Tag: yorkshire

(52) Scarborough, (53) Whitby, and (54) Durham)

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Right, let’s go into the North Riding, and along the North Sea coast. First up is Scarborough. I have been to Scarborough a number of times, on a long six hour bus journey from London (passing through York, Stamford Bridge, Driffield, Bridlignton, and Filey). Scarborough is a popular seaside town with a big old hotel, a castle, two beaches, a vibrant town centre, and great views from the cliffs (which famously eroded dropping another hotel into the sea years ago). I used to go out with someone who spent some time studying here over two decades ago, but I also considered coming to study drama here as well, having previously worked at Asda with someone who did the same. It’s a big town for drama, and lots of well known drama people have lived here. Sir Alan Ayckbourn, the great playwright, was the artistic director here at the Stephen Joseph Theatre for a long time. This theatre, named after its founder, was the first ‘theatre-in-the-round’ in England. I do like a theatre-in-the-round (though my favourite one was, er, White Hart Lane). Other entertainment people involved with Scarborough, well, Winner (ugh) made one film here and then there’s Saville (massive ugh), he lived here too, I remember seeing his house. This was back in the late 90s and people there would still say, yeah he’s a right creep. They weren’t wrong. I do like Scarborough though, and I wish I had been sketching loads back then, because it’s a classic sketchable coastal town, but I wasn’t. I recall during the daytime when I’d be by myself walking about the coastline and learning lines for whatever play I was doing at university at the time (usually something in German), and listening to David Devant. The wind coming in off the coast can really drive through you though, so it’s nice to reach the chip shop and get some delicious chips in gravy. Scarborough was the subject of a song called “Scarborough Fair”, which goes something like “Are you going to Scarborough Fair, they have the Big Wheel and the Twister and the Waltzers there, You can get candy floss stuck in your hair, And with an air gun you can win a teddy bear.” It’s an old folk song. Anne Brontë is buried in Scarborough. The Brontës were from Yorkshire and wrote books, though I have not read them. I think they are about dinosaurs but they might not be. One of them has a character called “Heathcliff” which let’s face it is what happens when you can’t think of a name and you just look around, there’s the heath, oh there’s a cliff, that’ll do. Other characters are Doorwall, Tablechair and Fieldpond. I haven’t read the books so I might not be completely accurate there.

As you go up the coast there is a nice little town called Robin Hood’s Bay, though I didn’t draw it on this virtual trip. I remember eating some delicious scampi there. Robin Hood may well have come here for scampi too, but the story goes that he beat up a bunch of French pirates here. I wonder how French pirates pronounced the Pirate word “Arrrr”? “Yeau-eau-eau, chevre mes timbres!” Ok that’s enough. On this trip I was headed straight for the town of Whitby, lots of peoples’ favourite spot on the northern coast. When I think of Whitby I think of the Synod of Whitby, where they determined the date of Easter many centuries ago. Nah, I think of Dracula. In Bram Stoker’s book Dracula, in which an ancient supernatural from Transylvania being spends a great deal of time trying to broker a property deal in London while turning into great wolf-like beast, a bat, and for some reason some mist. I mean, you do what you can to get the deal you want, who among us has not turned into mist when trying to get a bank loan. Anyway the vampire gets on a Russian ship with loads of boxes of mud and lands in Whitby, getting into all sorts of shenanigans up at the ruins of the Abbey, on top of that big cliff. Strange thing about vampires, not being allowed to cross running water and not being able to come inside without an invitation. Whitby has a beautiful harbour, I can imagine being here on a cold October evening as the rain is blowing in, heading into a warm pub, eating some delicious fish and writing ghost stories in a journal. With everybody else there doing the same. The town is probably full of goths looking for vampire stories, which is fine too. In fact when I was at school I actually wrote and performed an eight-song musical for the drama part of my expressive arts class called “Dracula AD 1992”. That one took place in Essex at the ‘Alucard Motel’. Anyway, I enjoyed drawing Whitby and look forward to some day going and drawing the real thing. I’ll bring a cape, and maybe an umbrella and a wooden stake.

I remember a joke someone told me when I was a kid. Where does the Pink Panther live? Durham, Durham, Durham Durham Durham Durham Durhaaaam… I think you have to do the Pink Panther music in your head to get it, and to know where Durham is (or that it exists) which when I was a kid, I didn’t. In fact I thought it was in Ireland, because people say “County Durham”, and you only say that for counties in Ireland, like County Wicklow or County Clare, you don’t say for example “County Suffolk” or “County Leicestershire”.  Anyway I never thought the joke was funny (it’s certainly no dead parrot polygon joke), and it’s filed away with the one about Batman being told it’s dinner time. So, time to visit Durham. Durham has one of the most dramatic cathedrals in the country, high up on a hill overlooking the river Wear that curves like a race-track around the historic town centre. I’ve wanted to go and draw that ever since I studied Anglo-Saxon literature and we did the poem about Durham. This actual cathedral building came later than that poem but the words were still very illustrative. This was St Cuthbert’s city. We are very much in old Northumbria now, far away from the southern kingdoms of Wessex and Kent. Northumbria was an important kingdom in the Anglo-Saxon times, with centres of great learning and scholarly activities, most notably at Lindisfarne with our man Bede. Despite sounding like one of the “softies” from the Beano, Cuthbert was one of the most important monastic figures in northern Britain in the Early Middle Ages and is considered the patron saint of Northumbria. A couple of centuries after his death, his relics were brought from his original burial site at Lindisfarne where he was Bishop to find a new spot (there was a cow involved apparently) on a perch overlooking the Wear, and that’s where Durham and its cathedral were founded. The cathedral building that is there now dates back to the end of the 11th century and the time of William the Conqueror, who we have met a couple of times on this story already (beating Harry at Hastings and chasing Hereward the Woke out of Ely). William was a bastard (he was called William the Bastard before the Conqueror URL became available) and especially in the north, where he undertook the Harrying of the North, though we should have called it the Williaming of the North since Harry had been beaten in 1066; bloody leaders blaming and naming their own actions on their predecessors, good job we don’t have leaders like that now eh. But the legacy of cathedrals like this is quite a tick on the plus side, because it is really gorgeous. I would love to do a cathedral tour of England, fill an entire sketchbook, bigger size, with cathedral drawings.

Next up, we are reaching the top of England, and heading into the other great cities of the North-East: Newcastle and Sunderland. I’m starting to get dizzy.

(49) Leeds, (50) Harrogate, and (51) York

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Yorkshire is a big place. It’s so big that it’s divided into several counties – North, West, South, and East kinda sorta. What is now officially the county of “East Riding of Yorkshire” was mostly called Humberside when I was growing up, and I didn’t realize until I looked at a map recently (just now) that it had officially changed into “East Riding of Yorkshire”. Not “East Yorkshire” though I guess some people call it that. But I’m not going into the East Riding on this trip. Today we are in the West Riding, tomorrow the North Riding. Riding? Yorkshire was historically divided into three “Ridings” – Old English via Old Norse “þriðing”, literally “three-thing”; think “farthing” – North, East and West (but not South). It’s not related to Red Riding Hood, though I can see why you thought that (by the way, why is the story called that? Red Walking Hood more like, amirite?)

First up is the biggest city of Yorkshire, Leeds. I decided not to go to Bradford, a city I have visited before which I must say I like the look of architecturally, well worth a sketch trip. Leeds is somewhere I have only ever changed trains, but it’s a big place and I enjoyed wandering about virtually. I know quite a few sketchers up this way, it would be nice to go and sketch the area. I like the Yorkshire accent. I chose to draw the Leeds City Markets building, and the angle I chose was unusual but I really like how it turned out on the page. I added no colour, letting the white space above it do the talking. Now the Ridings in Yorkshire are – were – divided into ‘Wapentakes’, and this was in the wapentake of ‘Skyrack’, a name that probably comes from the Old English words “scir-ac”, or “shire oak”. Wapentake, what a funny word. It seems to come from a meeting place where votes were taken by the brandishing of weapons – wapen – and this comes from the time of the Danelaw, when the Vikings ruled. Yorkshire is very much the heart of Danish England. Its boundaries were set by the Vikings and the Danish kingdom of Jorvik – York. We’ll get to York soon. Leeds though was a medieval market town, with a name that goes back to the ancient British, possibly from “Ladenses”. The Venerable Bede referred to the places as “Loidis”. When I think of Leeds though, I think of Leeds United, the football team. They just got promoted back into the Premier League after absolutely ages.

Just north of Leeds is the historic spa town of Harrogate. I’ve heard Harrogate is quite nice, but it just sounds nice by its name. In fact it has been voted the “happiest place to live in Britain” three times. That reminds me of that book, Mr Happy. Didn’t he go to a place that was the most miserable place to live, where there was a law forbidding people from being happy? This must be the opposite, I presume. Actually it wasn’t Mr Happy, it was Little Miss Sunshine. I used to be an expert on the Mr Men and the Little Miss books. At my school, people would ask me to draw Mr Men for them. My class even did a Mr Men themed school assembly performance and I got to draw massive Mr Men characters and we coloured them all in and held them up as flat ‘costumes’ in front of ourselves, I think I was Mr Rush but I don’t remember. The Mr Men may have even been what inspired me to start drawing, because all I wanted to do was draw Mr Men – they are not difficult, and I loved their shoes, the ones who wore shoes anyway. I loved the TV show too, Arthur Lowe’s authoritative story telling style, that theme music which I will always consider to be my theme music. When my son was younger I would read him Mr Men stories at night, but I would do them in all sorts of voices. I would read them in the style of Simon Schama narrating A History of Britain. I would read Mr Chatterbox like Vicky Pollard. Fun times, those. Anyway, Harrogate. My only connection to the place is I knew a bloke at school, Andrew, who came from Harrogate to live in London. He had a Yorkshire accent but it was not very strong, we expected it to be all “ee bah gum, t’ferret in t’field” but it wasn’t anything like that. I also used to have this ancient metal toffee tin that came from Harrogate. I decided to draw this pump house, the Royal Pump Room, part of the spa baths there I suppose. Looks like a nice place to sketch, Harrogate, and then get afternoon tea.

And so on to the mos famous and historic city of Yorkshire, York. This was the Viking capital of Jorvik, but it was also the Roman city of Eboracum, capital of the province of Britannia Inferior. I have only been to York once, as a kid on a school day trip from London. Even then I was a bit obsessed with history so I found it amazing, but it did piss down. We visited the Jorvik centre to learn all about the Vikings, and I remember the authentic disgusting smell, though that might have been a sandwich in my school bag that had been there for a few weeks. We also visited York Minster, which I was gobsmacked by, though I couldn’t stop and draw cathedrals back then. I want to get back there to draw it. And I remember we went to the Shambles. I bought a poster about Dick Turpin which had pride of place on my wall for years. Dick Turpin was an infamous highwayman (who really hated people calling him Dick Turnip), who terrorized people on the road to York. Well, he robbed them, I wouldn’t call him a terrorist. He had a great tricorn hat so people would think he was a pirate – imagine their surprise when he turned out to be a highwayman! I don’t know if he ever said “Stand and Deliver, your money or your life” but historians are adamant that he did. He probably should have not put a comma after the word “Deliver” though. Turpin is famous in my home area of Edgware because he was said to have stayed in one of the inns there whenever he would pass through going up the Edgware Road (sometimes with his Essex Gang committing some horrible robbery), an inn that in the 80s was an Italian restaurant called the Vecchia Romagna, and my mum worked there sometimes as a waitress, so we all heard about Dick Turpin coming through like two and a half centuries before. Turpin was hanged in York in 1739, and passed into legend as a dashing robber on horseback with a pirate hat and an Adam and the Ants song on the radio. I used to have a book all about the Richard O’Sullivan tv series, and Dick Turpin was quite a good looking chap if that series is historically accurate. Or he might have looked like Dick James. Anyway, the sketch I did was of one of York’s historic gates, this one being Micklegate Bar. York also has lots of little alleys called “Snickelways”. I think there is also a gate called “Ticklegate” named after Mr Tickle, but I might have just obviously made that one up. It sounds like a scandal anyway. Finally, York always reminds me of Yorkie, one of my favourite chocolate bars, I love those. Especially the ones with the bits of biscuit in them.

So that was York, next up we will go to the North Riding and up to the coastal town of Scarborough, followed by Whitby and then north up to Durham. We are nearly done with England now, and then Scotland, and then I can start a virtual tour around France or Europe or America or something. Not gonna be getting anywhere real any time soon, after all.

(46) Blackpool, (47) Pendle, and (48) Hebden Bridge

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As I go further north, I move into geographies I’ve not really thought about in years, to the point that I look at the map and am surprised that places are where they are. The Yorkshire Dales are way further west than I realized, I’m not sure where I thought they were, under the North York Moors I guess, but not the case. I didn’t draw anything there. Also, the Forest of Bowland is a pretty huge area, just to the southwest of the Dales, and I haven’t ever thought about that place before. It’s an Area of Natural Beauty. I want to hike around it now. I have been to the Lake District when I was 17, and I decided to miss that area out on this trip, but that was a gorgeous place. But since that’s not where I went on this spread, let’s get on with it.

First up is Blackpool, on the Lancashire coast. I have been there when I was about 11 or 12; it’s a popular seaside town, the archetypal British seaside town, even more than places like Brighton or Bournemouth. Oh by the way all seaside towns in England begin with B. Because they are next to the C. Anyway folks I’m here all week. I could never have been a seaside pier comedian. That’s what you get in English seaside towns: a pier, and comedians who have shows there. Not necessarily funny ones, it’s often your Davidsons or your Browns or your Littles and Larges, but sometimes there are good ones. Are there though? Maybe it’s just something you have to have, like donkeys on the beach (do they eat sand?), sticks of rock, buckets and spades, and rain. Blackpool though is a proper seaside resort with huge amusement parks, big rattling rollercoasters, candy floss, and all that stuff that I liked when I was a kid. This sketch shows some of that, with the huge Blackpool Tower in the background, Britain’s answer to the Eiffel Tower. A lot of people like Blackpool, and fair play, it’s not somewhere that appeals a lot to me. I remember the beach being massive though, the sea was so far out I could barely see it. I did enjoy my holidays at Southport, further down the coast, which were at the Pontins holiday camp. So many fun memories there. We wold go there for the Irish music Festival, watching classic performers like Philomena Begley and Brendan Shine (“Catch me if you can, me name is Dan, sure I’m your man,”). I was a kid so I just played at the playgrounds and met kids from all over Britain, all with Irish families like me. It was so easy to meet friends when you’re a kid, “I like this slide, oh you like this slide too, hey we’re best buds now!” I remember getting slices of pizza, playing in the arcade while my mum and my big sister were at the clubhouse watching Brendan Shine singing about washing con-shine’s old lobby down. I made friends with this kid from Glasgow on this one trip and we were inseparable, and even wrote to each other afterwards, and then I think I saw him again on a later trip there but we were a couple of years older so it was like, yeah different people now I guess. I remember on this other trip when I was about thirteen and meeting this girl from Brighton or somewhere who had a double-barrelled first name, I can’t even remember what her name was now but my big sister just referred to her as Mary-Ellen and then subsequently as “Hairy Melon”. The things you remember! But that place, Pontins in Southport, was the first place I met so many people from all over the country – I had never experienced that before, and wouldn’t really again until I went to Cumbria when I was seventeen, and then when I went to university. You need to meet people from all over to learn more about the world.

So that’s the Lancashire coast. I didn’t know where to head next, but I had to go in the direction of Yorkshire. Blackburn? Nah. Burnley? Bolton? Is there anywhere that doesn’t begin with a B? I started reading through Richard Bell’s Britain for inspiration. I came across a golden orange drawing at a place called Pendle Hill. While up to now I have been drawing towns and cities and villages – buildings basically – I decided that now I should draw some countryside. Pendle Hill is quite dramatic, and I did a virtual walk all around it. I decided to stick with the colouring style, just doing the sky, though I wish I had coloured the whole thing. I did that in another countryside sketch later on and I’m glad I did. Pendle is known for witches, because of a famous witch trial in 1612. Pendle Hill also translates as “Hill Hill Hill”, with “Pen” meaning Hill (well, “head”, but that’s a type of hill) in the old Cumbric language, “-dle” coming from the Old English “hyll” (Pendle was recorded as “Penhul” in the Middle Ages), and the in more modern times they added the word “Hill” to the end. Probably in a thousand or so years if a different variety of language is spoken there they might add another word meaning hill, and keep going forever. There are several place names like this in England, I know someone who lived in a place in Devon called Combe Valley (“Valley Valley”) and there’s the River Avon (“River River”) and in America you have “New York New York” (which just means “New York New York”, but give them a few centuries).

Speaking of York, now we are heading from the county of Lancashire to the county of Yorkshire, two historic rival counties either side of the Pennines. You might think of the Wars of the Roses, when the royal Houses of Lancaster and York were big rivals, but you can’t think of that as a Lancashire/Yorkshire thing, more of a national power-hungry aristocrats thing. Nevertheless there is an inter-county sporting rivalry, called the “Roses” rivalry (after the chocolates; other counties have the Quality Street rivalry, the Celebrations rivalry, and the Milk Tray rivalry, but I haven’t decided yet which counties have those rivalries). So you get the “Rugby League Wars of the Roses”, the “Roses Match” in the county cricket championships, and Leeds United v Manchester United, though I think of that as the Eric Cantona derby. So I crossed into West Yorkshire and decided to stop in the pretty looking town of Hebden Bridge. The buildings here as in many northern towns all seem to be made from the same sort of stone, clinging to the sides of a steep narrow valley. Hebden Bridge has suffered several terrible floods in the past decade, one of the worst being Boxing Day 2015, turning streets into mucky brown rivers. Floods have come back since and the whole Calder Valley is threatened by flooding. The town is apparently known for its many independent shops; I chose to draw this little fruit and veg shop that seemed so old fashioned.

I will be moving through Yorkshire over the next couple of spreads; it’s a big place. So join me next time as we get to the triangle of Leeds, Harrogate and York…