The crab's gone, the camel's going – but I can pedal!

AND so, the Summer Solstice and at Cullercoats beach, nature played its part perfectly for the many gathered for the occasion. Blood red and dripping fire, the sun rose from the sea, with not a cloud to obscure it.

- Peter Mortimer

There was about this early-morning gathering (and getting out of bed at 3am is not familiar territory for your correspondent) something ritualistic, almost atavistic. For some reason I found myself thinking of the film The Wicker Man whose finale also features a highly symbolic sun, albeit in somewhat less benign circumstances.

Yet why exactly were we all gathered on Cullercoats beach? I would estimate that only a small proportion of the country are regular church goers, or religious in the old-fashioned sense. So what is it about the solstice that drew us all here? And why many more women than men?

The sun, of course, comes up every day and may well have been surprised on this particular morning to be greeted by such a crowded beach. And what, it may ask itself, were those strange movements that the gathered people were making?