The Lobster Town: Local Secrets, Honest Stories & the Real Bridlington
The best thing in this town leaves on a lorry before you've had your tea.
Over three hundred tonnes of lobster come over the harbour wall at Bridlington in a good year, more than any port in Europe, and nearly all of it goes to Spain, France, Italy and now China. There are thirty odd boats potting between Flamborough Head and Spurn. Not one of them is on a postcard on the front. I didn't know any of that. I was born here.
I left for Leeds at eighteen in 2006 like everyone I went to Headlands with. I came back in 2021 when my dad's knees went and someone had to do the stairs. The first year I was miserable about it. Then a potter called Terry, sixty four, third generation, started talking to me on the wall at seven in the morning because I was there and he was there, and after about three goes I stopped being miserable and started writing things down. This is that. It's what the harbour knows and the prom doesn't.
What's in it
Where the lobster goes. The tanks on Harbour Road, the lorry, the buyers, why a Bridlington lobster costs more in Bilbao than in Brid, the berried ban, the hatchery in the harbour, and the two places in town Terry says actually put local on the plate.
Reading the harbour. What the boats are doing at half four, what the pot stacks tell you about the season, the gap between the two piers, the dredger, and what the water colour by the slip means (the Gypsey Race, not what visitors assume).
North or South. The oldest argument in town, both cases put properly. The prom end, the Spa end, the Sewerby walk, the Land Train, the 14 to Sewerby, where the sand is actually decent at low water and where you'll be paddling by two.
Old Town is a different town. The Priory, the Bayle, High Street, why it's a mile from the sea, which pubs are for locals, the Heritage Open Days weekend, and why Terry's grandad wouldn't be seen up there.
The chippy question. Audrey's, Harbour Fisheries, Brid Bay, 149, Jack's, Gabby's, and the Flamborough two. Who says what and why.
Flamborough and Bempton without the coach. Puffin months (April to mid July, not October, whatever the poster says), the 14 bus, North Landing, the toposcope, the lighthouse, the 1779 battle and the mural going up on Quay Leisure.
Buses, parking and getting about. The 41 to Hull (it was the 121), the 12 and 13 to Scarborough, the 500s round town, the new Beck Hill multi storey, the park and ride, and where locals actually leave the car in August.
The regeneration bit, honestly. Pride in Place money, the car park, the murals, what's improved on the front and what hasn't, and what people on the harbour think of all of it.
A year on the wall. Month by month: the Ice Trail, the Scooter Rally in October, Spooky Sewerby, the Kite Festival, panto at the Spa, the winter when the town is ours again, and the first morning the boats go back out.
How it works
It's an ebook, sixty odd pages, and the link lands the second you pay. Reads on a phone on the harbour wall or a laptop at the kitchen table. When Terry tells me something has changed, a bus number, a pub, the car park finally opening, I change the book and send every buyer the new one for nothing. One payment, that's it.
Who this is for
People who left Brid and still check the harbour cam. People whose parents are still here. Anyone booking a week in a caravan at Skipsea or a flat on the front who wants to know what the town is rather than what the arcade signs say. And anyone who has ever stood on the harbour wall at seven in the morning wondering where all those pots go.
Terry says it's not a bucket and spade town. It's a lobster town with a beach on the side.
Download it now, free updates for life
Instant download. Any device. Written under the pen name Jason Boardman.