Colne Valley Beagles and other things of interest.: BRIDLINGTON 1952 AND THE 'TILLIE MORRISON, SHEFFIELD'

In 1952 I went on a holiday to Bridlington with my mother and young brother. I had my new camera with me, my first, an Ensign Ful-Vue

Ensign Ful-Vue

It was made of thin sheet metal in a twin lens reflex format with a black crackle finish and a shutter speed, give or take, of 1/30^th second. This was achieved by lifting the shutter release that in the first half of the movement tensioned a wire spring and in the second half, tripped it causing the shutter to flick open and closed. (I know as I took it to bits to find out how it worked). I mention the limitations of the camera because the following photographs are not very good due to a glass pebble of a lens and slow shutter speed linked to the slow film of the time. A couple of views were taken when I used my mother’s Kodak with bellows and its miniscule viewfinder; .which took quite reasonable images on occasions, but the ‘square’ photos came from mine.

The Ful-Vue was all I could afford as a schoolboy. The father of my school friend of that time had a village shop and post office and such affluence allowed him to have an Ensign Selfix 620, which filled me with envy and I think he also got some sort of basic enlarger. We both got involved in doing our own processing but I never got beyond contact prints then. He was also able to afford, or had bought for him, a big green Raleigh bike with coach painted gold lines and ribbed mudguards while I had a hand painted black second hand very basic gridiron that went into blotchy grey patches when it rained. Another useless paint job of mine! I used some old ointment of my father’s as grease and it had a fixed gear. This caught me out once as I forgot to keep pedalling while slowing down quickly and as I travelled over the handlebars of the rapidly inverting bike, the end of one of the projecting spoke like struts holding the front mudguard furrowed its way down my leg. The price of envy maybe!

The Scarthoe,

- did one call it a private hotel or a boarding house I wonder? I suppose it depends how posh one wanted to sound; was a nice place on the front facing the sea. I have two particular memories of the time there. In 1952, the British culinary practice of the era was to stew, boil and steam everything to render it as unpalatable as possible. The Scarthoe, maybe to try to remedy this deficiency, covered the tureens of vegetable matter with a white sauce of some description thereby rendering them even more unpalatable to me. As for stews in general at that time, and I am not referring to the Scarthoe as I don't recall having one there, they consisted of reclaimed chopped up tyre rubber, not forgetting the sidewall reinforcement and beading, and shredded heavy duty corset waste along with some strange items of whitish piping. What happened to real meat I really don’t know but it was enough to make one vegetarian despite the best efforts of the day to ruin that stuff. I guess the Scarthoe did their best with what was available at that time as it was no different from the food anywhere else. I remember sitting in the bay window of the dining room on the right trying to digest the uniquely British meals there.

The Scarthoe in June 2018.

My second imprinted memory is of two girls who were staying there, the older one being about my age. So I can still recall how in a moment of frivolous fun the older one chased me down the street and my retrospective regret is that I never let her catch me.

As my father had to work and was not there we had no transport and I guess we must have gone around by bus but we visited Whitby and Scarborough.

Bridlington

That appears to be the Yorkshire Belle against the harbour wall and she has been altered somewhat since. The photo below shows her in June 2018. If you check Google images of her you will see the difference.

More info here - MV Yorkshire Belle

Whitby

This shows some of the famous trip boats of the time in Scarborough including the Coronia (next to last in pic) which served as HMS Coronia on the Humber during the war. In front of her are two Ladies - Regal Lady and Yorkshire Lady.

Regal Lady in June 2018. With a canoe hull she had a rudder at both ends so that in reverse she could be steered by the forward one. Built 1930. More info here - MV Regal Lady

Coronia

The two ladies

My fishing activities at home had progressed from some cotton and a bent pin to having some line and proper hooks to use worms for Perch in local ponds. This led me to go sea fishing and I went out mackerel fishing on the 19^th August 1952 in an open boat along with a party of men who were obviously more serious about it than I was. I don’t know now if the boat was one of the classic fishing cobbles of that coast but it was about that size and we motored off out to sea. Contemporary accounts of the day will suggest the sea was a bit rough that day. As I was a novice, when we anchored, my station was in the bows and I am sure this got far more of the motion than the experts were getting in the waist of the boat. I was provided with a line set with a number of hooks down near the end and caught precisely nothing. I quite enjoyed it even so and saw my first fresh caught mackerel but was glad to be back on land after spending so long being tossed about.

BRIDLINGTON LIFEBOAT DISASTER

Getting back to Bridlington probably got me in the right place at the right time for when the lifeboat was called out. The maroons went up just after 5pm and I was down to watch and photograph the 'Tillie Morrison, Sheffield' being launched.

We heard that two girls were in trouble off Thornwick Bay, which didn’t bode well for them given the nature of the place, the choppy sea and the time it takes to launch the lifeboat with the tractor and get there. It seems the Flamborough one, which should have gone, was unable to launch due to work on the slipway. I will put a link later to a more definitive account of what happened that day.

Bridlington lifeboat house and tractor. My mother is the lady on the far right with my brother examining the technical details.

Taking the lifeboat to the sea to launch.

Unfortunately the two girls drowned as did the Bowman of the lifeboat, which rolled over in rough water by the rocky shore of Thornwick Bay with most of the crew washed out. The anchor fell out holding it fast by the rocks which holed the hull and so the boat had to be beached.

A dispassionate report is here - The Bridlington Lifeboat tragedy 19 August 1952

But this one is better being more personal and probably more emotional as it describes the efforts to save the girls and of the events following - Flamborough tragedy

y David Swanbury

In those days, unlike now where everyone carries a camera of some sort or other, there is no sign here of anyone taking photographs but I am sure some must have been. So having seen the launch we went, probably the next day, to view the aftermath in Thornwick Bay.

One girl's body was recovered by one of the RAF launches. An ambulance waits at Bridlington.

There is an ex-RAF launch just like these at Shepley Bridge Marina on the Calder and Hebble navigation belonging to the owner. The big thirsty twin engines of his have been replaced by two others more suitable for today's use.

The relief lifeboat arrives at Bridlington.

So that was a bit of my Bridlington holiday. I haven't been there for ages but was close by a couple of years ago and decided to stop to recall past memories. The place was packed and I could not find a parking space. I drove along the promenade and tried to spot the Scarthoe while in a stream of pressing traffic but failed at that, so I never did set foot in Bridlington again.

Thursday, 16 January 2014

BRIDLINGTON 1952 AND THE 'TILLIE MORRISON, SHEFFIELD' - BRIDLINGTON LIFEBOAT DISASTER