“Are you in Skegness or Chernobyl” never had a truer word been said

A feature of the flat boring Lincolnshire roads is that whatever speed you are doing, the car behind you will overtake you, then drive at the same speed you were doing or slower.

Can we all agree this man needs to be on the TV?

Hospitals started out as a place where pilgrims and travelers could stay for cheap, the medical association with the word came from needing to treat the sick and injured on their journey. That's why you have the word hospitality.

That filling station/shop is brilliantly quirky!

"Oh. The A1111. It's like the A1 but four times the fun" Thank you John Shuttleworth for this little gem.

1:41 "I assume today some sort of voluntary donation is required, which is why I'm stood outside." :D

5:37 - the nice straight road in question was built over the top of what used to be the Lincolnshire loop line, a direct railway linking Spalding to Boston.

St Botolph's Church Tower is known far and wide as the 'The Boston Stump'.

I hope everybody appreciates the vast amount of effort you put into these videos John. Excellent research and gunfire delivery spiced with comic comments. Don’t look now, but I think your videos are getting better.

I like this video so I’ve pressed the button specifically for that👉🏻

Fish & Chips and then fight the seagulls. Yep that is the true British experience.

Boston, where the bypass goes right through the middle of town.

Thank you John for a tour through my home area. Although born in king’s Lynn (I don’t know why) I moved to Spalding when my mum took me home from hospital. For the next 21 years I walked, cycled and drove over every stretch of the roads you covered - some very fond memories indeed. At an undisclosed age I had my first kiss on the banks of the Coronation Channel and yes, I know how to pronounce Ayscoughfee Hall - it’s Ass Coffee. On my 40th birthday my late father-in-law took me aloft in his Cessna and flew a full 360 around Boston Stump. As for Lincolnshire Sausages they are by far the best in the U.K. - especially those made on my youth by George Bark in Deeping St Nicholas, and you might have passed through that totally ignoring it. Fantastic video thanks again.

Damn it, I KNEW I saw the Saab parked up near Scotgate last week. Missed the opportunity to say the videos are wicked sweet awesome in person.

"Are you in Skegness or Chernobyl? You just don't know." Very true. Now I shall attempt to get rid of the PTSD from childhood holidays there. Mablethorpe nearby was actually much nicer.

I don’t find south Lincolnshire boring at all. I adore the flatness of the Fens. The sky becomes the landscape.

Great to see you covering the often-forgotten part of the country, the Lincolnshire Fens. We do love our sausage…

About 10 years ago I went to Pripyat, later that year I went to Skegness and thought to myself: "I wish I was in Pripyat." That radiation really did have a warming affect.

If Jon is where I think he is at the start then he is stood in a narrow strip of Northamptonshire between Rutland and Cambridgeshire - not even signposted on the A1!

Hitting the nail on the head. Almost all seaside towns are depressing. They are stuck in a time warp from 70+ years ago. If you're looking for plastic dolphins, locals with skin like leather and no where to park - it's a great day out.

"You "have" to give a voluntary donation upon entry.. which is why I'm stood outside." 😂😂😂

I'm surprised The George in Stamford never got a mention. Dated someone from Deeping St James. Used to cycle from Whittlesey to Crowland. Family outings to Skegness....all happened 30 plus years ago. I feel old now but don't live in the fens anymore, so good news 🙂

Nice to see the tower at the former RAF Wainfleet. As a Met Office engineer based in Watnall (Nottinghamshire), Wainfleet was one of our stations, with a Met enclosure in a field and the displays in the tower itself. One visit there saw me almost overcome by the desire for hotdogs. It was only on the way home I realised why - Wainfleet was surrounded by fields of ready-to-harvest onions! Well... you can guess what I had that evening!

Welcome to Spalding. We locals pronounce Ayscoughfee as Askerfy. The Hall dates back to the 1450s and the gardens are well worth a visit.

I grew up in Boston. When Jon is filming the Maud Foster windmill, he's standing about 50 yards away from my childhood home.

FYI Storrs is not self service. The bloke in the glasses filling un the car is Keith Storr co-owner of the shop. You missed out Bateman's Brewery. I'm sure Stuart Bateman would have given you a personal tour round (and possibly a free bottle or two of their fine products. Combined Harvested is really good) You could have mentioned Barkham Street. Legend is that plans for the street got mixed up with those of a street in London. London got the 2 storey row of houses, while Wainfleet got the 3 storey houses. You could have mentions that Willian of Waynflete (an alternative spelling of Wainfleet), founded Magdalene College Oxford. With an offshoot in Wainfleet. The ancient cross is what is locally known as The Buttercross.

Jon, standing in a shabby field near a busy road, or in a piss-stinking graffitied concrete underpass. Highlight of my week...

That sea wall in Skegness looks like they've nicked the panels off an old tardis interior - lol

Skegness has one thing that is growing and doing well. The stock car track is going from strength to strength while others are closing

Hillary Brock's garage in Olney used to be an absolute force of nature. They were one of the top Ford dealers despite not being a gin palace. They sold too many cars for Ford to cull them. They also had those fuel pumps . They will be missed 😢

Ahhh Skeggy, many a night in our late teens early twenties we'd look across from Hunstanton.. then decide for no other reason than boredom and the journey itself, to drive around to Skeg, get some food, check out the Skeg lasses, do a one wheel peel, drive home at 2am.

I used to frequent Skegness’s nightlife back in the 70’s .. & haven’t been back since & don’t intend to either..

Excellent. I grew up near skeg. Yeah i agree a very flat and boring place to drive round at times. At Wainfleet the Batemans brewery is also worth a mention.

Skegness Raceway is definitely worth a visit for some quality oval motorsport 👍🏻🏁

I love being in those wide big sky open spaces of Lincolnshire. This was a really good video! Thanks Jon.

As always, great video! 👌 If you have more of Lincolnshire to visit, Tattershall would be a great addition. Never mind the boring castle, the local scrap yard has the Lockerbie plane wreckage, easily visible via satellite!

"Have a fight with some seagulls." They're taking over I tell ya.

I went to the Wainfleet bombing range some years ago when it was operational. Started off in the tower where they would control aircraft coming onto the range. I think it might have been Jaguars dropping practice bombs (smoke and flash) and their cannons. We then went out to one of the wooden scoring huts mounted on stilts where hits would be triangulated with the view from another hut further up the coast. It was during winter and bloody freezing standing outside the hut waiting for aircraft to be directed in but the huts had massive lights on them which would get turned on when an aircraft was doing runs, so they didn't attack it, although apparently some had in the past, mostly Americans. The light was of the incandescent type and actually provided a bit of warmth. Practice bombs would occasionally be recovered and I have one in my possession. A hollow plastic body with fins and a lump of metal at the front where the "warhead" was.

There is the Boston Sausage. Worth a try. Thank you for visiting my village as you used the old A16 to Boston, which is now mostly B roads and a bit of A152.

My family’s originally from small villages about 10 miles from Skegness, which was the bright city lights then, and possibly still is. In the last 20 years I was mostly going back for funerals or to visit my gran with dementia during the long grey winters. I only came once in the summer, and the coast was much more lively and cheerful, though I understand why my mum and dad didn’t move back from Bracknell when they retired…

The Chernobyl reference had me in fits! 🤣 🤣

Fab video. Cheers. Wouldn’t be a Sunday without you

John knows his audience, some very apt bits of commentary with the odd railway infrastructure sprinkled in for good measure.

After being a fan for over a year, you've finally stepped foot into my home town of Spalding. Hope you had your trusty stab vest on you! And don't worry, even we don't know how to pronounce Ayscoughfee. I went to secondary school in Market Deeping and I agree that it's quite boring, but it does have a pretty active night-life with 5 pubs basically right next to each other in the town centre. Entertaining as always, John!

Whenever I hear about Lincolnshire I think first of "Lincolnshire Poacher". But you'd need to involve "Ringway Manchester" for taking that route.

Market Keeping was popular (and probably still is) with the more senior level Engineers at Perkins Engines on account of not being Peterborough but still close enough for an easy drive into work. When I used to visit Perkins I used to stop in the Deeping Stage public house after having had a couple of really shit stays in Peter's Bog Horror.

As Jon says "there are only three things you do in a failing seaside town" the missus says "a 2p slot machine?!!". A few seconds later she screams "Yes!!" in a way I've not heard for several years.

Market Deeping is a commuter town, it’s close to Peterborough and spalding but nicer than both, it’s close to Stamford but not as expensive

Experiencing the boring roads of nothing much with occasional farms is a distinct "welcome to Lincolnshire". Much of it is just that. I live in Spalding (and it's pronounced As-coffee) and while it suffers from thedecline that all small towns do, it could be far worse. Living along the river is pretty ish so I like it. As for the Boston to Skeg road, yes it's MUCH better now though far from perfect as Lincolnshire does like to build single carriageway roads where they should have dual. I do have a soft spot for the old days of the old road during the 1980s and tearing through those bends on my motorbike. So it was nice for something. Bloody frsutrating otherwise.

I've been at that crossing in Tallington when it's broken before, for a good hour.

Finally you reach my hometown of Stamford. Tourists love it. I remember the days before hundreds of coffee shops and inconsiderate parking. Oh well another great informative video.

There's a fourth thing you're meant to do in a seaside town, John - have an ice cream. Specifically, a 99 - the flake is essential to the holiday experience.

I can’t wait for your Southend special

John, whatever your situation is, you seem to have enough resources/ time to prepare all this -and it's on weekly basis ! Apart from the obvious fun of all the travel and visits, there's probably awful lot of work when it comes to research and editing. Now, that's a true volountary contribution/ service to us all ! Respect man ! 💪 As a lorry driver, my work has become more interesting now that I learn all this about the roads I use and towns/ places I pass or see... Thank you !

I have seen a shop/filling station in The Hague. Didn’t take a picture unfortunately. The new A16 between Spalding and Boston was built on the former East Lincolnshire railway. Which will make life difficult if they want to reopen the line.

Sunday just aren't Sunday's anymore without Jon's latest video.

A less well-known fact about Stamford is that in the Medieval era, it briefly had a university: a group of academics from Oxford decided to set up shop there after some kind of dispute with other Oxford academics. This was back when Oxford and Cambridge were the only universities in England (they had a few in Scotland). It didn't last very long because they couldn't get their students' papers marked externally, the result being that the dons had to close their college and patch up their difficulties with their old colleagues in Oxford. I always wondered why they never tried to revive it when the red-brick universities started opening in the 19th century. I once did a truck driving job that involved a daily run to Boston (namely the big sandwich factory on the eastern side of town). I was amazed that they'd built this nice new straight road up from Peterborough, but didn't bother building it around Boston. A few years ago this TV show visited Boston where they tried to get people to leave their cars at home and use public transport; they found everyone convinced that the reason Boston was choked with traffic was through traffic and that the solution was a bypass. It was easy enough to get from the Peterborough road to the factory, but getting anywhere else (like out to the A17 west to get to Newark) was a nightmare.

Somewhere else that's in Lincolnshire and is awesome - Mablethorpe! Love it there. ❤️

Hi John, I believe the A16 from spalding is the former east lines railway which closed in 1970 Cheers Russ

I think most of Lincolnshire is beautiful.

Chernobyl, where people from the failing seaside town of Weston Super Mare go on holidays. The fuel station at the shop is great. There were loads of those places about when I first started driving in the 1970s. Now we have to endure Service stations and drive thru's. Motoring definitely lost the charm over the years and became a chore.

Think I'm going to press the button specifically for liking this video

Im Sri Lankan, my uncle is called Ottoshinanigan!

Skeg Vegas is by far our nearest seaside 'resort'. That dismal drive along the A52 is far more exhilarating than the actual destination. We go to Scarborough instead.

Love the self-loathing England seaside town hate. It's what we all come for.

It’s quite a trip seeing Jon in my hometown (Boston)

The reason it's called a hospital is due to the word then meaning a place that provided care of any type of person in need: So they would look after the poor, orphans, widows, and the sick. It wasn't until about the Victorian era that hospital became a term for caring for the sick only.

That auto shop & petrol pump is really amazing.

Ooh Stamford, nicest town I've ever lived in. There's a disused bit of road between the A1 and Colsterworth near there. I think it used to be a bypass or something, idk. Was a nice place to walk as a teen stuck in a village.

Huzzah, a roadtrip through my neck of the woods at last!

I was in Spalding for a couple of days a few years ago (Ministry of Ag course) and someone booked accommodation for me for the night . . . in a massage parlour! Those footpaths along the waterways are quite a pretty walk when you're avoiding going back for the night!

I know it's fun to diss failing seaside towns but that garden area at the end was rather nice-looking from a distance.

"This (road) will take us along the River Welland and, wait a minute, is that an old railway bridge?" I thought this was quite funny...until this great one-liner; "Are you in Skegness or Chernobyl? You just don't know" 😆😆😆 Now thats a laugh and a half 😂 Nice one, Jon

"Medieval CAD drawing" - Giggled hard to this one.

To fix the burst defenses at Crowland, they buried a few old military tanks. One of which was dug up recently.

That Chernobyl line is class.

There was a concrete works near Tallington crossing which made concrete railway sleepers from 1943 until about 2010. Millions of them. Looks as though there's still a rail connection to the main line.

Brilliant railway video with a bit of road, keep up the great work Jon!

Once again taking us places and asking the questions that no one will ever ask. Thank you for your service 🙂

That was a remarkably interesting video. I never knew southern Lincolnshire was so fascinating.

As a Market Deeping...er, I never thought it was boring. But now, with no abandoned road, unfinished junction or disused railway, I feel the place may indeed be distressingly bereft. 😢

Love your videos dude. I feel the Fens get overlooked as a part of the country that can be breathrakingly beautiful. The sunsets here are georgeous as you have so much sky, the ever changing farmland landscape through the seasons, and one of the sunniest areas of the UK.

I remember my first sighting of entering skegness for the first time was a lorry sidewides at and angle reversing into a (then) new car with the owner coming out of the shop to witness it.

I stayed at the Tower at Wainfleet…….. it was indeed….wicked, sweet and Awesome👍

This is the best video I've ever seen about anything

Oh, cute! Old Boston!

Have a great week ahead yourself John. Thanks for making Sundays fun.

Thank you for the shenanigans

Very informative, liked that petrol shop, and agree about Skeggy.

Skegvegas and medieval market crosses designed by CAD… we are blessed!

Ah yes, am old old enough to remember the March-Spalding line closure - IIRC HMP Whitemoor is built across the bottom of that route \m/

Yep Tallington crossing ,it is true rare you go through see gates up

Mentioned the petrol station at 9:45. There's one in Bala that's much the same. Park up on the side of the road and fill your car up. It's great.

Could of popped in for brew at Colin Furzes house in Stamford

started in my home town, nice video hopefully you will pass by another time edit: with the spalding flooding they built flood defences with some old buffalo amphibious vehicles, one of which was dug up and is being restored

Love it Jon, smoked many a joint on the Skegness coastline and still do! :)

Thanks for the video having visited Bracing Skegness in the past, it's a never to be forgotten experience! Here's a clue to where we stayed, courtesy of Mr. Richard Stillgoe. Ve don't vant to escape Ve don't vant to get out For ze red coats are loving und kind, Ve don't vant to escape Ve don't vant to get out Even venn it is Colditz just fine!

That fun fair has the only 'bee hive' roller coaster in the world. Never been able to ride it. One day, I'll go to Skegness sea front on a day when everything *isn't* closed! The stuff dreams are made of. #hope

My autism loves your videos