IN Northern Lincolnshire we live with the Humber in all her moods. Stuart Russell continues his journey along its banks.

STAND on the beach at Cleethorpes and enjoy the view across the Humber to the remote outpost of Spurn.

Behind you the developments of the modern town, a seaside resort which first gained recognition in the second half of the 19th Century.

Pause as you take in the view and consider for a moment what was once here in a very different world to that of today…

In the beginning it was a world that was ice – barren, uninviting and uninhabitable.

But still they came those first travellers, trekking across what became the North Sea to an area which would later be known as the Humber.

This was a wild place, remote desolate and unfriendly, covered in moss and, in the summer time, with pools formed by melting ice.

There were three major Ice Ages but it was not until the end of the third – in around 8,500 BC – that there was the first substantial human occupation.

That came over two centuries when those first inhabitants made their way to their new home from northern Germany, southern Scandinavia and the Low Countries.

And they liked what they found.

Where the beach of Cleethorpes now brings in holidaymakers from across the country there was forest providing those early residents with a sense of security.

And here, in around 4000 BC, Neolithic farmers hacked away the dense undergrowth with its broad leafed woodland of oak, birth and alder to grow their first crops.

Among the coastal marshes in the area which we know as Cleethorpes and Grimsby were found large islands of dry ground on which early men built their crude homes. Many centuries later other inhabitants in a very different world would find evidence of their forefathers, unearthing flint axes and ground stones. Here they found not only the essentials for life, but also a home in a climate which was kind, being warmer and drier than at present.

The Humber provided fish for food, the beach gave salt and the hinterland with its rich earth was ideal for agriculture.

Those first settlers laid down the beginnings of today's towns and by the time of the Bronze Age (2000-600 BC) the area was becoming increasingly populated, evidence of which has been revealed by archaeologists who excavated burial mounds at Toothill (Little Coates), Beacon Hill (Cleethorpes) and Bourne Lane (Grimsby).

Evidence of a very different area to that of today is occasionally on view in the form of the stumps of the great forest, these relics of a long-gone age being seen at times of exceptionally low tides on Cleethorpes beach.

Next week

Stuart travels to Immingham, to see how the Humber has helped to shape the major industry of our area.