Who do I think I are? (Skipsea investigations)

Alice Hill was one of my English great grandmothers. Growing up, there was a lot of mystery about my grandmother's origins. But other family members had in recent years tracked her origin down to the village of Skipsea, near the Yorkshire coast, and given me pointers to where to locate her gravestone. So I went there on my own fact-finding mission.


Initially I couldn't locate the cemetery, so where better to enquire than the local pub? This was a very good move, because not only were the regulars terrifically friendly and helpful, but they were able to show me some historical photographs of the very village square adjacent to which, I believe, great grandmother lived.






The photos were undated, but who knows, maybe my grandmother and/or great grandmother are actually in them.

Walking the Cleveland Way

Actually I only walked a little bit of the Cleveland Way. But enough to get a taste of the North York Moors and their coastal clifftop vistas.














Here's the Hayburn Wyke, a popular hikers' inn along the track, on the section between Scarborough and Whitby. I parked here.




The whole thing is about 180km long, and takes seven to ten days.

More Scarborough

Scarborough was the base for my Yorkshire sojourn. I liked the place a lot. It's bigger than I expected. Lots of touristy attractions, places to feed, house, and water you. There are are extensive parks and gardens, and there's even a castle on the hill.

Scarborough fare

Very traditional, but a bit dry and crunchy for me. The punters here like their fish and chips like this, and with mushy peas. Nice and filling.

Travelling North

Travelling North was a 1987 film, based on a 1979 play by David Williamson, about an elderly couple doing a life-changing final trip to northern Queensland.

It was apparently inspired by some rather lesser journeys, one by Williamson himself when he moved from Melboune to Sydney, and another by his in-laws, who moved all the way from Sydney to the NSW Central Coast!

Anyway, in much the same spirit, I did a small scale 'Travelling North' journey in England last month, when I drove all the way from the English Midlands to the North-East.

What made me feel that I was actually going somewhere though was the crossing of the Humber Bridge. It's an impressive bridge, and it wasn't there when I last lived in England. It probably marks very definitively a boundary for England's North. That's Yorkshire over the other side. There are nice little viewing areas and walkways for admiring it properly.