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This was originally on Platform.

My name is Sophie, and I live in a small, washed up seaside resort on the North East coast. Back in the fifties, Whitley Bay was all the rage, but now the town’s main revenue owes itself to tacky hen nights,  slot machines, and cheap housing for paedophiles (according to some conspiracy theorists). There a some small perks to living in a small fairly shitty town, for example the dozen crusty charity shops littered within a ten minute proximity, forming a perfect trail from my house to the job centre. There are also some cons, like getting started on by ruthless, trackie B clad pre-pubescents  if you happen to showcase any garments purchased from said charity shops. Only an hour ago I was mocked by a pair of quaver scoffing twelve year olds, producing a torent of crumbs amongst their cruel jibes for my admittedly jazzy choice of jumper.

I’d say the population is mainly made up of seagulls and the elderly, but there are also the thousands of fifteen to fifty year olds who frequent Whitley Bay’s most alluring aspect, the shitty clubs. With many of my dearest friends and foes flying the nest to pursue far more interesting lives, I thought that it would be fitting to document the occasion that has become commonly known as “Thursbay” (cringe) in all its sleazy glory.

Whitley Bay’s Wikipedia claim to fame: In the BBC children's television series Byker Grove, Dave Richmond, the leader of the rival youth club at Denwell Burn, was a local drug dealer from Whitley Bay. His trademark act of violence was the "Whitley Smile"

Havana is Whitley Bay’s one and only “Cuban themed bar”.  It is seemingly deserving of this title due to the sole fact that it has garishly coloured plastic palm trees inside. The claustrophobic, socially anxious and furthermore uncomfortable feeling I get from visiting this establishment always makes my stay in here brief. After having experimented with different levels of intoxication it would take to withstand an hour in there I came to the conclusion that I’d be best off unconscious.  However this is still a great place if you like the feeling of being surrounded on all sides by 500 platinum blonde bitches on stilts, who’ll happily swoop down and feast upon you as you if you so much as accidently step on a stiletto.

Some of my favourite Chris moments: On Dapper’s birthday Chris got super drunk and decided to show us all his luncheon meat truncheon in an alleyway, multiple times. By the time we started walking home he just didn’t bother putting it back in his trousers. The first night I met Chris I was getting undressed in Anton’s room, I turned round and Chris was posing against the doorway, leaning nonchalantly in nothing but his knickers, with his badly done NUFC tattoo clearly visible on his forearm. He gave me a cheeky wink and shouted “goodnight kids! Am gan to bed.” the rest is history. Chris has worked with DFDS for about a year now but I’m still waiting for my free cruise to Amsterdam...

Laurie is an eighteen year old computer programmer with an amateur porn habit; he’s also one of my best friends. What I admire about him is that in between being a hardcore gaming geek he still manages to be a party animal and a total man slut, pulling some pretty bodalicious babes. The night before this was taken Laurie got fined £150 and spent the night in a cell for drunkenly breaking and entering, but did this put him off spending his last night bathing in all the debauchery the Bay has to offer? Of course not, this was his last night in Whitley and his clash with The Man was a suitable tribute.

The lurid, sickly looking green things that everyone was drinking are “Skittles”, every variety of twelve year olds’ drink of preference WKD, mixed in with a healthy shot of vodka.

Anderson’s fabulous, and a mega good photographer. We bonded when we were fourteen because we loved getting really wasted and being totally outrageous, though looking back we were pretty tame. We’d tour Whitley Bay causing mocking and outrage, getting stoned and talking about Tracey Emin and fanny.  This night Anders found a cassette tape in a skip and went round informing guillible girls that it was a designer handbag and that Carrie Bradshaw had the very same. In the words of Tyra Banks, Anders is FIERCE.

Dapper sucking the life out of another one of Chris’s badly rolled joints) This is Dapper, quite possibly Whitley Bay’s Biggest Smiths fan. There was a period of time when he would answer nearly every question his ex girlfriend posed him with a fittingly poetic Smiths lyric, which provided due entertainment and tears to either side. When Dapper was in lower sixth me and my friends made it our mission to befriend him because he wore a tweed suit to school and was really well read. Everyone used to mockingly call him “Beamish” or “War Kid” but he was by far the most sartorially gifted specimen in school.

As one of the half a dozen kebab shops in Whitley Bay, Kebab King is obviously making quite a valiant statement by claiming to be so called King of the Kebabs, but the grey spinning gristle stick in the front window is actually probably the finest in the Bay area. They happen to do banging chicken burgers too. This is where the detritus of Whitley end up sinking at the bottom of a weekend or weekday night. Grown men crying, menopausal women in pink hen night tutus and underage hoochies can all be found here, scoffing their sorrows and partaking in communal renditions of “Total Eclipse of the Heart”.