13. Whitby
Private site
5th-6^th April

I wasn't driving at midday to-day – it's only 20 miles from Scarborough to Whitby – but when I turned the MP3 player on this morning it played 'Scarborough Fair' by Simon and Garfunkel – honestly!

The site here is very much a holiday site, but I'm next to the excellent shower block and have a view of the sea. No TV reception at all but digital radio good, so no worries. Bus stop to town just at the entrance. It's eye-wateringly expensive, though. £54 for two nights! I shall expect room service.

Into town to have a look round and possibly to watch the Grand National. What a great place. An almost suffocating smell of fish and chips emanating from fish and chip shops everywhere you look. So many pubs as well and throngs of people wandering around in the sunshine, seemingly all of them eating fish and chips. That's it! There is no shortage of fish in the sea. It's just all being eaten in Whitby.

 

 

                                                   How to become famous in Whitby

And then it started to rain.

Millions of dogs, too, but no weapon dogs to be seen, just small friendly ones. Not even any weapon children. So many dogs, it was like 'Crufts Goes on Holiday'. One was sitting outside a butcher's shop waiting for his mistress to return and he was just staring fixedly at a pork chop in the window. I could see he was trying to fetch the chop by telekinetic energy! And then I could see it moving very slightly, just a corner beginning to levitate. And then his mistress returned and his master dragged him off!

Oh happy dogs of England

Bark well as well you may

If you were to live anywhere else

You would not be so gay.

 

(A poem by Stevie Smith)

 

Virtually all the shops were local (except yet another Boyes, with, among many other departments, its lingerie, fishing tackle and model-makers' supplies but there was a Mountain Warehouse, well placed on the steepest hill I've ever seen in a shopping street.

 

 

Whitby Abbey

 

When I went into town again on Sunday those fish-eaters were at it all over again. Every fish restaurant was packed and nearly everyone was strolling around with their faces in a fish parcel. Every pub advertising food was advertising only fish and chips. I had walked from the site to the sea front and from there along the front down to the Captain Cook Memorial statue at the harbour mouth. He stands at the centre of a compass on the pavement and faces east. It was interesting to read that all of his four ships ('Endeavour', 'Resolution', 'Discovery' and 'Adventure') were colliers, very robust no-nonsense broad-beamed workhorses and all built at Whitby.

 

Whitby Abbey is quite eerie on the hill overlooking the town. This is where Dracula hung out after his ship was wrecked off Whitby and he jumped off it in the shape of a large dog (or wolf, I can't remember which). He has a shop in the town now.  

The railway station was rather puzzling. There were NYMR (North York Moors Railway, a preserved steam railway) logos all over the place. I was surprised to learn that the NYMR had now reached Whitby, because it used to run from Goathland to Pickering across the moors. However, there were then loads of posters and information boards about the Esk Valley Railway. This was shown running from Whitby, connecting with the NYMR at Goathland and continuing on to Middlesbrough. It seems almost as if the railway company is trying to hoodwink the public into thinking that the Esk Valley Railway is also a preserved railway, presumably to make it more attractive. What a strange reversal of fortunes. 

 

Captain James Cook