Sh*tty Breaks: A Celebration of Unsung Cities

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There is something of the maverick about Ben Aitken. The author of six books within the past decade, his debut, Dear Bill Bryson, was a playful response to Bryson’s longstanding bestseller Notes From a Small Island, while subsequent works, A Chip Shop in Poznan (2019) and Gran Tour: Travels With My Elders (2020) provided a flavour of Aitken’s versatility and niche approach to travel writing, While the pandemic years thwarted any physical traversing, nonetheless The Marmalade Diaries (2022) became a kind of journey in itself—a record of psychological and philosophical exploration, while in lockdown confinement to enforced domesticity with his then housemate, 84-year-old Winnie.

If 2023’s Here Comes the Fun was a quest to recover zest and zeal, then Sh*tty Breaks heralds a return to the travel writing camp with gusto. Awarded Travel Journalist of the Year in 2024 by the Travel Connection Group (TCG), an air of unpredictability and intrigue endures when it comes to Aitken’s explorations, prompting the question ‘where (or what) next? For me, this also reveals a little of his nature; his tendency towards the contrary, to go against the grain:

‘Travelling in the “wrong” direction can be fulfilling and formative, and rich. It can leave an impression, a trace, a mark. It can plant certain ideas and pose certain notions – that great things can be found on the margins, that sometimes cream gets stuck at the bottom.’

Here, he makes a pilgrimage around the statistically least-touristed, most unfashionable, overlooked British cities, from Newport to Newry, Wolverhampton to Wrexham, Dunfermline down to Chelmsford, extending overseas to postcolonial Gibraltar. This might well be a hangover from having grown up in Portsmouth (which regularly features in ‘Worst Places to Live’ lists and Crap Towns pocketbooks). Nonetheless, Atiken’s quest to seek out hidden gems juxtaposes a willingness to try anything new at least once, sometimes culminating in unintentionally hilarious moments. (Skydiving and bedding down in a treehouse, anyone?)

Each chapter is peppered with wry observations of terrain and topography, peppered with interesting historical facts unique to each unsung city, many previously unbeknownst to me. Chelmsford, for example, held the most witch trials than anywhere else in the UK, while Bradford was the first city worldwide to be granted the title of UNESCO City of Film, home to Europe’s first IMAX cinema.

Yet there are other traits commonly shared by these uncelebrated cities. Many once-prosperous towns, like Bradford, Newport and Wolverhampton, were instrumental in the heavy industry boom during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, attracting thousands of workers and their families. Though the last few decades have seen them become increasingly impacted by mass post-industrial decline in the wake of this digital age, traces of former affluence, even grandeur, can still be found in the architectural landmarks of these cities. Of Sunderland, once distinguished by its role in the shipbuilding industry, its cityscape is a fusion of cross-era architecture: ‘Baroque. Gothic…Detached piles, towering flats, terraces of one-storey redbrick cottages.’

Meanwhile in Preston, its gargantuan, grey-slab bus station, with its ‘look of a battleship, with its curved concrete balconies that stretch on and on almost out of eyeshot’, in recent years, seen its status elevated from ugly, monstrous eyesore to cult brutalist icon, a kind of hauntological symbol for the ‘haunted generation’ raised in the sixties and seventies on public information films, Threads, pylon landscapes and regular powercuts.

Each chapter easily handles the precarious balance of dialogue, reflection, action and description, and this means that every city exploration here provides a path both easy and enticing enough to follow. Useful too is the use of footnotes throughout the text, allowing for elaboration, but as these little avenues are woven intermittently through the chapters, there’s no danger of straying into dense woodland. Moreover, they often present a debunking of common preconceptions and misrepresentations of these cities.

Most of Aitken’s perambulations are on foot (with the odd bus or train ride out to or from a neighbouring manor, such as Bletchley from Milton Keynes or Wightwick Manor (Wolverhampton), so he’s in prime position to happen upon the unexpected pockets of accidental charm or beauty as much as the more obvious, signposted landmarks, whether it’s a craggy coastal footpath or bright, brilliant murals adoring backstreet alleys.

And it’s those little, unanticipated thrills that so enhance the travel experience – any travel experience, whether it’s an Antipodean adventure or a hundred-metre stroll from the doorstep. Indeed, as he writes ‘‘I fall for the novelty, the stories, the people, the simple magic of being elsewhere.’.

 Many of the observations and interactions are played out with locals, in chip shops and cafes, with cabbies and museum curators; those who know every feature and furrow of their city’s face. As in his previous works, Aitken shows his adroitness in conversing; the dialogue here brims with area-specific anecdotes, wisdoms and witticisms. Some scenes verge on pure slapstick too, particularly when he’s accosted in a pub or café or theatre, after being eyed suspiciously by the locals (particularly in Wolverhampton and Wrexham) due to the apparently dubious combination of being alone, writing in a notepad and wearing a backpack:

“Pardon me, sir, but can I ask a question?”

“Sure.”

“Are you a creative?”

‘Sort of. Why?”

“It’s just that a few people are getting a bit suspicious…it’s the backpack, you see. And you’re alone. And you’re wandering around. Looking at the ceiling”.

“And what do they suspect?”

“Well, it’s not tourism.”’

He samples local delicacies from haggis bonbons in Dunfermline to pease pudding in Sunderland, gets pulled into the pub quiz and tests out an array of activities ranging from congenial pastimes, dolphin-spotting in Gibraltar, for instance, to the more challenging, such as go-karting in Milton Keynes, track cycling in Newport, but fundamentally, he seeks out any oddities amid the ordinary, eccentricities and the possibility of enchantment from the familiar and mundane.

And with each excursion to a different city, the intuition that propelled this book – that these cities are effectively being ‘shortchanged’; that they are underrated and undervalued, rather than unsightly or unremarkable – becomes cemented into a conviction.

When Aitken claims he’s on holiday in Sunderland or Preston or Chelmsford, he’s sometimes met with reactions of suspended disbelief from locals, but although some express degrees of incredulity, by and large, people are stoic, phlegmatic, but often quietly optimistic about their cities, as demonstrated in this exchange:

‘I asked the girl who flogged me the jumper what she would change about Limerick, given a wand and carte blanche. “The perception of the place”, she said. “It’s all here. And it’s only going to get better. We just need people to know.”’. 

The airways to far-flung pockets of the planet may have reopened, post-COVID , but here Aitken turns his gaze inwards rather than outwards, facing the opposite direction to everybody else, once again. And it pays off: Sh*tty Breaks might well be his best venture and voyage yet.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say he’s nailed it with  Sh*tty Breaks – and I hope that each of these uncelebrated, yet lyrically and lively cities stock copies of this book in their bookstores and libraries and at their rail and bus and ferry terminals. The presence of this book jostling for shelf space with the habitual postcards, regional souvenirs and trinkets would serve as a testament to their unique character and spirit.

More significantly, local authorities need to acknowledge the importance of encouraging cultural renewal and fresh perspectives. This requires genuine investment that draws on each city’s unique history, culture, architecture, natural environment, people, and language—bringing these qualities to the public eye. By celebrating assets and abnormalities, retelling old stories and showcasing them to attract visitors and residents alike, perhaps, then, these cities can start climbing the ranks of tourist hotspot blogs, drop out of the ‘Worst Places to Live’ lists and start enjoying the advantages seen in their more auspicious, affluent neighbours.