Aldeburgh Travel Guide – Lovely, almost.

It’s hard not to like Aldeburgh, hard…but not impossible.

We went in early December, although the weather was surprisingly clement, so no complaints about that. The conditions could have been a lot worse with Aldeburgh’s exposed position on Suffolk’s North Sea coast leaving it prone to some spiteful batterings from wind, rain and sea.

There are knee-high flood protection barriers on most front doors, like those they have in Venice. This would suggest that those sneaky waves occasionally make it up and over the wide shingle beach to deposit flapping haddocks on unprotected sitting-room floors.

The big scallop shell (pictured above) wasn’t washed up. It is a sculpture, done as a tribute to the composer Benjamin Britten, by the artist Maggi Hambling. It was created in 2003 and wasn’t welcomed by a number of locals, they thought it spoiled the view.

She further endeared herself when she said it would only be complete when couples made love under it, thus adding a kinetic aspect to the piece with bared buttocks bobbing up and down on summer evenings.

The local voyeurs hastily removed their names from the petition.

A little way back from the beach is a very pleasing High Street with independent shops, good eateries, galleries and boutiques. The opposite of what we’d usually see, and moan about, in our dying and dismal town-centres. No betting shops, fried chicken outlets or 24hr slotty-arcades in Aldeburgh. So, I can’t really moan about that either.

There are some lovely coastal walks too, especially that from Aldeburgh to nearby Thorpeness, which has a lovely RSPB nature reserve along the way. All very nice, and nothing to whinge about there.

Incidentally, there is bugger-all in Thorpeness. So it is all about the walk to get to there, rather than any great reward at the end. However, we visited Thorpeness in the middle of winter and maybe it transforms into a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah in the high season. It has an antiques shop, a cafe and a boating lake, so you never know what further levels of depravity it may sink to. Perhaps the swingers’ clubs, sex shops and nudist beaches open at Easter.

Back in Aldeburgh there are cosy little fisherman’s cottages to rent, hundreds of them. All adorned with faux driftwood wall hangings, model lighthouses and framed prints of colourful beach huts. Just in case awaking to the noise of crashing waves and squawking seagulls still had you confused as to where you were.

All such items are also available to buy in the High Street emporiums. Thus, you can return home with your seaside souvenirs and make your landlocked urban residence feel as if it has a fishing-boat pulled up on the drive, rather than a car on bricks and a knackered fridge.

Tourist tat aside, our cottage was lovely and there was nothing to gripe about there either. Or was there?

Here’s the thing…as darkness fell, ours was the only residence with lights in the windows that indicated any sign of life. Granted we were there in midweek and out of season, but it made it abundantly clear who doesn’t live in Aldeburgh, and that’s most of the folks that own the cottages.

Apparently, eighty percent are second homes, holiday lets or air-bnbs, and the window of the estate agent in the High Street suggested they cost a small fortune to buy.

Now, given the publicity that surrounds hard-working locals in popular resorts being priced out of home-ownership, you might think that’s where I’m heading with this. It’s not.

Due to coastal erosion, and the river silting up, the area’s renowned shipbuilding industry disappeared a few hundred years ago. The Golden Hind, Sir Francis Drake’s ship, was built there, so the local shipyards were quite a big deal back in the day. After they went, and ever since the 19^th century, Aldeburgh has only ever been a tourist town.

So, if it wasn’t for the holiday visitors, the folks that do live locally would be hard pushed to make a living. Unless they fancied working at the nearby Sizewell nuclear power station (pictured below). A choice of cooking fried breakfasts or having fried testicles.

Therefore, the fact that Aldeburgh only really exists as a holiday resort, and everyone seems relatively okay with that, isn’t what gave me any grounds for complaint.

Nope, my whinge is all about dogs. Now you probably know that I have strong opinions on our ever-rising population of hounds, post-lockdown, that seem to have the right of way and the freedom to be an unleashed and untrained annoyance in all of our public spaces, to the exclusion of anyone else that wants to enjoy them.

So, you might think, here he goes again. And you’d be right.

Aldeburgh is dog-central, and its not just the beach that is dominated by them. Restaurants, holiday-lets, cafes, shops and pubs all have that dreaded ‘dog-friendly’ sign in the window. They have to; any business that foolishly decides it doesn’t want its premises stinking of wet-dog, or to have its ‘dog-slightly unfriendly’ clients left in peace, would be blacklisted. This is because every resident or visitor seems to have a dog, and not just one of them. Multi-hound ownership is very much in-vogue. There are probably more dogs than people in Aldeburgh.

There’s even a shrine to one of them…

The restaurants aren’t cheap in Aldeburgh, and having a dog pestering you whilst you eat your £50 a head evening-meal isn’t the table-service you signed up for.

Lunchtimes I can vaguely understand; you take your unleashed dog for a long walk on the beach, have it scare a few children, let it take an unmonitored shit whilst you catch up on Twitter (or whatever it calls itself now) and then you go for a well-earned lunch whilst it snores, farts and licks its arse under the table. But evening dinner?

Does the dog really have to spend every minute of the day with you? Is it going to pine away to a lonely death whilst you and the missus pop out in the evening for some nosebag? Surely the point of buying two, or seventeen, of them was that they would have someone to talk to when you aren’t there?

Likewise with a pub we went in. One dog was already there, another came in and both dogs kicked off, then a third arrived and all three engaged in a bout of cacophonous barking, yapping and snarling. It was like trying to have a quiet pint in a vet’s waiting room.

To add insult to injury there is even a doggy-boutique in the High Street, where you can buy them their winter jackets. I suppose these are quite kind to the dog in harsh weather, albeit a luxury denied to wild dogs…how on earth did they survive without evolving bright yellow mackintoshes instead of fur?

The worst thing about those dog jackets though, is the opening left for the anus to do its business. Very practical, but unfortunately it also serves to draw the eye to that particular area of ginger-stained fur. To be honest we had a lovely time in Aldeburgh, but my retinas are still scarred with multiple images of shitty canine bum-holes.*

I told you I’d find something to moan about.

*Granted cats aren’t guilt-free. My cat will take the occasional and unauthorised dump in the neighbour’s garden, but I don’t then knock on his door to show him the leftovers on its arse.

P.S. I apologise to my dog-owning friends, should I still have any. Your dogs are alright, and generally well-behaved, and I’m sure their rectums are kept as clean as a whistle. If not, you might find that a toothbrush does the job, although the toothpaste might sting a bit. In the interests of hygiene, please wash thoroughly before returning it to the bathroom.

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