big bag of fruit? HERE you are then! Two...four...SIX...nine...TWELVE oranges!...TWO parnd of red apples!...TWO parnd of green apples!...TWO parnd of pears!... AND a parnd of seedless grapes...ALL for TWO parnd ladies...c'mon now..." No excuse for vitamin C deficiency in Newcastle. I remember when I first went to Newcastle 25 years ago there was a weatherbeaten man standing in the city centre fiercely loudly shouting "CAW!!" at regular intervals. I worked out later that he was actually shouting "Evening ChroniCLE!". He has long gone, but the newspaper sellers are out in force still, and their cries are still more or less "CAWL!!"
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