Typical, one Saturday and three east coast air shows – Arbroath, East Fortune and The Sunderland 21st Air Show, the latter had the attraction of being totally free (Arbroath would entail a visit to my mother and east fortune would have pocketed about 60 quid from us) . Sunderland also had a huge programme including the Red Arrows, Blades, Typhoon, Battle of Britain flights, loads of choppers and the only flying Vulcan bomber doing its stuff over the yachts moored on the flight axis.
Ignoring the organised ‘Park and Ride’ signs we got snarled in Sunderland traffic and managed to park for free in the Metro station, just a short walk through a council house estate and we arrived just in time to see the Red Arrows turning their smoke on in blue skies over the sea off Sunderlands circular harbour and iconic lighthouses at Roker. Watching from the promenade we had a fabulous uncluttered view – with miles of beach it was easy to lose the 300,000 spectators. Wandering down for lunch we found out where they were, they were all queuing for food, even the healthy eating van had a huge queue – but being British we all stood in line for munchies. Kim acted as chip carrier (can’t come to Sunderland and not have chips they even have special chip queues for people not wanting any other food but chips). We mused on our good sense to stand in the middle of 300,000 people during a Swine Flu pandemic, but hey you have to live dangerously sometimes, besides it may be safer getting it now than being given an untested vaccine and would make our Pandemic risk assessment easy – already had it, tick handled.
Ice cream for afters led me to think someone had spiked it as I saw a huge pink unicorn in a pushchair – but Stuart did observe that ’some horse has eaten that child’ – although he was on icecream too so this wasn’t conclusive – Kim returned from the loo missing out on the ice cream so we could use her a test. It turned out the unicorn was one of a line of mammoth plushies – winnie the pooh and tigger too seen following shortly after and some chap with an elephant on his back. Since the folk carrying them weren’t small, and sometimes were toting multiple plushies (now we knew why they needed pushchairs), how they were all going to fit in a small family car was beyond me. Others were off on Roker beach competing with the air show with their kites and paddling away in the surf.
We watched the police tackle youths then gather together with their bags of confiscated booze, and during the less exciting displays played the ‘Fat or Pregnant’ game as colourful folk waddled past with their chips – there was now more of interest to see on the ground than in the air – the flesh on display was remarkable – I hadn’t seen so much since the nude installation on the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and if it wasn’t flesh it was underwear on show – more of a Hair Show really. I turned my neck to find a shapely naked arse staring at me, some lass had bent over to tie her childs laces – in perfect timing the air show tannoy announced ‘Hope you are all enjoying the display’. This was of course the same announcer who on seeing the Spitfire fly in said ‘This is the reason we don’t speak German today’. Just about everyone was toting a dog or a child about or several children – the population of Sunderland is certainly not under threat and I read that it has the highest percentage of takeup of broadband and Digital Satellite in the UK so we have a rough idea of what they all get up to.
The Vulcan bomber was awesome and the show ended with the Typhoon roaring around the sky and disappearing vertically through the clouds like a farewell curtain. There was another day of more of the same but without sunshine on the Sunday so we escaped back through the housing estate to the metro at the ‘Stadium of Light’, the car was still there so we joined an enormous queue heading out through the Tyne Tunnel, admiring the Boldon business park Quadrus building, and hit the A1 northward to enjoy a lamb shank and ale in the Shoulder of Mutton at Longhorsley.
It does seem to be one enormous military recruitment campaign but it is also a tremendous day (or two if you hang around for the award winning nightlife and suffer your Wine Flu on the beach on Sunday) – the combination of no entrance fee with a fabulous air show over a gorgeous seascape is too tempting to miss.
