Biography, Autobiography, Old Steve of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom

I had no idea what I wanted to do and my wife had no suggestions. My father in law had a small building firm and said that, if it came to the push, he would try and find me some work with him. That was kind but not what I wanted. I said I really wanted to be an artist but my wife, who had no ready answer to that, just grinned.

2. On the Wednesday we prepared and packed some sandwiches and set off, for a day out, to Scarborough. I had not been to this East coast, seaside town since my teenage days and remembered little of it. Even the ancient castle, which dominates the headland and effectively cuts the town into two, didn't look as I had remembered and I wasn't even aware that there was a large secluded bay to the North of it.

3. We sat on seats outside, a now defunct, toilet block, by the harbour, on Sandside and ate our sandwiches and the traditional fish and chips. After that we wandered round the town but having young son with us, we were obliged to spend some time in the amusement arcades and on the beach. On the return journey, later that evening, I stated that I could live there and to the question, 'Doing what?' replied that I had no idea but the idea of living in such a bright, clean and almost pollution free atmosphere, when compared to Bradford, had tremendous appeal. The following Saturday we came back and toured the Estate Agents who specialised in Businesses. The cost and capital required to purchase Shops and Retail Outlets, in the holiday area, were astronomical but the 'Boarding Houses,' or small Hotels, as they preferred to call themselves, cost little more than about one and a half times a decent house in the area where we were living. I could raise enough for the down payment and deposit, but because my house was mortgaged there would be little or no capital to release from there. I needed cash and the agent I was dealing with, at the time, said that a Bank loan was the only way of obtaining funding for that type of business. We made appointments and all during the following week looked at Guest Houses and visited banks. We found several lovely spots on the north side, overlooking the bay, and the sound of the sea really got to me, but not half as much as it would do later, but that's another story. Then every single bank, we approached, said no. I had a deposit, a mortgaged house that I didn't know, first of all, if I could sell, and then if I did, how much I would get for it. My wife's business was not transferable and therefore we were effectively, and I suppose rightly, unemployed. Not the best CV for a Bank loan.

4. Undeterred I put my house on the market and went to see my own Bank Manager, in Bradford, about a Bridging Loan until the property was sold. To my amazement he said that if they held the unsold property as collateral and the deeds of the proposed property that went with the business also, he would finance the whole deal.

5. We agreed to buy the one, which we thought was the best bargain, on the north side and after remarking to the estate agent that it could do with a lick of paint, the vendors agreed to reduce the purchase price by three thousand pounds. We didn't know it then, but the business had been run by a mother, son and his wife and the daughter in law had just lost a baby and they had all fallen out and that the mother wanted to retire and the son and his wife had found a business somewhere inland. They just wanted out quick but, never the less, the daughter in law was brilliant during the transfer and could not do enough to make sure it went smoothly and that we knew from A to Z everything that we should know about the business. Someone else who couldn't do enough, at the time, and who later, when I ran into trouble, still couldn't do enough, although he knew he was not going to get paid towards the end, was a Solicitor, recommended to me by the Estate Agent. A very well known character, in Scarborough, who has stuck his nose into many local, controversial issues, not least of all, the environment and water pollution problems.

6. My wife and son, along with the dog, several potted plants and the Gold Fish, set off in the car and I followed on, in the furniture van. Weeks later they would confess that the reason we, in the furniture van, got there before them was that they had cried every inch of the way and had made several stops, en route, as they didn't want to move. My enthusiasm had run away with me and it had never occurred to me that I might have been alone in my ambition to relocate. I suppose it is now too late to say sorry, but if it is any consolation, I truly am and particularly as things didn't quite go the way I had hoped they would. But how do you say sorry to a wife who has stuck it out through thick and thin, worked extremely hard, and never asked for much in return? Do you say 'I love you?' But I have tried that and she just laughs, perhaps the misguided woman loves me? It would be interesting to know what my son made of it all and what he would have envisioned or expected to have happened had we stayed in Bradford?

7. Things soured a little shortly after we settled in Scarborough. First of all we had to send son to the only school with an available place and, in those days, it was way down at the bottom of the league tables in educational achievement and then there were also the Estate Agents, in Bradford. All they could do was send bills for advertising and suggest more of the same and the Bank was winging that the Bridging Loan was going up at an alarming rate, interests rates having started to climb in the run up to Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher's Boom and Bust of the 1980's. As soon as we changed agent, on the recommendation of the Bank, the house was sold in a week and for the original asking price, and that despite the fact that it had stood empty for months. But when the final settlement was drawn up the Bridging Loan costs had knocked all our calculations to pot and the monthly repayment figures that we ended up having to pay back to the Bank and which concerned them greatly, ended up much higher than originally anticipated. Also there was a long protracted battle with the first Estate Agents who tried to say that their 'no sale no charges' meant they would wave the fee, that they would have got, from a successful sale, but that did not include expenses incurred up to the date of our withdrawal. I took that to mean that all they had to do was virtually nothing, which they apparently appeared to have done, but persuade me to spend on advertising, until I got fed up and withdrew and then they would send a large bill. They didn't get paid but it still cost several, expensive Solicitors letters to get them off my back. Bastards, and they were a national company that spent a fortune on advertising their 'no sale no fee' approach.

8. I found the locals highly amusing and could cope with the fact that they called us 'Wessies' and accused us of coming into town and buying up all the best businesses. My answer to that being, that both they and the businesses were there long before I came along and that they had first choice and should have taken it. The trouble with them and sadly there always seemed to be a lot of them, was the fact that they, collectively, hadn't a brain between them and had you given them a business they would have swilled it down their throats or given any ready cash to the local Bookmaker. But I am not knocking Scarborough people, the first and second generations born to those immigrants like myself are OK and will go on, the rest are not so bad and if some are kept at arms length, then they are all OK. That is praise indeed, coming from a 'Wessie', sorry no, a Scarborian, as I lived there for longer than the requisite 25 years.

I could tell many stories about the locals and just one, that I recall, and which involved some of the friendlier ones and probably not true Scarborians, was that a group of us used to meet fairly regularly in a pub, that was opposite our Guest House, and either spend the evening there or go on 'walk about.' On this occasion we had started off, as usual, in the bar, when in popped someone, that one of the group knew, just to have a 'swift half' before moving on to another pub in the next village. It was decided that we hadn't been to this pub for quite some time and it was quite all right for us to cadge a lift. How it happened I don't know but once in the second pub we were on our way to a third and so on. Finally, we were being asked to leave, in the early hours of the morning, a pub on the riverside in Whitby, where one of us had known the landlord, hence the reason for the lateness. We trudged along the riverside, in the dark, trying to work out how to get back to Scarborough. 'Follow me,' instructed one of our inebriated group, 'to the railway station, along here.' We arrived on a dimly lit platform where a solitary railway worker was up. 'What time is the next train to Scarborough?' bellowed our man. 'Don't know,' came back the reply. 'The last one from here was twelve years ago and they have dug the line up since then.'

My wife was none too pleased when I rang her and asked her to travel the twenty miles or so to Whitby, in the early hours of the morning, and pick us up. Her initial reaction was to tell us to get a Taxi but only reluctantly agreed when we said we could not find one. That experience of the riverside, the dark deserted area, our search for a taxi, the empty railway station and the eerie silence with only the police station and hospital, lit up on the hillside above the town, would all set the scene for an important part in a book I would latter write, (Station Calling Coastguard), as we hung over the swing bridge and waited.

9. The business went well and after the initial struggle we enjoyed quite a good life style and son seemed to settle and do well. He wouldn't realise it, but I feel he ended up much better off than he would have done had we stayed in Bradford and things there had not changed. He mucked in, although sometimes reluctantly, and helped his Mum a lot and I am sure he will forgive me if I digress and tell what I feel is an amusing story and demonstrates, to my way of thinking, his whit and cunning to perfection. It went something like this. Would our business not be improved tremendously if we had a video recorder, relatively new in those days, attached to the television so that we could record programs when we were busy and play pre-recorded videos in our spare time? A reasonable assumption until you take it the way it was meant. Would son's life not be greatly improved if 'we' had a video recorder that he could use? Fine by me and the idea appealed, so I suggested we meet half way. I would double what he raised, he could choose the model, knowing more about them than me, and then we would share it. Several weeks later he said he had seen the model we required and had half the cash. Fair enough, so off we went, with Dad paying extra for a pack of blank tapes. Many weeks and perhaps several months, after that, when the novelty had worn off, he started hinting that he could do with some cash to finance another scheme of his that was the current 'can't manage without,' and would I buy him out of the video, as he no longer used it but his Mum did, all the time. Shortly after that, when in conversation with my wife and somehow on the subject of Son and his plans and latest craze, I told her he had asked me to buy his share of the video machine. 'Don't you dare,' demanded my wife, 'he borrowed his share from me and still hasn't paid it back.' That's my boy.

10. We did our banking through a Scarborough Branch and the Manager was always trying to get us to transfer our business from Bradford, but initially they were one of the Banks who turned us down and so I though bugger you. But then working at a distance has its disadvantages and the annual trip to Bradford was a real bind and so when the Bradford Manager moved on we transferred to Scarborough.

Later when we wanted to re-mortgage, to refurbish, there was no problem and so we went ahead.

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