This week, as a prize for my writerly jiggerypokery in Talk of the Town‘s ‘Saltburn Memories’ poetry competition, I was presented with  an impressive black and white photo of Huntcliffe, taken by documentary photographer Ian Forsyth. It is a beautiful, brooding photo of storm clouds gathering over the clay cliffs and grey waters of the bay that provided a backdrop to childhood Sunday afternoon intakes of ‘fresh air’, and – a few years later, but not so many as to make it entirely legal- to queues for admittance to the shrine of sophistication that was Philmores Nightclub (formerly the Spa Ballroom, where my parents “got together”. Somehow not so cool). Plus, it was the scene of subsequent, cider ‘n’ black-fuelled weeping sessions by the burger van (“What’s yours, love? Onions and sauce?”) to the strains of Nilsson’s (admittedly eye-wateringly high) Without You.

*Sighs nostalgically.

I am going all gooey at the olfactory memory of mechanically recovered cow patties, even though I have recently entered into my twenty-third year of ovo-lacto vegetarianism (I know, I hardly look old enough for this possibly to be true). My winning poem, Clear Days, is also based on recollections of the smells of Saltburn. I mean this entirely in a complimentary way.

For me, Saltburn woods were about an odour vaguely reminiscent of the aforementioned charred onions, but with mental links to our semi-adventurous, wholly shoestring-budget, family camping holidays to the various shores of la Belle France: an aroma which today’s underage revellers would instantly identify as the deadly white garlic gloop which gives a vaguely Continental European edge to their ethnically-confused snacks( à la  London Pizza).

Also fighting for dominance of my Top Local Historical Whiffs list was the  Cup-a-Soup dispensed – somewhat perfunctorily- by the Saltburn Leisure Centre vending machine, melting the not-quite-fit-for-purpose plastic cups and scalding your fingers and throat in a powdery, salty assault, mixed with grass cuttings my Mum assured me were a wonderful new invention called “herbs”. I wonder if the liquid had ever actually been in contact with a broiler. In those days, I didn’t devote so much time and energy to distinguishing between “chicken flavour” and “chicken flavoured”. Everything was just chicken-y. And simple.

*Shakes head wistfully, knowing it was not really that simple and it was not a nice time for the poor birdies in question.