Journeying Towards a Little Bit of Heaven

The festivities are over. Winter is in full swing. It's a great time to get off the detour and back to blogging about my childhood.

It's hard to believe my last post was on October 7th, at which time I talked about my father's new job with Butlin's Holiday Camp in Filey, Yorkshire, as a photographer.

A steady job meant that we could buy a house, and my father found the perfect location within driving distance of Filey.

On the north-east coast of Yorkshire, there is a promontory shaped like an arrow-head, reaching far out into the North Sea:

If you follow the coastline along the promontory towards the point, you will see Bridlington, Sewerby, Flamborough, and then Flamborough Head.

My dad found a lovely home for us in Flamborough (spelled Flamboro for short) and in 1947 we moved into 15 Woodcock Road. Ours is the semi-detached, two-storey home marked with the x above the window.

Last year, my sister, her husband and I visited the UK and found our old home. This is what it looks like today: I'm amazed that it still looks the same!

Behind the house were miles and miles of fields. This is me, hanging over the fence at the bottom of our garden: It was an ideal location for my brother and sister and I, with no shortage of playmates and fun things to do. And even though we arrived with our 'posh' London accents, we settled in remarkably well.

My brother went to Bridlington Grammar School, my sister attended the last year of the local public school and I, for some reason I never discovered, travelled to a Catholic Convent in Filey, for my kindergarten year. Then I, too, eventually went to the Flamboro School. When we weren't in school, we were playing outdoors, coming home only for meal-times it seems.

Flamboro was a tiny fishing village where weather-beaten, weather-wise fishermen and their families lived. I say 'was' because sadly the North Sea can no longer provide the amount of fish needed to support them. But for decades Flamboro's small population lived off the lucrative provisions of its environment. I'll be posting more about that later.

But first, here are some photos of the village, taken from old post-cards -- but really very little has changed over the years:

This is Croft's Hill -- the road into the village

This is the centre of the village: the post office on the left, and the news-agents (we would call it a convenience store today) on the right
This is the old High Street, which has always had at least one Fish and Chips shop on it. We would buy fresh fish straight from the sea, deep fried in a crisp batter (lovely and greasy!) along with fat chips (french fries) all wrapped in newspaper.

On the other side of the street, just a little further back from this photo, was Mrs. Sunley's sweet shop -- which was always a favourite stop, on our way to or from school. Dolly Mixtures, Pontefract Cakes, Gobstoppers and Sherbert Fountains were the best!

Now -- since I have actually posted this three times so far (every time I save it, it seems to disappear) I am going to stop while the going is good.

More to come!