If there is a definition of optimism, it might be coming to work in Withernsea wearing flip-flops.
It didn’t take long before I realised I’d made a disastrous footwear error, for my ters were most certainly cerld, as we say in these parts.
So, as you do, I headed down Queen Street on my lunch hour and bought an emergency pack of socks and a cheap pair of shoes. On the way back, to add insult to injury, it started raining. The weather seems to have swung wildly between decidedly chilly and totally mafting lately (more of the former), and I had to double-check that it really was July.
And yes, it is July, the month I turn a year older. Any local entrepreneurs thinking of dealing exclusively in wrinkle cream and hair dye, you’ve got at least one investor.
To celebrate my advancing years, we popped out for lunch at a popular curry house in Queen Street on Tuesday, which we all very much enjoyed. It doesn’t need further publicity in the Gazette because it has a resident gull doing a fine job in that regard…
Anyway, regular readers will know I’ve been planning a series of in-depth articles on the forthcoming Blue Light Weekend. This week, we’re featuring a chap who’s originally from Withernsea but is now a highly experienced instructor at the Royal Navy Defence Diving School down in Portsmouth.
John O’Brien has more of a personal connection than many of the emergency services representatives that will be visiting on August 12-13, having been to school with Steve Medcalf, the inspiration behind the event.
He felt he had to give something back to Withernsea out of a sense of duty to the town, and to Steve, so he’ll be bringing a bomb disposal unit from Bravo Squadron.
John was hugely self-deprecating about his humble beginnings as an apprentice joiner – but his long career in the Navy has since taken him around the world. And, even though he now lives about as far from Withernsea as it’s possible to get without being in the English Channel, it’ll always be home to him.
