See another slide to Jersey
has the Morse Bar, where the detectives peered into their beer in search of inspiration. Doubles from £180 at macdonaldhotels.co.uk. Both of these series featured Yorkshire policemen but with very different approaches. Heartbeat is set in the 1960s in and around Goathland and Whitby. It focused on a rural community bobby – played by Nick Berry.
Meanwhile, Stephen Tomkinson’s hard-edged DCI Banks had an urban beat, using locations in Leeds, Bradford and Harrogate and searching for bodies on Ilkley Moor. DO: Goathland is a station on the stunning North York Moors railway (nymr.co.uk) and is included on a six-hour Heartbeat tour (britmovietours.com). As a traditional spa town, Harrogate has had a major resurgence, with unbeatable tea and cakes in Bettys (bettys.co.uk). STAY: Goathland’s Mallyan Spout country house WATER slide lovers can splash land in Jersey for three nights for £179. The B&B deal is based on two peo people sharing a midweek st stay in April at the Merton H Hotel which boasts the £ £2million Aquadome l leisure complexmplex complete hotel is well placed for moors and sea and is offering a winter package of £130 per couple, dinner, B&B at mallyanspout.co.uk. This BBC Four series, which returns in spring, has a cult following and not just among Welsh speakers. DCI Tom Mathias is a man with a mysterious past that pops up to distract him from murky murders.
The setting is the town and countryside around Aberystwyth, in west Wales. DO: Aberystwyth is an old-fashioned ned seaside resort with good beaches, s, a ruined castle and a cliff railway. Its spectacular countryside has the likes of the Devil’s Bridge waterfalls and the Vale of Rheidol, familiar locations from Series One. STAY: The Hafod Hotel – also known as the Devil’s Bridge hotel l with pool, rapids and an 80-metre water slide. The price includes return flights from Gatwick but flights from other regional airports are available. Visit flyjersey. com or call 01621 734 333. – sitsit righti ht alongsidel id theth waterfalls.t f ll DoublesD bl from £100 at thehafod.co.uk. Brenda Blethyn’s Vera is shrewd, unconventional, dishevelled and totally endearing. She batters around Northumberland in her old Land Rover, which is necessary to get up the muddy track to her lonely house. Her cases feature agonising family tragedies and usually end up with her gazing mournfully out to sea from a windy shore. There are morem episodes coming this year. DO: TheTh Northumberland coast has some of the bestb beaches in the country. Whitley Bay is regularly in the series, as are bits of theth cathedral city of Durham. STAY:ST Waren Caravan Park, on the sandysa shore near Bamburgh, has been a VeraVe location. Mobile home short breaks fromfro £123 for two nights at meadowhead.co.uk.mea HAVE I left it too late to organise a holiday for the kids for Easter – and keep it relatively affordable?
at all. PGL’s adventure centres have some great deals for children across the country.
Its “book one, get one free” offer applies to Easter breaks too, including seven nights starting April 15 at Osmington Bay in Dorset.
The first child pays £499, with the second free and there are places across PGL’s age range of seven to 16 years. Osmington Bay, on the Jurassic Coast, has mountain biking, a tunnel trail, motorsports and fencing among its activities.
Book by March 31 and quote SPRING77. Other centres open at Easter are in Perthshire, Powys, Lincolnshire, Shropshire, Devon, Herefordshire, Wiltshire, Surrey, Sussex and the Isle of Wight.
Visit pgl.co.uk/holidays to book.