Friday’s mystery coach trip to launch the book West Cumbria: On the Edge took in a number of key spots discussed in the book, where we would stop in order that I could explain the relevance of this place or the other. Out towards the sea at Workington as we made for the old lifeguard station that sticks out on a concrete slab that forms part of a water break that extends further out into the sea, a group of cyclists who were embarking on the coast to coast cycle route — which begins / ends here — arrived to dip their wheels in the Irish Sea, before making off for the east coast, where they would no doubt dip them again in the North Sea.

A few of the cyclists managed to employ some of our coach trip guests to take snaps of them posing on the lifeguard station with the sea in the background. The above shot was taken with my mobile phone — the only camera that I had on me, seeing as I was the tour guide and preoccupied with other things — but I think that it captures something of the character of this rocky beach, located next to an area that is very popular with walkers and lunchtime visitors who want to spend a little time looking out at the horizon. In the screenshot from Google maps below you can see the point on the edge that I am referring to.

The top image is from Google Maps. The very tip of the land that stretches into the water is pictured in the second image here: the concrete rubble breakwater extending from lifeguard station at Workington

The old lifeguard station itself would be an obvious attraction for anyone journeying from coast to coast simply because it is such an obvious place marker, but it also features several inlaid spherical plates containing other interesting locational information and the distance of various places from this point.

Distances from the lifeguard station at Workington.

Later on the tour, after a walk around Whitehaven Harbour, we stopped for lunch at the excellent Vagabond pub, which features an interesting sign that has been taken directly from Bob Dylan’s 1969 album Nashville Skyline. What, I wonder, could the relevance of Dylan to this place and this pub be. Did he, perhaps, stop in Whitehaven on one of his British tours? Well, no — certainly not to perform.

Perhaps Dylan sang about the Revolutionary War — which thanks to former Whitehaven native John Paul Jones (commemorated in another pub a short walk from here) — landed in this spot in 1778.

Dylan’s *Nashville Skyline* album cover and its copy on the Vagabond pub sign.

But no, it was something else. While the image of Dylan that appears on this album cover could be taken as a representation of the travelling musician as a kind of vagabond — rootless and with only a guitar as his constant companion — the sign, in combination with the pub name, is likely taken from Dylan's ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’:

The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue

The final lines of the song, beginning at 3:30 mins are where these words are heard.

Whoever first installed the sign, probably a fan of Bob Dylan, perhaps also saw in these words — ‘strike another match, start anew’ — an echo of what the American Navy attempted here in 1778 when they set out to burn every ship that was docked in Whitehaven Harbour during the American colonies attempt to free itself from British rule.

The attack, of course, failed when only one ship was destroyed. A result, it seems, of the invading force finding a pub — perhaps this very pub! — and ending up drunk on ale and whisky. The latter (although not the Vagabond / Dylan connection) is discussed in West Cumbria: On the Edge, chapter 2, ‘Frontiers’.

After lunch the coach took us south through Bigrigg, Egremont and Florence Mine and the Arts Centre now located there, Beckermet and back to Westlakes Science Park.