To Scarborough Fair once more
Several years ago in this column I reminisced about my affinity to the seaside resort of Scarborough which was the favoured destination of the family summer holiday for much of the 1960s and, so I gather, the late '50s, though I have only a few hazy memories from then. In those sixties days we went by road, rather to my disappointment. On the first Saturday of the local 'Wakes Week' holiday a through train was run but there was a through road coach from Bury every Saturday during the 'season' - and it was probably cheaper. It was operated by the estimable Ribble Motor Services company and having loaded its eager passengers and their sturdy, rectangular suitcases, it embarked on its journey from Bury at 8 o'clock or thereabouts, but though brightly advertised as an 'express' it was actually anything but. We are talking about pre-motorway times and the bus had to grind along the 'A' roads over the Pennines, making scheduled calls in Heywood, Rochdale and Halifax to collect more holiday-goers, then creep through built-up Leeds and traffic-clogged York before finally hitting the road to Scarborough.
And there our progress came to a stop - so near and yet so far - as we joined the back of the several-miles-long queue of vehicles tailing back from the level crossing in Malton. Still into the 1960s, and with poor Malton some years away from a much-needed bypass, it was the volume of railway traffic requiring the crossing gates to be repeatedly opened which was causing these wearisome delays. By the time our coach at last disgorged its thoroughly fed-up passengers in Scarborough we'd been on it for about seven hours! And it was the busy railway's fault!
As with so many seaside resorts Scarborough largely developed as a result of the coming of the railway and guide books stressed the provision of the train services which would deliver tourists to the town and serve them during their stay. In the series of well-known one shilling Illustrated Guide Books published cl 905 by Ward, Lock & Co. a volume was devoted to Scarborough and opened its proceedings by 'selling' the resort in the class-conscious style of the period, possibly suggestive of the readership at which it was aimed. "One of the chief charms of Scarborough is her cosmopolitanism... she welcomes with open hands all sorts and conditions of men, from the millionaire to the miner, from the society belle to the factory lass... For the lounger there is the Spa, as gay a promenade as any in Europe, where whole days may be passed without a suspicion of ennui. With book or paper, a choice cigar, a first-rate band... and an unceasing procession of beauty and fashion, what more can mortal man - or woman - want?" There can be no doubt that the compilers of the book were male for the holiday desires of the fairer sex are airily dismissed in one sentence: "Woman will dispense with the cigar, but she will not fail to find ample compensation in ways best known to herself." Whatever they might be...
It was considered as well to comment lightly (and perhaps ambiguously) on the climate - "The bracing and invigorating air of the North East Coast is proverbial. One has not to be long in Scarborough to feel its effects" - but no matter, for "When days are wet one can retire to the deeps of the Aquarium... or to the Grand Hall or the sheltered terraces of the Spa..." For evening amusement there were three theatres, a hippodrome, variety entertainments, concerts, band performances, pierrots and firework displays. For the visitor's benefit useful intelligence was dispensed on cab and carriage fares, the position of cliff lifts and electric tramway routes, water quality (quoting chemical results recently determined by the Public Analyst), sanitation certificates issued to hotels and boarding houses, charges for the hire of boatsand bathing machines, local fox hunts, Masonic lodges and places of worship along, of course, with details of universal delights such as the castle, public parks and not forgetting the spa waters.
However, even before dealing with these essentials, the guide first proceeds to draw attention to the facilities provided by the North Eastern Railway, not just by the main lines from York and Hull but also by the branches from Pickering and Whitby, the latter proclaimed as "Twenty-one miles of the most picturesque railway in the British Isles". We are told that Scarborough could be reached direct by train from King's Cross on the Great Northern Railway route and that the NER offered Scarborough visitors an enticing range of holiday contract and circular tour tickets to enable them to explore the entirety of the locality, including by "a special holiday service of autocars (electric and steam)". Despite the NER having a monopoly, "no company is more considerate in its treatment of tourists".
The second part of our article on Scarborough Engine Shed appears this month, detailing excursion train observations on two dates in 1952 and 1960 when the railway was still the dominant mover and on its approach to the town the line was bounded on both sides by extensive sets of carriage sidings for seasonal trains and excursions. None remains today and though there is a locomotive turntable it's hard now to reconcile the site with its formeroccupation by two engine sheds (a roundhouseand a straight shed) along with their coal stage and preparation and stabling tracks. Scarborough station itself has been reduced from nine platforms to five and the arrival of any form of excursion or indeed locomotive is now the exception. It's a far cry... and all that!