Bells, bells, bells, what a world of happiness their harmony foretells!

Did you hear about the man with no arms who applied for a job as a bell-ringer? The cathedral had just lost its hunchback when an armless man showed up asking for the bell-ringing job. 'This I gotta see,' the bishop said and the pair of them climbed up the bell tower. 'Go on then,' the bishop said, 'show me how you plan on ringing the bell.' With that, the man ran with no arms took a flying leap towards the bell, smacked his head against it and promptly bounced out of a window and down to the ground over a hundred feet below. Once the loud peal had died down, the bishop heard a shout from the crowd who had gathered around the body: 'Do you know who this is??' And the bishop shouted back, 'No, but his face rings a bell.'

These days, bell ringing is a hunchback-free affair. We have been to York many times and over the years have become acquainted with one of the chaps who plays the York Minster carillon. He promised us a behind-the-scenes tour of York's cathedral and what better time to call in the favour then when a couple of friends from the USA happened to be in the country?

So for our final day of our Yorkshire trip we left sunny Middlesbrough in time to meet our friends from America who had come up for the day from London.

First stop of course had to be brunch at Betty's, the famous cake shop and tea room. Next, we had a look around the city's art gallery before taking the steps up onto the old walls which encircle much of the historic centre. It was another warm and sunny spring day, the perfect weather for gazing down into gardens and peeping through leafy trees on either side of the fortifications. York is a lovely city crammed with many medieval churches, fine old houses and ancient monuments like Clifford's Tower.

Back down on the ground and it was time for our friend John to sneak us in the back door of York Minster, the enormous Gothic cathedral which is the town's greatest landmark. I say sneaking in, it was more of a case of 'they are with me' as we nipped in through a side door past a warden. 

John took us on a circuit of the cathedral. As I said, we've been several times before and to be frank, York Minster is one of England's more plain cathedrals once inside. 

There's no denying the beauty of its lines, the light filtering through some of Europe's oldest stained glass, plus the sheer scale of the space - but it feels a bit sterile. There aren't many quirky features to catch the eye, except for the Doom Stone down in the crypt which shows demons feeding sinners into the jaws of hell. 

Speaking of feeding, those scones of Betty's weren't that filling and we were ready for a late lunch, but first John made good on his promise of showing us the bell tower up close. The southwest tower of the cathedral has many dozens of steps spiralling up it which took us well over 150 feet up into the air. Once we caught our breaths, we admired the view in all directions: over to the art gallery...

across the heart of the historic centre...

a unique viewpoint of the cathedral's upper heights...

a dizzying perspective of the floor far below us...

and an almost-so-close-you-can-touch-it look at the stained glass Heart of Yorkshire.

The bell-ringing room itself is a cozy affair, with the carillon keyboard set right up against one of the tower's many Gothic windows.

John treated us (and anyone else within earshot outside) to a couple of lovely church tunes, then let us each have a bash. It's much like playing the piano, except you need to use your fist to strike each note. Apologies to anyone who had to endure my off-key rendition of Joy To The World. Aside from the 'knuckle song', it's the only piece of music I know how to pick out on a piano (the opening is just one key after another, played in order from highest to lowest).

Before heading back down, John noticed it was coming up on four o'clock and asked would like to hear the marking of the hour? Here's the clip I made. TURN DOWN THE VOLUME ON YOUR SPEAKERS OR ELSE IT WILL BE DEAF O'CLOCK!

To round off our day in York with out friends we had a delicious meal at a place called Rustique. We chose it on a whim, only because their low-price set menu offer caught our eye. It turned out to be one of the best meals we'd had in ages, all fine French food at a very low price (three courses for less than £15). Without any advance planning, we had stumbled into what Tripadvisor reviewers rank as one of the best restaurants in York. It's not many camping trips that end with five-star French cuisine!

Middlesbrough? Only if you must

What words do you live by which define your travel style? Cheap and cheerful, or five stars all the way? Any which way but loose? If it's not Boeing, you're not going? For us, it's 'better bring the Good Beer Guide' because if a pub is not recommended by the Campaign for Real Ale, then we're not likely to darken the hostelry's doors.

So we were flummoxed as to why our reliable Good Beer Guide had no listings for Middlesbrough. Not a jot, which for a city of about 140,000 people was worrisome. The original idea behind our camping trip (before the flat pillows, rain, claustrophobia and fatigue forced us to spend four nights in a B and B) was that a room booked at the Middlesbrough Travelodge would be a luxurious treat after several days of sleeping under canvas. Realising there wasn't a decent pub in town put a damper on things.

First impressions however were surprisingly positive. After a leisurely journey away from Whitby and through the Yorkshire moors, our train pulled into town past a massive Anish Kapoor sculpture and a multi-coloured metallic building. Middlesbrough at first glance felt cutting edge.

Then we stepped out of the station and into the empty streets. The shopping district was a ghost town, as if a bomb had been dropped. There were at least a few signs of life at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), another new addition to the city skyline.

The building was sleek and striking, with wonderfully lit galleries for rubbish contemporary art. We traipsed through an entire floor of ugly jewellery, then sped through several enormous rooms of...nothing, really. Maybe five photos and a video playing in a darkened room, nothing to stir the soul or leave any lasting impression. On the top floor an outdoor platform opened out onto a miniature version of Manchester's town hall, hemmed in by an ugly tower block.

It's a shame, because at one point Middlesbrough was clearly a beautiful and thriving city with relatively recent beginnings which mean the heart of town is laid out in a tidy grid, a rarity for England. It is a product of the Industrial Revolution, when Quaker industrialists in 1829 started to transform a hamlet of four farmhouses into a port and rail hub for the transport of coal, then later a centre for iron and steel production. In its heyday the city was called 'Ironopolis'. Sydney's iconic Harbour Bridge has MADE IN MIDDLESBROUGH stamped into its girders.

There is still street after street of fine Victorian architecture, but much of it appeared vacant.

 

 

In Manchester these buildings would be reclaimed as flats, offices, restaurants and shops.

 

It is a vicious circle. Without local residents, few developers are going to take the risk and transform old buildings into space for living, working or leisure. But without decent housing and jobs, you can't attract people to live in a particular area, so the cycle of decay continues.

Middlesbrough still has some relics of its Ironopolis days and could make a decent stab at attracting visitors interested in its industrial heritage. For instance, its famous transporter bridge still trundles cars and passengers across the River Tees. At the time this was a busy shipping route and a bridge would have interrupted navigation, so engineers in 1911 built a set of steel towers 225 feet in the air so a gondola can be pulled across the river, carrying up to 200 people or 9 cars each way.

The waiting room for foot passengers on the Middlesbrough bank of the river is an interpretive centre. There are plans to replace the gondola and to install lifts inside at least one of the towers so tourists can admire the views from the top. We would have made the trip ourselves, but I didn't have enough cash for a return trip and didn't fancy a swim.

Not far from the transporter bridge is the assemblage of buildings and sculpture ('Tememos') that caught our eye when we arrived in town. The combination of contemporary architecture, open water and a football stadium (but little else) reminded me of Salford Quays in Manchester, back when it was cleared ground and not a cluster of museums, TV studios, shops and flats.

So maybe in another 10 or 15 years this will be a thriving destination. The college is enormous and very impressive, I first assumed it was a research laboratory or other high-tech facility, but instead it's where the local teens train to be hairdressers and call centre operatives.

A sign pointing to 'the old town' led us past a half boarded-up council estate and up to the completely-boarded up former town hall.

 This is where Prime Minister Gladstone in 1846 hailed Middlesbrough as 'an infant Hercules.'

Back in the centre of town and the shops had all shut by half 5. In Manchester this is when the streets become their busiest, as office workers stream out for an evening of shopping, drinking, eating and the theatre. We had to settle for a microwave meal and indifferent pint at the local Wetherspoons and spent the rest of our evening in our airless hotel room, sprawled on our saggy mattress flipping between the two channels on the telly. Middlesbrough? Only if you must!

One last entry and that will be the end of our Yorkshire trip, so click back soon to for a look around sunny York and a behind-the-scenes tour of the Minster!

What about Whitby? 12

Just a short post to point you towards an album of photos with the last of the Whitby photos on my Facebook page.

I'm giving away a free print for every 50 fans, so hurry on over and 'like' my Facebook page to be in with a chance!

Click back next time, when I'll be moving on to Middlesbrough.

What about Whitby? 11

In Yorkshire you will often see references to 'Whitby jet', but it's not an aeroplane that you'll see at the airport. Instead, jet is a semi-precious stone found here in abundance which has been mined for thousands of years. The Romans thought Whitby jet had magical powers and Pliny the Elder said it could be used to drive off snakes.

Whitby jet's popularity most recently peaked in Victorian times when the newly-widowed Queen Victoria began wearing black jewellery made from it in mourning. Decades later and we still say something is 'jet-black' when it is especially dark, the blackest black possible.

Even on a jet-black night there are ample possibilities for taking photos, made all the more fun if you take a creative approach and avoid attempting to achieve pin-sharp results. As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of 'intentional  movement photography' where little or no effort is made trying to hold the camera stock-still.

Another climb up the 199 Steps from the harbour and to the graveyard, where St Mary's Church was bathed in a floodlight. It was still early evening and a couple of children were amusing themselves by making enormous shadows on the side of the clock tower. 'That was like the most fun...ever,' one of them announced after their parents were finally able to tear them away.

Naturally, I had to have a go myself!

Even at night the churchyard and steps were quite busy, mainly because there is a YHA hostel in the grounds of Whitby Abbey. Here are some hostellers staggering back uphill, the bright lights of Whitby behind him.

And here's the landmark lamppost lighting the stairs, looking more like a flaming torch.

For such a vast structure, the ruins of Whitby Abbey are concealed behind a high wall, all the better for English Heritage. I had to climb onto a rubbish bin which was a bit slick from the salty sea air and hold the camera fairly still during a 10-second or so exposure for this image of the floodlit abbey.

Whitby has only a modest funfair and seaside promenade with the usual amusement arcades, but at night they light up the waters of the harbour.

I thought this light trail looked like a running man. Running from what??

Walking along the cobbles...

...and more opportunities to move the camera during long exposures to catch the limited available light and produce impressionistic images.

After several days of stalking around town on my photo walks, I thought I had covered every inch of Whitby. This particular night while on my own I decided to take a shortcut to the B&B which sits on the cliffs opposite the abbey. Instead of taking the switchback road up to the top, I chose a street at random and began climbing the series of stairs and alleys running between the houses on the hillside. At each bend I kept climbing up, leaving behind the chippies and holiday flats. After turning one corner, the street light disappeared behind me, the ivy crowded overhead and the path became noticeably more narrow. I had to step carefully as the steps were thick with leaves and litter.

At one landing the path levelled off, going past the black windows of an empty cottage. Here the path ended, right at the door of what was clearly an abandoned cottage...with a wide-open door. In the half light after sunset all I could see inside were piles of bags, the ones used by builders to haul around sand and rubble. I was certain these particular bags though contained body parts, so I turned around sharpish. Only a couple minutes later I was back to civilisation, behind the tat shops, only a few feet off the seafront yet who knows how close to my DOOM?!

An unexpected shock ending to an otherwise lovely holiday in a beautiful place. That wraps up Whitby, but I'll be back with some more photos to share before moving on to a quick look at Middlesbrough and York.

What about Whitby? 10

For all the fuss made over sunsets and the 'golden hours' when the sun is low in the sky and producing abundant raking light, there are plenty of photo opportunities after sunset. A 'blue hour' often follows between sunset and dusk, topped off by the occasional 'indigo flash' when  (right before turning black) the sky is at its deepest blue. And then of course there is the challenge of taking photos in darkness, when light is at its most scarce.

When faced with difficult lighting conditions, most photographers put all their effort into producing pin-sharp images. This requires sturdy tripods, remote control shutter release mechanisms or at the very least the camera's timer delay to minimise any movement during long exposures.

One evening in Whitby after sunset I climbed the 199 steps towards the abbey ruins and passed another photographer who was packing away his tripod, content with making what could very well have been the world's one-millionth sunset shot taken that day alone. Yes, every sunset is different, but there are endless possibilities for taking photos in very low (or even non-existent) light, with no special equipment at all.

There are fancy names for this type of image making, like kinetic photography or intentional camera movement photography. Me, I just call it fun.

Why not try one of these techniques yourself next time? For instance, if you're using a zoom lens, you could try twisting the zoom ring during an exposure, which makes the image look as though it is radiating from a central point.

Be sure to try both zooming in and out during exposures as the effects are slightly different. 

Another thing I often do in low light conditions (and which attracts plenty of odd looks) is to twist the camera quickly while the shutter is open for a swirly effect.

That, or moving the camera from one side to the next.

Or jerk the camera downward. This turned the streetlamp and railings along the 199 Steps into jagged spikes.

I'm not able to rub my tummy and pat my head at the same time, but sometimes I twist the camera AND adjust the zoom at the same time.

All of these photos were taken in the half hour or so after sunset, if not later, but the long exposures make some of the photos seem as bright as day.

So what if my fellow photographer who had already packed his tripod had made it to the pub by now? Wait until you see the photos taken well after dark, when Whitby is at its spookiest!

What about Whitby? 9

Whitby is one of the few places in Britain where the sun rises and sets at sea, doubling the opportunity for lots of lovely low light landscape shots.

Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of early starts: Dracula is a morning person compared to me. So instead, here are some of my sunsets!

Playing with the 'soft focus' setting.

Lots of gulls swooping about.

I've used a version of this as the cover for my Whitby book of souvenir photos.

You can just make out the steeple of the church in Lythe.

I was upset by the number of airplane contrails this particular evening, but the lighthouse made an excellent silhouette.

Rule number one of sunset shots: always take a look behind you!

Again with the contrails!

Again with a quick look over my shoulder!

And again with the soft focus!

Now compare the soft focus effect above to the much warmer automatic 'sunset' setting below.

Just about managed to disguise the contrail in this one. Some lovely clouds that evening.

Click back next time for photos I took after the sun went down.