When I first moved to Derry no one seemed to go to Newcastle but today every second person seems to have children at one of the two universities, education replacing the old industrial stalwarts of coal mining and ship building. This development only highlights the missed opportunities a similar educational expansion would have done for Derry. Newcastle is also a niche tourist destination for pre-nuptial stag and hen parties, At the far end of the health spectrum, many Derry runners have enjoyed the Great North Run. Normally in Derry I am in a minority of one. Walking around the town on my first afternoon, it was strange to think that there were a million people with the same accent as me. The visit proper began with a family reunion in a pub in Wallsend. Things went well until my sister Monica keeled over while sitting down at the meal. I was in a complete state of panic calling for doctors and ambulances. Everyone else seemed much calmer. Not least because the consequences of getting immediate medical help meant a trip to the nearest A&E department at the end of the known universe in Cramlington about ten miles away. There was also the prospect of an interminable wait for attention. The NHS seems to be in a similar situation whatever the exact location. It was better to sit tight for a while and watch developments. Monica recovered fairly quickly saying it was probably anaemia. Her diagnosis proved correct but she had to go to the dreaded Cramlington to be attached to a drip for much of my visit. The next morning I decided to walk from my brother’s house in Heaton Newcastle to my old house in Wallsend. Part of the route passes through an area which used to be known as Bigges Main. It was once a mining village but during my youth there was nothing but the pub standing in splendid isolation. The area was derelict but was a great place for me, as budding naturalist, to wander about looking for birds’ nests. In the seventies the area was developed as a golf course. My route, on a right of way, passed what was once municipal playing fields where I played rugby for the town team. These were in the process of being developed as housing. All over the country cash strapped local authorities have been forced to sell recreational areas to meet their other obligations. I presumed this was just one example. I took a walk around my old house in Wallsend. They were very solid terraced houses but much has changed since my childhood. The outside toilet, ‘the netty’, in local parlance, has disappeared as has the coal house. Nostalgia is all very well but digging a route to the toilet through heavy snow or sitting in front of a roaring coal fire with your back freezing is not something I could enjoy again. I made my way to Wallsend metro station. There were only a few passengers on the platform. I recalled the time when the platform would be jammed in the summertime with families making their way to the coast on day trips to spend their annual holidays on the beaches of Tynemouth and Whitley Bay. If Benidorm existed, it was probably on the moon. From the station I could see the remains of the once mighty Swans shipyard which once employed 8,000 workers everyone in my family included. The yard closed in 2006. I remember my father telling me that the fifty fifth parallel passes through the Wallsend station. Derry is on the same meridian. Moving across the Atlantic it passes near the Davis Inlet in Labrador Canada. I felt cold waiting for the train but not as cold as the Davis Inlet. Temperatures can sink as low as minus 30 degrees in February. The locals are from the Innu nation and were once caribou hunters. Although we are the same distance from the equator, our relative mild climate is explained due to the gulf stream or north Atlantic drift current which carries water from the Caribbean warming north west Europe, Wallsend and Derry included . Climate scientists warn the continued profligate use of fossil fuels, the ‘Drill Baby Drill Attitude’, may lead to the collapse of this current. The sight of polar bears drifting past on icebergs will be no consolation in Buncrana or Tynemouth. Arriving at the station in Tynemouth was always a thrill as we headed for the beach. We were not aware as children of the wonderfully ornate wrought iron railway station or the medieval castle and priory where three Scottish kings are buried. We just wanted to play in the sand and jump over the waves on the beach. Later the numerous pubs on the main street were a big attraction. I made my way back to Newcastle on the bus. I was struck by the number of closed churches and derelict pubs I saw. What has replaced these institutions that held society together? The ubiquitous out of town retail outlets are the new entertainment and religion. We visited the graveyard in Wallsend where my parents, my wider family, neighbours and many of my school friends are buried. The catholic part of the cemetery is as Irish as any in Derry or Donegal: Conways, Ronans, Lynches, Brennans, McMahons, Wards, McLaughlins, Dohertys and many others. ‘Ní bheidh a leitheíd ann arís – We will not see the likes of them again’. The simple explanation is the Famine, An Gorta Mór. Driven by starvation in Ireland they moved to this part of England at the height of the industrial revolution. Tyneside is the same as every other town In Britain, Ireland and anywhere in Europe. Recent immigrants can be seen everywhere obviously fleeing disasters like the Famine in their own countries. I was only 48 hours out of Ireland but I was in need of a fix of Irish culture. In the evening we went to the Cumberland Arms, a pub in Byker to enjoy a session of Irish music. The musicians were all second and third generation Irish except for a group of students from Newcastle university. They were studying a degree course in international traditional music and were honing their practical skills by copying the masters. Another hint as to what might be copied in Derry. It was over sixty years since I had last visited Lindisfarne or Holy Island about sixty miles from Newcastle. Then I was just a wee boy on my first trip away from home. I was at an SVP camp, which still exists today. I entered in the boxing matches at the camp. It was my first bout. I was full of confidence not least because my opponent was about half my size. The fight ended with me bleeding from every possible facial orifice: nose, eye, ear and lip. I had not landed a glove on my opponent. In the tradition of true sportsmanship he tried to console me: “You had no chance Mick – I have been boxing for years.” Lindisfarne is a tidal island remote and bleak on that day in February. It was of enormous significance in the history of Ireland, Northern England and Europe. At the invitation of King Oswald of Northubria St Aidan an Irish monk arrived on Lindisfarne in the seventh century via Columcille’s Iona. He was responsible for the re-establishment of Christianity in northern England and the subsequent flowering of Anglo-Saxon culture, the finest example of which is the Lindisfarne Gospel, a rival to the book of Kells. Aidan’s biography is obscure but he may have returned to Ireland after the Council of Whitby in 793 where the Celtic form of Christianity lost out to the more Roman orienteered version established in the south of England by St Augustine. One of Aidan’s claimed burial sites is at the foot of Binevenagh mountain in Magilligan county Derry, My boxing match was not the only humiliation to occur on Lindisfarne. In 793 the Viking raids began. Eventually the monks were forced to flee the island carrying St Cuthbert’s coffin and saving the gospel. St Cuthbert’s final resting place was Durham cathedral. The gospel is in the British Museum. After the Norman Conquest a smaller copy of Durham cathedral was built over the ruined St Aidan’s simple church. This too was vandalized in 1536 during Henry V111’s dissolution of the monasteries. The church itself gradually fell into disrepair, only its skeleton remains. It is even now magnificent wreck. Henry’s purported reason for the Dissolution was the corruption of the monks but pillaging the wealth of the church resulted in the increasing his own wealth and that of his cronies. More serious was the destruction of the proto-welfare state, education, hospitals and social security, which the monasteries had provided. The shortfall was not made up for centuries. Henry and the other Tudor monarchs were responsible for the re-conquest of Ireland which was the beginning of the British Empire: murder, theft, slavery, the destruction of native language and culture and cricket. Henry’s personal morals were far from perfect, treated women badly, was overweight and he had appalling dress sense but he is even today a great favourite with film and TV audiences. They don’t make statesmen like that nowadays, but there again…. I returned to Derry and Ireland the next day – in many ways I had never left.