Whitby

When I was a student I worked in a children's holiday activity centre in Whitby called Larpool Hall. This half term we went back for another glimpse. The town has changed of course. Where I once lost a child in a cave under the cliffs (he was found, thank heavens, but my nerves were in shreds) has all been tamed by a promenade to hold back the eroding shore-line, and where there were fusty little cafes there are now innumerable fish and chip shops, and gift shops full of Gothic souvenirs. (Dracula landed in Whitby). We had tea in a tea room called... The Mad Hatter... where Lewis Carroll once stayed, and we jaunted up to what must be the craziest church in England with its box pews so high nobody can see over the top.

In Whitby when I was a student there was a delectable sweetshop, but one of my charges judged it very severely because his Granny kept a sweet shop and this one wasn't up to scratch. Larpool Hall itself was a grand old house with rundown outhouses - now flats. I remember huge emotional upheavals, inevitable with a student work-force. It was a brilliant summer, but on no points would it have passed on health and safety, I fear.

But for an embryonic writer, a rich summer. It's a place which tags at the imagination, because of its hard history and its beauty and its eccentricity. Whitby, I'm almost sure, will crop up again sometime, in some novel or other...