A young man with an old voice opens the show with a blistering acoustic set.

Mick Fleetwood thinks he's the business and so does Hebden.

The blues began as dance music played on acoustic guitar and Dan showed us how it's done and had people dancing in the pews.

Blues and hats go together like grits and groceries, mud and water, bo and diddley.

I've not seem him directly but shadows speak. The man in the hat is here!

Hebden Bridge 2013 the blues has gone back to church in the charming Yorkshire valley town.

Can the event top last year's best festival at the British Blues Awards? The Hope Baptist Church comes complete with an atmosphere before the punters have arrived.

The signs are we're in for a cracking weekend.

The Ministers of the blues are here - it'll do your soul good to get to Hebden Bridge this weekend.

Penny Junor, well known broadcaster and writer, is the author of many bestselling biographies, including both the Prince and Princess of Wales, John Major and Margaret Thatcher. She also co-wrote best selling autobiographies of Pattie Boyd (former wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton) and Sir Cliff Richard.

Now she has turned her hand to writing a biography 'Prince William: Born to be King - An Intimate Portrait.' and was interviewed by regular host, writer James Nash, about her book at the Scarborough Literature Festival.

The allure of the Royal Family

Junor believes the Royal Family is quintessentially British, as permanent and solid as red post boxes. In this day we are in love with fame and celebrity and the monarchy provides that but there is also something solid and dependable about it in a rapidly changing world.

Diana influenced the monarchy, both damaging it and helping it. She spilled the beans on the royals in her Panorama interview, but the Queen's buttoned up style, fine for the 1950s, was wrong for the 1980s. 'We wanted a bit of touchy, feely,' explained Junor. 'Diana's influence was like turning a light finger on the tiller of a massive tanker.' Royalty mustn't be too fashionable but it must keep up.

How William emerged sane after 'one hell of a childhood

Junor claimed there was a lack of family life at the Palace when the boys were small. It was a family that communicated by memos and private secretaries. The boys ate in the nursery and never had a family meal together as children. It is amazing to Junor, that the Princes have come through the divorce, the acrimony and the news of their parents' marital problem splashed across the tabloids, relatively unscathed.

While Junor admires Prince Charles, she claims he has never been a hands on father. He cares about global and social issues: his Prince's Trust has given people who had no chance in life, the means to change their destinies.

There have been some key figures in the young princes' lives which have given them stability. Nanny Olga Powell cared for the young boys for fifteen years, including during the breakdown of their parents' marriage. Ludgrove Prep School ,run by a husband and wife team, was homely and nurturing.

After the divorce, the Prince of Wales selected some amazing people to help and guide the boys. Tiggy Legge-Bourke was hired as a nanny, in 1993. Although a controversial figure, Junor thinks she gave the boys the fun and thrill of outdoor activities that they needed, despite being hauled over the coals for allowing the young princes to abseil down a fifty meter dam without safety lines or helmets! Former equerry and ex-army officer Mark Dyer was brought in to act as an older brother and keep the princes on the straight and narrow.

William's future

Junor feels William's relationship with the Middletons is the beginning and ending of understanding him. He loves being part of their warm, loving, communicative family.

William may well have a long stretch ahead of him before he is ever crowned King. He models himself on the queen and presents a neutral face to the world. She thinks he will devote himself to promoting Britain and working with charities.

The Royal Family's popularity has waxed and waned over the last few decades and they have sometimes seemed so out of tune with the general public, but Junor believes William and Kate are perfect for this time.

If you want a biography which reveals sordid secrets about a tortured soul then this book is not for you! Prince William is portrayed as pleasant, unflappable and thoroughly charming. As The Telegraph's review commented: 'For the same reasons that he makes a difficult subject for a biography, he'll make a good king.'

Joanne Harris revisits the setting and characters of her novel 'Chocolat', in her new book 'Peaches for Monsieur Le Cure'.

This is in effect the third in a trilogy centering round the character Vianne Rocher, the young heroine in Chocolat, played by Juliette Binoche in the 2000 film. 'Lollipop shoes', the second novel, is set four years after the events described in 'Chocolat' and leaves Vianne in Paris reconciled and at peace with her past.

Vianne Rocher continues to surprise

Originally Harris had wanted to write about the Muslim full face veil and what draws women to wear one. She suddenly realized Vianne Rocher was going to be in the novel and that she was going to return to the village of Lansquenet, eight years after she had left. The idea of returning to something familiar and experiencing an emotional jolt on discovering change, interests Harris. The change is this story is that a community of Moroccans has arisen with women veiled in black. The book explores ways in which two different cultures might interact.

Parallels between 'Chocolat' and 'Peaches for Monsieur Le Cure'

Just as 'Chocolat,' which is set in Lent, deals with Catholicism and the relationship between feasting and fasting, so 'Peaches' deals with Islam and is set during Ramadan, in August 2010, just before the French government banned the wearing of the Islamic veil. But both stories are primarily about the way religion can be used to reinforce prejudice, xenophobia and intolerance.

'I believe in Magic'

To Harris, real magic is about the self and change, how we can become someone else and love can transform us. The judgmental, intolerant, arrogant Francis Reynaud, the priest in 'Chocolat' was almost the bad guy but in 'Peaches' he has mellowed and he too has a journey to make. Threatened by a younger, trendy priest, Harris gives him an opportunity for romance and heroism.

Muslim Reception

Harris' publishers were nervous about a book dealing with Muslims. It was originally called 'Peaches for Ramadam.' Her publishers were worried about dealing with such sensitive issues. However when Harris showed it to her Muslim friends, they loved it and took no offence. The thread that runs through the book is the fact that many characters are hesitant to accept the common humanity of everyone. Vianne and Reynaud have emotional journeys to make.

Harris is a tremendous speaker and is clearly very erudite and incisive about herself and others. This is a must buy book and would make a fantastic birthday present. I suggest you order it now!

Lucy Worsley, historian, writer and television presenter romped her way through British history revealing some truly intimate details in her fascinating talk to Scarborough Literature Festival on her latest book 'If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home'

By day, Lucy Worsely is Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, an independent charity looking after five unoccupied palaces: The Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace State Apartments, the Banqueting House in Whitehall and Kew Palace in Kew Gardens.

But Worsley is also fascinated by the ordinary. 'I've a great respect for things' says Madam Merle in Henry James' 'The Portrait of a Lady' and Worsley agrees. The tiny details of everyday life such as forks, toilet paper, and underpants can give us insight into the lives of our ancestors. Every single object in a home has a story to tell. It is the little things that define us.

The surprising things our forbears did in bed, in the bath, at the table and at the stove

Worsley is a really gifted speaker. Both erudite but having the common touch, her book takes the reader on a whistle stop tour of domestic life from the Normans to the present day covering all levels of society.

Through the history of the bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen, we see history from a new intimate perspective.

The bedroom

Today we knock on people's bedroom doors, respecting the privacy of that room but the bedroom didn't take on a private aspect until well into the nineteenth century. The Medieval world did not want to be alone in bed. To share a bed with family members, colleagues, and visitors was common!

Worsley takes us from medieval mattresses stuffed with hay, to Victorian beds with sheets, blankets and eiderdowns, to the liberation of the 'continental quilt.'

The bathroom

This room has the shortest history of all the rooms as it has only existed for around one hundred and twenty years and has much to do with social ideas about health. The Elizabethans invented the flushing loo but Worsley's book explains why it didn't catch on. She examines the varying standards of cleanliness and hygiene over the centuries.

The living room

The living room emerged once people had leisure and spare money, a place for relaxing and entertaining. It is also a room for display: a room for impressing your guests. Worsley traces the development of the living room and how, after the Victorians, with their 'proliferation' of stuff, there was a backlash against such clutter with twentieth century modernism.

The kitchen

Worsley looks at how the kitchen has developed from the hearth in the centre of a Medieval one roomed home. During Victorian times the kitchen was pushed down and under the house. The invention of the extractor fan, now means the kitchen can become a social space again, as it was in medieval times.

An entertaining and lively read

This book is a lively history of the domestic space and a fascinating study of the evolution of a home in relation to the people who live there. As Worsely says herself 'Everyone should read this book as everybody has a home.' Her talk made me look at my house in a new light. Every room has an exciting story to tell about the way we live.

I had vaguely heard of Edith and Osbert Sitwell and knew they were something to do with the literary world but that was about it.

So imagine my excitement to be sitting in the home of the Sitwells, in Scarborough, listening to a talk by William Sitwell, the great nephew of Edith Sitwell, giving a talk on his illustrious forebears.

Famous in his own right as a well-known food writer and TV presenter, William Sitwell gave a witty history of his family.

'The Sitwells belong to the history of publicity, rather than poetry'

The three best known Sitwell siblings, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell, made an impact on arts, culture and the literary scene in the early part of the twentieth century. All three were literary figures in their own right, publishing poetry, novels and Sacheverell writing many books on travel and architecture.

They worked on literary collaborations and anthologies together, becoming known simply as 'the Sitwells'. They courted publicity and six foot Edith, often dressed in an eccentric manner in velvet gowns, gold turbans and a plethora of jewellery, made sure her poetry readings were always an occasion.

Dismissed by some as poseurs, they had various spats with literary figures, FR Leavis dismissing them as 'belonging to the history of publicity rather than poetry.' Edith encouraged other writers, befriending and helping Dylan Thomas and helping to publish the poems of Wilfred Owen after his death.

A dysfunctional childhood

'My parents were strangers to me' said Edith in her autobiography. Their father, Sir George Sitwell, an expert on genealogy and landscape, married Lady Ida Denison. Edith described the seventeen year old Ida as married into 'slave bondage'. Whereas Ida was frivolous, extravagant and passionate, Sir George was serious, mean and cold. He viewed Ida as a conduit to having sons.

'I was unpopular from the moment of my birth'

Edith, as the first born, knew she was a disappointment as a girl. All three children were unhappy at home. Sir George ate alone, finding people distracted him. He asked no-one to contradict him as it interfered with his digestion and sleep. He criticized Edith for the crook in her nose and her posture. As a 'cure' for her supposed spinal deformity, he locked her in an iron frame.

Ida had terrible rages and the butler often locked Edith in the silver vault for safety. Lady Ida was so extravagant she fell into debt and on the advice of a money lender, she gave the children of ambitious families a leg up the social scale, in exchange for money which resulted in her being sentenced to three months in Holloway jail.

Edith refused to go to her mother's funeral due to the bitterness she felt about her upbringing.

'The first white English rapper'

Edith became a proponent and supporter of innovative trends in English poetry and opposed what she felt to be the conventionality of many contemporary backward-looking poets. Her poetry is experimental, full of assonance and dissonance and influenced by her love of music.

Sir William Walton set some of her work to music. 'Façade' lasts forty five minutes and is full of light and shade. William Sitwell recited a short section full of beat rhythms and fast paced lyrics, describing her as 'the first English white rapper!'

The piece was dismissed as 'drivel' by some of the press. Edith's war poems are better known. 'Still Falls the Rain', about the London Blitz remains perhaps her best known poem.

It was a privilege to hear William Sitwell talk about his quite extraordinary relatives. Members of the Sitwell Society were there, as well as a writer working on their biography. This amazing family, who attracted so much interest in the twentieth century, continue to fascinate us to this day.

Journalist Helen Womack's book 'The Ice Walk' offers a fascinating insight into what Mother Russia is really like.

While working as a Foreign Correspondent, Helen Womack fell in love with a Russian and has lived there ever since, under three Kremlin leaders. She spoke at the Scarborough Literature Festival about her new book 'The Ice Walk' which offers a tour of Russia that takes us behind the official Kremlin line into an intimate sphere of life that few foreigners penetrate.

'The Ice Walk' refers to the first thaw, sounding like booming cannon shots as the ice cracks and the river starts snapping and crackling: a perfect metaphor for the changes in Russia. The Russian winter is miserable but stable. 'Thaw' has positive connotations but before you get to the daffodils and sunshine, you have to wade through mud in which you can drown. In the same way a political thaw can be just as dangerous.

Russia is still a police state

Helen's talk was chilling as she explained Russia is still a police State. The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) is in effect the KGB. There is a huge gap between Ruler and ruled, who meet only on Election Day. Democracy is stage managed in Russia. Any members of the opposition demonstrating out on the streets face jail.

According to Helen, Russia's system of corruption suits everybody. The ordinary man in the street can break the law in tiny ways such as not paying tax and he knows he will be pretty unlucky to get caught. The Rulers know at anytime they can get anyone, if they wish to.

Pussy Doll Riots

Helen has reported on many high profile court cases including that of the sentencing of three members of Pussy Riot, a Russian feminist punk rock collective. On February 21, 2012, five members of the group staged a performance in Moscow cathedral. Their actions were stopped by church security officials. By evening, they had turned it into a music video entitled "Punk Prayer - Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!"

Helen explained that during the trial, the girls were kept in a glass case. Journalists were only allowed to see the court via the internet and never saw the face of the judge or the accusers, who suspiciously were all making the same grammatical errors. Journalists suspect the whole thing had been cooked up by the authorities.

Although ordinary orthodox believers wanted to forgive, it served Putin and his Patriarchal leaders to use the protest to split the opposition. Two of the girls have been put away in a Labor Camp for two years.

Signs of change

Helen did point to the possibility of change. Putin intends to stay on until 2024, but despite the macho image he projects, he is in reality over sixty with a bad back! She describes the subtle moment when stability becomes stagnation and claims Putin's regime has crossed this line.

There is a whole generation now travelling who are internet savvy. Once they have these opportunities, they bring home the 'virus of freedom'. Helen believes Putin's dependence on oil and gas will eventually bring him down.

This was a truly fascinating talk full of personal stories far from the beaten track. 'The Ice Walk' is well worth a read.

Well, here we are. The Widescreen Weekend goes on for one more day, but this is the last festival screening I'll be blogging this year. We finish off with a lush 70 mm print of classic musical Hello Dolly.

Barbra Streisand is Dolly Levi, a motormouthed matchmaker who can't resist meddling in everyone's affairs. She's decided it's time for her to get married herself, and is convinced the curmudgeonly Mr Vandergelder is the man for her. She sets out to warm his icy heart and give everyone else a happy ending while she's at it.

What follows is a fun, fast-paced comedy as Dolly slyly manipulates everyone around her in ever more hilarious ways. She's got the whole cast wrapped around her little finger and it's endlessly entertaining watching her sweet-talking people around to her point of view. The quickfire dialogue crackles and the jokes still work today.

The Widescreen Weekend booklet refers to Hello Dolly as "the last great musical" and the film earns this accolade with some excellent song and dance numbers. The music isn't as catchy as some other musicals from the era but the dance choreography is some of the most athletic and impressive Hollywood has to offer.

The widescreen print is also magnificent on Pictureville's curved screen, with bright colours and a rich, clear image.

The only problem with this is I never really bought the central romance. It's not clear why Dolly is interested in Vandergelder other than the fact he's rich, and he sees her purely as a nuisance for most of the running time. Their screwball comedy bickering is a lot of fun, but the film never really sells them as a viable couple. It's not a deal-breaker but it does make for a less involving film than it otherwise might have been.

Hello Dolly is another triumph for the Widescreen Weekend and a perfect ending to the festival for me. Hope everyone enjoyed it, and hopefully I've inspired a few of you to check it out next year!

The celebration of Cinerama continues with In The Picture, the first film made using the technology in fifty years. Like Seven Wonders and Cinerama Holiday, it's a travelogue film, this time focusing on a family visiting tourist sites around Los Angeles.

As a film it's nothing special, with some very stiff acting, but as a tribute to Cinerama it's clever and authentic, recreating the big, indulgent long shots and point-of-view travel sequences that characterised the Cinerama travelogues. There's a couple of good first person driving scenes and a spectacular voyage on a tallship reminiscent of last year's Windjammer.

Afterwards we were shown a making-of documentary showing just what an incredible undertaking this little film was. It wasn't just a case of getting in touch with veterans and hobbyists, because they just didn't exist - the team had to repair a fifty year old camera and then learn it from scratch.

I felt bad for making fun of the acting after I realised that the director simply couldn't see or hear the actors most of the time due to the size and noise of the gigantic metal camera. All he could see was their feet! The documentary gave me a newfound respect for the amount of work needed to keep technology like this alive.

Following on from the presentation on Seven Wonders of the World, the audience now gets to see the other classic travelogue that the archivists have been working on. But this time we get to see it in its final form.

Cinerama Holiday follows two couples on expenses paid holidays: a Swiss couple goes to the States while an American couple goes to Europe. The four of them narrate their observations as they go, but mostly this is an excuse to show us lots of spectacular things from all over the world.

Cinerama is at its best when used for point of view shots - the three camera technique gives a pseudo 3D effect that works surprisingly well. Cinerama Holiday makes full use of this and is chock full of thrilling first person sequences: a flight in a fighter jet, a train across California, a white knuckle toboggan ride. These elements work well even today, especially for those in the middle of the audience where the 3D effect is most potent.

There's quite an impressive variety of material here: the holidays cover local song and dance, farming festivals and even a puppet show. It all looks great and the archivists have done a stellar job. When I saw How The West Was Won last year there was a lot of flickering at the "joins" where the three camera shots fit together, but here the whole thing was beautifully smooth.

It must be said that the travelogue genre has moved on a lot since 1955 and some aspects feel dated. The world feels like one big theme park as the "tourists" effortlessly stumble from one postcard cliche to the next. At one point, the Swiss couple's bike breaks down in the desert; within minutes, a group of real life cowboys show up to help them out. A work like this is inevitably going to be a little bit scripted, but modern travel shows are more subtle about it. Here it feels like they're visiting theme parks versions of these places and modern audiences will likely expect a little more substance.

Still, it's not fair to judge the film by these standards. Cinerama Holiday is aiming to wow you with its images and show off the beauty of Europe and America, and in that goal it succeeds admirably.

With the rise of television in the 1950s, film studios were getting more and more desperate to offer an experience you couldn't get at home. The most likely way of achieving this was by making films bigger and wider than a TV screen, but at the time there was no standard way to do it.

Remember the ludicrous and embarrassing "war" between Blu Ray and HD-DVD a few years ago?

That's what this era was like: every company wanted their own special format, and many technologies with names like "Cinemiracle" and "Panavision" attempted to wow audiences in this time.

Film archivists Dave Strohmaier and Randy Gitsch have been working hard to restore two classic travel films made using one of the most well-known of these technologies, Cinerama. This format was best suited for big, panoramic landscapes but struggled with close ups, and so found its niche with the then-new travelogue genre.

The two talked about the history of the format and showed us some of the incredible, painstaking work needed to restore this kind of footage. The film was in a poor state and restoration cannot solve all its problems, but it's very encouraging just how much can be achieved with modern technology, a bit of ingenuity and a lot of hard work.

The full film Seven Wonders of the World is being shown next year, but the archivists brought along some clips to show how far things have come. It certainly looks good, with a train ride in Darjeeling being a particular highlight. Should be worth checking out at the next Widescreen Weekend.

It's my last day at Bradford today. Today begins the Widescreen Weekend, an extended event which celebrates the full scale of widescreen cinema. This morning kicked off with Grant Wakefield's new short film Remnants.

Remnants is a love letter to our ancient ancestors and the world they inhabited. Wakefield has travelled to the most remote and beautiful areas of the British Isles and captured an hour of gorgeous footage of, well, the remnants of ancient society. Civilisations come and go, but if you know where to look, innumerable obelisks and stone circles silently watch over the landscape.

The film strictly avoids showing any hint of modernity in these long shots, allowing the stone monuments to dominate. The footage is sped up, and clouds fly over at breakneck speed, showing that no matter what happens in the outside world, these majestic icons remain. No dialogue is needed here, but beautiful ambient music accompanies the whole piece.

Remnants is a beautiful film that looks great on the large Pictureville screen. A fine start to the weekend.

The Scarborough Literature Festival is not just about talks by those who have made it or are celebrated. Move to the side and there's more. Do you want to get into print?

Two workshops ran at the Crescent Hotel on the Friday. After a morning looking at generating and using ideas for books, the afternoon got down to the essentials you need to do to get your work published.

Twenty aspiring writers assembled, some with self published works already, some with more than one finished volume, and others getting close to finishing the first opus. I'm not sure if there were others like me, just with a vague collection of ideas that may or may not come together.

But for all, it was fascinating and focussed in a businesslike manner, as it is, of course, a business. Led by Imogen Taylor, a publishing director at Headline, the seminar was a no-holds-barred one-hit-after-another guide to making it - or not! Because of course, for many there is no book on the shelf at the end of the day.

Morgan McCarthy, a new 'two book deal' author with Headline, took the group through her experiences making it into print. You could hear furious scribbling all around. There can't be a formula which will guarantee but there are certainly many do's and don'ts.

For anyone else out there who wants to know what they are - sorry, you should have been there. The twenty people who were don't need anyone else to steal a march on them! They've got a lot to get done now and they know how to do it.

Following Morgan's input, Imogen led the group through more useful advice and a question and answer time, which also managed to investigate the pros and cons of using agents, whether to jump on the latest genre bandwagon and the importance of embracing the digital age. Do you try the self publishing route? How do you use social media to create your own community and publicity?

What was so heartwarming about this positive event was to see people from both sides of the publishing divide being prepared to share and support others who have the same hopes and dreams, despite it being an extremely competitive industry.

Imogen Taylor wants to know 'What's in your book to make me like it?'. I'm going away to look at my vague collection of ideas to see if there's anything that will do just that!

And on the fringe ...

Every decent festival has its fringe. Move over Edinburgh, Scarborough's at it too.

We took in just one performance in Scarborough Library, by Mark Morgan and James Senior of 'Penthouse Suite', who hail from the Stockton Arc. I was not expecting to be entertained by two 'scouse scallies' as it seemed at the start, but what began as doing the deal and setting up a line or two suddenly morphed into a celebration of literature and more.

Mark's character worked hard to sell the arts to a rather slow James, with some lovely quotes: Shakespeare is 'an ocean of great stories and great words and we're just getting our feet wet'; 'writing a poem is like putting your soul's stamp on life'.

A whirlwind stand-up tour of the best of the arts such as this will presumably go down well on the Theatre in Education circuit but it was somehow fitting to see this performance in a library whose role is to promote knowledge and culture for all.

Staying in Scarborough for the 7th Literature Festival this Easter gave us the chance to sample the range of accommodation on offer over three nights. Before I describe our experiences let us hasten to say 'Other accommodation is available'. Scarborough is hardly short of choices and there are bound to be others which match our selections in quality.

The choice is yours and you know what you want. For me a good hotel should be like a good meal: there are certain minimum standards to be met, but it's good to find and enjoy something you don't get every day.

Beidebecke's Hotel & Brasserie 1-3 The Crescent, Scarborough

Beidebecke's at the town centre end of the Crescent was our first. What's that word they use these days to describe small but perfectly formed hotels? Bijou? Boudoir? Ah, boutique! That's always conjured up ideas of somewhere rather more expensive than it deserves to be.

I reserved judgement on entering. A little formal perhaps, and traditional, but with a comfortable aura of quality which was reinforced over the rest of our stay. If we gave marks out of five there would be a chance of six.

You'll find cheaper places in Scarborough, but probably not offering such an oasis of calm in an accessible prime location. And you could find dearer for the same quality.

Let's break it down for the benefit of all:

Accommodation
Based on our experience bedrooms are large, as are the beds. I am blessed with being well over six feet tall. If you share my stature make sure you ask for Room 5. The bed is impossibly huge. All is as clean and comfortable as you'd hope.



Service
Staff are helpful, attentive but not pushy, and on hand when you need them.

Restaurant

Dining is excellent. We chose to spend a Thursday night there and dine in Marmalade's restaurant. The jazz theme which the hotel trades on is strong here, from the pictures and decoration to the house band, Gentle Jazz, who perform on Thursdays and Saturdays. Let me declare myself here: I am not a jazz fan. Neither Dixieland nor Freeform do it for me, but it can be the making of the right atmosphere and ambience for a good evening, and so it is here. Somehow they get it right.

The music is not intrusive if you want to talk, but if you want to listen it is satisfying and loud enough to enjoy. And very professionally delivered. Even if you don't stay at Beiderbecke's at least go for the music and the meal.

Oh, I nearly forgot the meal, which would be inexcusable. Our starter choices were on the comfortable and satisfying side of unusual , being haddock and horseradish fishcake and pigeon breast with celeriac remoulade, both with subtle flavours. For main, chicken breast filled with a black pudding farce and Duck breast with a spring onion rosti were again well presented, satisfying and to be slowly savoured.

The only down side would be a comment directed at practically every restaurant: so often there is such a good effort as at Marmalade's to develop themes for the first courses, whilst desserts can be more predictable. I'd like something out of the box please!

Looking at online reviews the overwhelming impression is that others enjoyed their stays and dining as much as we did. We'll be back.
www.beiderbeckes.com 1-3 The Crescent, Scarborough


The Grand Hotel St. Nicholas Cliff, Scarborough

Night two was spent at the Grand Hotel. This is an indispensable part of the shoreline in the South Bay, many of whose 380 rooms must have arguably the best view of the sea. 'Arguably': I've always wondered about the use of that word. Does anyone really want to argue about it?

Our room was cosy if dated despite it being open to the lashings of any passing storm. Waking up to a sea view is always special. Let's also say that it can't be easy trying to fill a leviathan like this these days, but they manage to do so frequently as many coach tours use it.

So what was it like? Well let's be honest. If you go online you'll get many varied and mixed reviews from visitors, good and bad. We would have to say we prefer other types of hotels.

The main hall around which the hotel is built is almost as impressive as it must have been in its heyday. However it seems to be full of people coming and going, waiting for their coach or just arriving. The bar with its amusement machines also seemed to be steadily busy.

If you want a bustling place in close proximity to the heart of Scarborough, you may perhaps get a good deal on a coach trip that calls in here.

www.thegrandhotelscarborough.co.uk


The Cavendish 53 Esplanade Rd, South Cliff

Finally night three arrived and we were in need of somewhere to relax in the evening after three hectic days at the Literature Festival, with a few home comforts. Our choice was the Cavendish Guest House just off the Esplanade in South Cliff.

I can't say whether or not it is typical of Scarborough Guest Houses as there are so many to choose from, but it must rank with the best.

Its eight rooms were mostly full, but you wouldn't have known it. The capacious building is Tardis like, with the wonderful huge hall and high ceilings the Victorians did so well. It swallows up the residents, though at the same time feeling homely.

The lovely spacious lounge was ideal for relaxing after one of the more generous evening meals we've tried. Two courses were easily enough.

Large portions may often be a substitute for quality, but not here where you get both. Homemade Chicken Kiev was just that, and all the better for it. Desserts were in the plural: again each was home made and mine combined both Eton Mess and a Summer Fruits Pudding which could have fed a family.

The hosts, Rob and Joanna, are welcoming and personable and make every effort to help you enjoy your stay. Our room was well presented, clean and warm. It was excellent value for money, at a very reasonable rate, but came with more than the price paid for.

It's a four star guest house: I'm not quite sure what they mean but they deserve them.

www.cavendishscarborough.co.uk

Sinclair McKay, formerly Assistant Features Editor at 'The Daily Telegraph' and now a freelance journalist, gave a fascinating talk to Scarborough Literature festival about his new book, 'The Secret Listeners,' a sequel to his recent best seller, 'The Secret Life of Bletchley Park.'

This new book focuses not, as many books about Bletchley do, on the cracking of the Enigma code and the code breakers who helped shorten the war and saved countless lives, but on the young men and women who had to locate and monitor endless streams of radio traffic around the clock, and transcribe its Morse code with a speed few have ever managed since.

This 'Listening service' had bases which moved all over the world with the theatre of war and had listening stations along the eastern coast of Britain to intercept radio traffic. This is the story of these unsung heroes and heroines and is a fascinating insight into the daily lives of the men and women who worked there and the way it changed their lives.

Bletchley Park is synonymous with genius. The code breakers were handpicked from all over Britain for their needle sharp accuracy, mathematical aptitude and lateral thinking skills. They all came together to Bletchley Park, a Victorian monstrosity in the dowdy railway town of Bletchley in Buckinghamshire, which made its money from brick making.

These new lively recruits were housed around the local village and brought new life to the area. As well as the house there was a series of huts where the highly secretive work was done. Everyone who worked there had to sign the Official Secrets Act.

Effect of the intensity of work

The work was unrelentingly intense. Young students poured over jumbled letters generated by machine. But before Bletchley Park could break the German war machine's codes, the enemy's radio traffic and daily communications were listened into and monitored around the clock by the Listening service.

This organization- known as the 'Y' (for wireless) Service remains little known and unrecognized. Then there were the messenger girls who saw more than the Cryptologists who were confined to a particular hut.

The intense pressure of such work meant there had to be a pressure valve to let off steam. Many of the Cryptologists had an aptitude for music and there were orchestras and choirs.

Their boundless youthful energy meant they worked hard and played hard. Many shook off the stress of their position by dancing, whether it was Ballroom or Highland!

The code breakers staged plays and comic reviews. There were amateur and professional actors among them. However, others found the work too much such as Angus Wilson, the novelist, who threatened to jump into the lake and meant it!

Relationships

Many couples met at Bletchley and went on to marry. McKay talked to Keith and Mavis Baity, whose eyes met over the Enigma machine. Even married couples who worked in different huts did not divulge the work they were involved with.

The German cipher Enigma was just one of the many enemy codes broken at Bletchley. Winston Churchill described the team of code breakers as 'the goose that laid the golden egg but never cracked.'

The cryptologists were divided into huts according to the ciphers they were trying to crack. There were an extraordinary number of eccentric boffins.

But this book does not focus on them. Bletchley was a microcosm of British society. The differing stratas of society rubbed along together. The 'debs' and 'hons' who did the clerical work, punching holes in little bits of paper without knowing what became of them were labeled 'the silly girls in Hut 6'.

During his research McKay has talked to many of those who worked there, including Jean Campbell Harris, now Baroness Trumpington, whose lodgings had a bathroom with no lock. She was assured by the wife that her husband worked night and she was quite safe. Imagine her horror when the husband barged in on her naked in the bath!

One debutante went frequently to Claridges to meet her friends. Although there was certainly not equality between the sexes, women at Bletchley had a voice which they would not have had otherwise.

Other 'Y' Stations

There were 'Y' stations all around the coast of Britain. Many young bright women from the Wrens listened in to German pilots who knew they were being listened to and even sent them affectionate greeting. The girls were traumatized on hearing the last cries of Germans as they were shot down.

In Scarborough hundreds of Wrens tracked U boats and messages. They found the underground bunker where they worked claustrophobic, and remember the sharp winds of a Scarborough winter slicing through window frames but tea at Rowntrees and dances at The Grand Hotel lifted morale.

Bletchley Park outposts

The 'Y' Service had outposts all over the world from Hong Kong to Cairo. There were also decryption units in Colombo and Ceylon for cracking the Japanese code. McKay's book tells the story of the usually very young men and women sent out to far flung outposts to listen in for Bletchley Park.

McKay told the story of Jean Valentine who at eighteen was sent to Ceylon. She originally came from Perth and had a very high IQ. Her journey sent her over the U boat infested waters and six weeks later she arrived in Ceylon. She had never left Scotland before. She often worked all night, fighting off tropical insects and snakes. Despite the long arduous hours, she soaked up this exotic world of colour. She danced and swam and met her husband to be. On returning to England, they found it grey and dull and moved to Burma. Bletchley changed her life.

Peter Budd was sent to Ceylon but asked for a transfer and he and eighteen other men were sent to some remote islands in the Indian Ocean, so secret they were erased from official maps. He was not allowed to tell his parents what hemisphere he was on. On duty he worked on cracking codes and tracking submarines; off duty he listened to records, swam and sailed.

Consequences of secrecy

Many relatives never knew what vital work their relatives had done. McKay told the tragic story of a young man called John Herraville who in 1940 had a 'eureka' moment, a lightning flash of insight into how the German operators set the machines up. His discovery was of colossal strategic importance and yet he could never tell his parents. His dying father apparently thought he had been useless during the war and his son could not even tell him then.

Whereas other veterans of the war were able to meet up and reminisce, coming to terms with their experiences, the code cracking technology was still in use during the Cold War so there were no means, for those who had worked at Bletchley, to have reunions. It is only now that the work of the young people at Bletchley has been properly celebrated.

Bletchley Park is now a museum and some of the Wrens that worked there are guides. Sinclair McKay's book has been well reviewed and is an amazing collection of memories from people now in their eighties. It comes highly recommended.

Visiting Scarborough on the cusp between the worst March in living memory and who knows what summer to come, you can absorb the contrasts and contradictions it displays.

Arriving on a bleak Thursday the rolling sea fret merged the steely sky with the gentle undulations of a battleship grey North Sea, the atmosphere heightened by the eerie booming of a fog horn and the occasional calls of the gulls.

Yet within a few days the blue sky emerged and a stiff but warming breeze lifted crests on the waves so the sea had become alive. Our hosts at our last night in Scarborough assured us that there is year round trade here these days, but one does sense that the town is only just awakening and readying itself for the summer. The beach huts are gaily and freshly painted, but still locked and the beach is a lonely place until the afternoon comes around.

If you sit at the far end of South Bay in calm seclusion you can take in the view of Scarborough Old Town, the harbour and other iconic features which evoke its identity and history. On the headland the castle occupies the highest vantage point, which tails away to the west, almost reminiscent of a Yorkist Royal Mile. Well, perhaps not. It passes St Mary's Church in whose graveyard lies Anne Bronte, who succumbed to consumption here.

The church rises from the fringes of an area of council housing, which reminds us that Scarborough is a real urban mix and somewhat unusual in North Yorkshire. Walk down the streets of Westborough and Newborough through the old town and you'll move from the chain stores, on to charity and pawn shops before hitting the doughnut and candyfloss belt besides the harbour.

Back to our view: look to the extreme left and the landmarks of Scarborough's heyday as a rapidly growing spa town in Victorian times stand out: the Spa buildings, standing on the site of the original concert hall destroyed by fire in 1876; peering down from above the cliffs the gracious curve of the Crescent, at the end of which stands Scarborough Art Gallery and its paintings by Robert Ernest Roe of the wrecks below the Grand Hotel during the October storm of 1880. These, with the painting of the Spa fire by John Atkinson Grimshaw, show a still recognisable shoreline, and bring its history to life when you walk outside again.

Not visible from here, but easily found should you walk inland from above the Spa complex is the church of St Martin-on-the-Hill, built at the same time, with its pre-Raphaelite furnishings, stained glass and art work by Burne-Jones, Morris, Maddox Brown and Rossetti. Try a Tuesday for a visit - we are assured there are guided tours.

We came to Scarborough with low expectations, probably born of ignorance. Three days later we left thinking we should return. No time to retread the story of the decline of the British seaside resort here. Suffice to say that look around and there are the signs that the past is where its best years probably will always be: the seaside cliff walks in part are crumbling, some buildings are decaying and there is an aura of what has been rather than what will be.

But look at it another way: it is always tempting to say "If only they could spend a little money and tidy it up, wouldn't it be nice". That's happened to so many towns, at the expense of the quirky idiosyncracies and the peculiar. Visit the Market Hall and the vaults below now just in case they get redeveloped.

And of course we haven't even mentioned the happening things that are putting Scarborough on the Arts Map. The long established Stephen Joseph Theatre has been rejoined by the revamped Open Air Theatre (upcoming appearances from Olly Murs, Katherine Jenkins, The Wanted and more) and the 7th Scarborough Literature Festival has just come to a storming and successful end. Mark down the 8th for Easter next year.

So come to Scarborough without any preconceptions and prejudices and enjoy it for what it is. Walk through the shops and expect the unexpected and you will not be disappointed. Even enjoy the candy floss.

With thanks to Welcome to Yorkshire for use of their stunning photos.

Gina Campbell told her fascinating story to the Scarborough Literature Festival giving the audience a unique insight into what it is like to be part of the land and water speed record dynasty.

As Damon Hill says in the introduction to the book,' Famous names are troublesome things: they prefigure you.' And indeed she has lived in the shadow of greatness all her life, being the daughter of Donald Campbell who died aged forty three on Coniston Water, attempting to break another record in his boat Bluebird K7 and the granddaughter of Malcolm Campbell.

Between them father and son they set eleven speed records on water and ten on land.

'I was there and Bluebird was there and he chose Bluebird' (Mail online)

Gina had an unhappy childhood. When her parents divorced, she was sent to a children's Home at the age of two for three years. She returned to the family home when Donald remarried. Her father married three times in all and Gina moved between ten boarding schools.

Her childhood was often lonely. Her father was so focused on breaking speed records, she always came second. He was a strict, distant, unaffectionate father, reenacting his own strict Victorian like upbringing.

He regularly used corporal punishment and often criticized and belittled her. She believes the fact she rarely laughs out loud nowadays is down to the fact he said she laughed like a donkey and used to imitate her.

Her mother showed no emotion towards her and, after putting Gina in a home at the age of two, they didn't meet again until Gina was sixteen. She remembers once listening in on a phone conversation, between Donald and her mother, where her mother went back on her word to look after Gina for the weekend because she had some beauty appointments. They are estranged to this day.

But despite this Gina does not seem bitter. Indeed she adores her father's memory. Despite three failed marriages and one suicide attempt, she has come through her difficulties and the fighting Campbell spirit runs in her blood. She has also inherited her family's love of speed, which runs through her DNA, and has contributed to the family legacy by setting the women's world water speed record in 1984 in Bluebird 11 and then bettering it in 1990, a record which stood until 1993.

Donald forever in his father's shadow

Malcolm gained his world speed records on land and water in the 1920s and 30s, using vehicles called 'Bluebird'. He was a high profile figure: a celebrity. Crowds thronged the streets, twenty people deep to see him. As Gina said: 'He had it easy,' whereas Donald was dogged by bad luck.

Nothing came easily to him whether it be the weather, the crew of finance. He was always trying to prove himself. Gina describes the love of speed as an addiction. 'The day after you have broken a speed record is a huge anticlimax and then you get back on the treadmill to break the next record.'

Donald's death on Coniston water

Gina will forever be closely associated with the fatal attempt by her father to break the water speed record in Bluebird K7 in 1967 on Coniston Water in the Lake District. At the time was working in Switzerland, aged seventeen, as a chalet girl. She remembers how she was called to the office at 9am and told, 'Your father has had an accident.'

But, as she said, youth is resilient, and she comforts herself with the knowledge he died doing what he wanted. 'He immortalized himself'. Indeed he had always been rather ashamed of his father's prosaic death: he died after a series of strokes.

Donald's body was not recovered until 2001. He was interred in Coniston cemetery on 12th September 2001. Once again bad luck prevented him having the funeral fit for a King which Gina thinks he deserved. His death was overshadowed in the media by the 9/11 attacks in the USA.

Wreckage of Bluebird K7 causes family disagreements

In 1997, Gina got a phone call, from a diver and enthusiast called Bill Smith, who had been inspired to look for Donald's body and the wreck and had bumped into the Bluebird's iconic tail. He wanted to bring up the boat and Donald's body.

Gina sanctioned it because she realised that, since others divers now knew where the boat lay, they would be diving 154 feet to the bottom of Coniston Water and stealing bits of the boat as souvenirs. She also wanted a Christian burial for her father.

However, Donald's sister was against the whole project, as Donald had always said in the event of his death by an accident, 'Skipper and boat stay together.' She did not attend her brother's funeral.

Project to rebuild Bluebird K7

Bluebird is being restored in Newcastle. The idea is that when it is restored it will be displayed in the Ruskin Museum in Coniston but the project was meant to be finished by 2007 and she is still waiting. Gina believes there are ulterior motives behind the delay. 'They have fallen in love with it and don't want to let it go.'

The world moves on

Gina too nearly lost her life practising for a record breaking event. Her boat leapt fifty feet out of the water and did a backward flip. As she is of a slight build, she was flung out of the boat, and got away with broken collar bones and sternum. Three days later she was back in her boat.

But even during Donald's day people were losing interest in land and water speed records. Where once it captured the public's imagination, technology had advanced and man was going to the moon, as well as it being seen as environmentally and ecologically unsound.

Looking a decade younger than her sixty three years, Gina she spoke candidly about her life. She only realized at his death how amazing her father was.

As she said in an interview with The Telegraph: 'I didn't think at the time how extraordinary my father was. As far as I was concerned his job was record breaking like other people's fathers went to an office and did accountancy.'

This book is a tale of a driven family, a tale of suffering, heartbreak, broken relationships as well as triumph and love. Gina comes across as a remarkable woman, the Campbell fighting spirit allowing her to emerge strong and fearless. She has survived and succeeded, despite and because of her incredible upbringing.

Professor David Lodge is a graduate and Honorary Fellow of University College London.

He has been twice Booker shortlisted, and is a writer of fiction, stage and screen plays as well as several books of literary criticism. He is perhaps best known for his novels 'Changing Places,' 'Nice Work' and 'Small World'.

At Scarborough Literature Festival, he spoke about his latest venture, a biographical novel of HG Wells 'A Man of Parts' and explained clearly why he had chosen this form, rather than writing a biography.

Why write it as a novel?

Lodge explained there were many biographies of Wells. What he wanted to do was to get inside the consciousness of H G Wells and produce an imaginative interpretation and fill in the gaps. He always asks: 'What were they feeling?' and 'What verbal interactions with others occurred?' whereas biographers can't invent dialogue.

Lodge insists the biography and the biographical novel are complimentary, rather than being in competition with each other, despite the suspicion with which some biographers view this alternative form. As a writer, Lodge brings his scenes to life and gets inside Wells' head.

What drew Lodge to H G Wells?

Lodge was fascinated by the writer who had both literary and political ambitions which often conflicted. He joined the Socialist Fabian Society but broke with them and ran as a Labour Party Candidate for London University. His political life was not as successful as his work as a writer.

Lodge, as a university professor and critic has written of Wells and taught his books. There are certain similarities between Lodge and Wells. They both share a London childhood and went to London University. They both come from the same lower middle class origins and are writers.

But, Lodge hastened to add, there the similarity ends. Wells was vehemently anti Catholic and had some bad ideas to do with race and eugenics. Wells had a turbulent life and was promiscuous and highly sexed, whereas Lodge is a happily married monogamous man!

In 1891 Wells married his cousin Isobel but they separated in 1897. He fell in love with one of his students, Jane and they moved to Sandgate, near Folkestone, where he constructed a large family home, Spade House. Here his two sons were born. But with his wife's consent, he had a number of affairs and had a son and a daughter out of wedlock by two different women, one of whom was the novelist and feminist Rebecca West, who was twenty six years his junior.

Lodge sees Wells as a genius and some of his science fiction has a prophetic quality, but although many of his stories will live on such as 'The Time Machine', 'War of the Worlds' 'The History of Mr. Polly' and 'Tono-Bungay', he wrote too fast, often in response to issues of the time. In fact he wrote fifty books and 2,000 articles and short stories, many of which do not stand the test of time.

What literary devices did Lodge use in this biographical novel?

The main story is written from Wells' point of view. Lodge used the device of Wells in his old age, talking to himself. He hears a voice and Wells talks, interviews and defends himself. It is left to the reader to make judgments. Lodge presents him warts and all.

He also uses letters in the novel, some are genuine but sometimes Lodge wrote the letter, because he knew a letter had existed as he had the response to it or sometimes he felt that was the only way information could be passed on to the reader. Lodge had read accounts of Wells reaction to seeing his young ward, May Nesbit, on the beach, clad in a swim suit, when she was in her late teens.

Wells suddenly saw her as a woman, and was overcome with desire for her, but, despite his promiscuous tendencies, he was honorable enough not to act on his impulses! Lodge read an extract, describing this event, getting into Wells' head.

How does Lodge see himself as a writer?

Lodge sees himself as a literary novelist. He tries to write books which will stand reading many times. Many of his books are laugh out loud funny, just as Wells too can be funny.

Lodge has combined commercial success with Literary merit. 'Nice Work' was made into a successful four part BBC TV series in 1989. He sees himself as getting more somber as he gets older. His books often have a binary structure: two countries or two types of people colliding.

Lodge told us he was going deaf and he has used this in his 2008 novel 'Deaf Sentence'. I read the first paragraph at his book signing and let out a loud guffaw! But it has a more sombre note. It is an absorbing account of one man's effort to come to terms with deafness, ageing and mortality, and the comedy and tragedy of human lives.

This was a most fascinating talk, sensitively hosted by the journalist and writer Peter Guttridge. If you want an entertaining but informative read, 'A Man of Parts' has been praised by reviewers.

Lodge shows us the personal and the public man. As Blake Morrison says in his review in 'The Guardian', this book has narrative drive. ' It bounds along terrifically and never tires, even in bed,' much like Wells himself!

Dorothy Koomson, the internationally bestselling author of seven novels, and Lesley Pearse, one of the UK's best loved novelists with sales of over seven million copies of her books, discussed their craft at the Scarborough Literature Festival.

Koomson is the author of the 2010 novel 'The Ice Cream Girls' currently being shown on ITV, and is about emotional abuse and bullying. Pearse is author of the best seller 'Trust Me', based on the true life scandal of British child migrants sent to Australia in the post war period.

Ably hosted by writer James Nash, the two women discussed what inspires them, what common themes run through their book, the craft of writing and their latest novels. This was a fascinating insight into the world of a professional writer.

Recurring Themes

Lesley Pearse writes big thick well researched sagas. Returning themes are the effect of emotional damage in childhood and redemption. Her characters go through emotional trauma and survive.

She was interested to realise that, because she is a very hygienic person, when the male and female protagonists are about to consummate their love, she always puts in a washing scene, whether it be a shower or a dip in the sea! Dorothy Koomson's characters find out who they really are, by circumstances imposed on them. Through adversity, they discover new things about themselves.

The Process Of Writing

Both women do not think of their audience, as they write. They just focus on telling the story and transporting the reader to another place. Both women's readership is predominately female but Lesley Pearse criticizes her publishers for making her novels look 'girlie' by their covers, when the issues written about should appeal to men too.

Writing about grueling issues can be grueling. Lesley Pearse lost her mother under tragic circumstance, aged three. Because her father was serving in the Royal Marines, she and her elder brother were sent to separate orphanages. Although, eventually they moved back into the family home, once her father had remarried, her early suffering was rich material for her novels.

Both women research extensively, often using the internet, contacting groups through forums and, for Pearse, extensive travel. To a lesser extent, they sometimes interview individuals.

It was interesting to hear both women talk of their characters taking on a life of their own and sometimes refusing to let the writer do something and leading the author to a totally unexpected place in the plot or refusing the planned Hollywood ending. For both writers the plot comes first but out of that come the characters, the two are inextricably entwined.

For both women, the art of writing isn't something they can timetable, writing from nine to five. When the muse inspires and the deadlines loom, the process of writing can be all consuming, working through the night.

Latest Books

Dorothy Koomson read the first few paragraphs of the first chapter of her latest novel 'Rose Petal Beach'. The story starts, when Tania and Scott happily at home with their children, are disturbed by a knock on the door.

That moment will change everything and explode their bubble of domestic bliss, as Scott is accused of something terrible. The audience was spell bound by her reading and there was a mass exhalation of air as she finished before spontaneous applause broke out.

Lesley Pearse's latest novel 'The Promise' is a sequel to her 2011 novel 'Belle'. In this first novel Belle is forced into a life of prostitution and becomes a successful courtesan in New Orleans before she decides to break free from her gilded cage.

'The Promise' continues Belle's story, as Belle becomes a Red Cross Ambulance driver in France in 1914 and meets a man from her past. It is a tale of the battle between passion and loyalty.

The long line of fans, some of whom had travelled great distances, queuing to buy their books and getting armfuls of novels signed after the talk, was testimony to the popularity of these novelists. I for one intend to read some of their books.