Whitby Review, November 2008:

The Man with Toasted Cheese Gazes Also

This Whitby was a little different. I'm in the middle of a degree now - a postgraduate MRes - so my time is no longer entirely my own to arrange as I will. I'd worked super hard for the previous two weeks getting all my urgent work assignments out of the way, but I still had to get to a Social Theory class on Holocaust theories at lunchtime on the day we were due to leave. "This is the dark side of Sociology," said the professor, John, apologetically, as if it would put us off. A side of human nature it seemed nobody wanted to discuss. I felt that I was at last on familiar territory, discussing Milgram and Zimbardo. John talked about how the Nazis compared the Jews to rats. I pointed out that, in an experiment similar to Milgram's (where eighty odd percent of volunteers eagerly delivered what they thought were dangerous electric shocks to sobbing victims), eighty percent of rats who could receive a favourite piece of food if they electrocuted another rat chose, instead, to go hungry. Let's not get too smug about being human, eh?

The class finished, I bolted like a rat from a cage out of the building, into the waiting car. Erith and Stuart (Potatojunkie) had packed my things and we set off at once to begin our holiday. We had intended to drive directly to Whitby without passing go, but Erith had become so accustomed to turning off at Penrith that we went on holiday there by mistake, stopping anyway so that they could pee and buy pies. I guarded the car and demanded a tithe for doing so - a lump of delicious fudge which gave me the sugar I needed to stop feeling ill and make proper conversation the rest of the way. I wanted to keep discussing social theory out of loyalty to my course (and to stop me feeling like I should be working on stats, though we were still counting dead birds and animals as we went - birds won), but we were all a little too familiar with history for it to work as planned. "Who now remembers the Armenians?" asked Erith, quoting Stalin. John had noted that many sociologists dismissed the Holocaust as a one-off. What planet do they come from?

Enough bitching; we were on holiday, and it was time to set about the serious business of relaxing. Stuart and I relaxed in the Elsinore with a couple of glasses of rum when we got into Whitby, whilst Erith drove around further trying to locate Donald, who had travelled down on the train, and our keys, which he had collected for us from the agency. It was seven o'clock by the time we were in our cottage and the car still had to be unpacked. Stuart collapsed in exhaustion at that point but Erith managed to accompany me to Somerfield to get some basic shopping in. We ate a delicious dinner, another of his mother's lasagnes, and drank tea, though, since I'm planning a pregnancy and it absorbs folic acid, I'm really supposed to be cutting down.

Later I went back to the Elsinore to meet Donald and Squiggle and Westie, with whom he was sharing a flat. Squiggle had cut his hair and grown a moustache which he could twirl at the ends, and he waxed lyrical about the pleasures of facial hair. I enjoyed a couple of pints of Murphy's and we talked late into the evening, gradually welcoming other people as they arrived, but it was a fairly quiet night. I got home to find Stuart dozing on top of his Michael Moorcock book and decided it was best to get some sleep in preparation for the adventures to follow.

Thursday morning began with a long shower to wash the world of work (and a few other things) out of my hair; then I sat downstairs eating Somerfield savers faux-co pops and medication and reading Judith Halberstam's In a Queer Time and Place whilst Stuart fried second breakfast. After we'd eaten we set out on a charity shopping mission, on which, quite contrary to tradition, Stuart had no jam at all, though I did pretty well, picking up an olive drab fishnet top, blue lacy underwear and a translucent black top; I did also get a pink and purple PVC snake pattern skirt for us to share. Erith wandered along with us part of the way and found a small lion for his adopted nephew Daniel. In Save The Children he found a sign which said 'shoplifting from this store is stealing from children', and remarked that that only served to remind him how easy it would be. By the end of our wanderings Stuart was tired, though I was bearing up unusually well, so we stopped in a cafe and I bought him a milkshake. There was no rush, anyhow. Some of the shops were still to finish putting out their displays.

That evening, after Erith had cooked us a delicious meal of field mushrooms and blue stilton, Donald came over to visit, and we went around the pubs to see what was happening. Everywhere was packed, so it was hard to find our people, but eventually we secured a place in the Resolution, finding a big table by the window. I helped Donald secure beer and, though briefly distracted by a flirtatious green-haired girl, returned to my boy, proud to watch him drinking pints at last. Squiggle, Westie and Matt P were there, the latter busily engaged in his knitting, and all three absorbed in watching a stranger make cheese on toast through another window across the street, becoming more cheerfully addicted to the habit of voyeurism with every twist of the telephoto lens. It was an odd evening, but we had fun, and I found myself with plenty of energy, leaving only when Stuart was exhausted and needed to be taken to bed; the others didn't leave until four. Erith stumbled in at quarter to five (no-one is sure where he was in the meantime), as I was downstairs getting painkillers. He decided to be careful going upstairs, and use the banister, and he promptly swung himself head first into it, gashing his brow.

Stuart was full of bounce the next morning as I suffered from my broken sleep, but he was very persuasive in waking me, so I stumbled downstairs with him and went out on a morning shopping trip which included a visit to the Greedy Pig. I stood outside, my stomach rebelling at the smell; a group of mohawked strangers haggled over who owed who bacon and a pretty young woman gave me lollipops. When we got home I happily devoured my crackling and gave most of my sandwich to a bleary-eyed Erith who staggered downstairs half-naked and sulking. Stuart gave some of his to a plump young pigeon which was hanging around outside in our alleyway, meeping piteously. Then it was time to head up to the bizarre bazaar, which was spread across even more locations than usual. In the Royal Hotel we bumped into Elder, whom I've known online for years but had never met in person before, and who was quite charming. Unfortunately we couldn't linger long at the stalls there because some hippy idiot had filled the place with incense fumes which made it hard to breathe.

The stalls in the Spa weren't up to much, though we caught up with more friends there and were glad of a temporary respite from driving rain, the sea thundering furiously beneath. In the Metropole Stuart found a practical pair of black velvet jeans and I got a much-needed rest before proceeding to the leisure centre, where he bought very tight cheetah-print trousers and we met up with Erith and Donald. We went on to the rifle club but there was nothing much there, just pseudo-medieval bits and pieces and expensive jewellery. Wandering homeward in an unsuccessful search for food, we met Ashbet and her friend Josh, and we eventually settled for eating supermarket pizza in front of the Paranormal Channel.

Young people today seem to think it's important to dress up for Hallowe'en, something I never really did, though I've always celebrated it, so Stuart spent much of that evening preparing his costume - going as his friend Justine. This involved wearing an old cardigan of hers and someone's granny's skirt, spraying his hair pink and making 'piercings' out of silver ball cake decorations stuck on with nail varnish (which everybody thought were real). It was surprisingly effective and left me feeling terribly rude for continuing to be attracted to him. We went out together, with Donald, but Stuart was unhappy in the crowded Resolution so I took him home to watch a Cynthia Rothrock movie; later we tried the Elsinore but he had the same problem. I stayed there, enjoying hanging out with a big cluster of my friends, with Siani just arrived and excited to be reunited with her sometime lover Gib. There was talk of a party after chucking out time but I wanted to check on Stuart first, and I found him looking so appealingly domestic that I couldn't bring myself to leave again. Is this what the love of a good woman does to a person? No more drugs and rock n' roll for me when I could be sitting devotedly on the stairs whilst he hogged the bathroom. Meanwhile, Siani and Gib were screwing in Preacher's garden and making sure Gib got thrown out by his flatmates, while Jez dozed in the back of a car.

The following day all that good behaviour began to take its toll on me. Stuart was sleepy and lingered in bed but I needed to get up and out of the house. Unfortunately it was too windy for me to get around easily outside by myself. I played Scrabble with Erith and read my book. When Stuart was ready to move, the three of us walked along in the direction of the Spa, but stopped when we encountered Ashbet, Josh, Cavalorn, Lucy and little Sabrina in their favourite cafe. We sat down and got milkshakes and Sabrina made her first discovery of ranged weaponry, flicking some at me with a straw. She was fascinated by Stuart's camera and was pleased to get to play with Lucy's, which she used to bludgeon her rubber giraffe. Lucy was full of helpful advice about pregnancy, though I'm not sure how relevant it will ultimately be to me, given my rather complicated medical situation. It would have been easy to linger there for the rest of the day but we wanted to go and check out the second hand stall at the Metropole again, to see if anything there had changed, so we left. This turned out to be worthwhile as Stuart found himself a red zip-front t-shirt and I got a red and black velvet dress, not terribly exciting but warm and practical for winter.

Subsequently we tried making a second visit to the rifle club, but the air there was full of poisonous chemicals (a cleaning cupboard had been left open) and we had to flee, my skin beginning to blister nastily. I felt really sorry for the people with stalls there. Back at the cafe we found the others where we'd left them and sat with them again for a while. Everyone was browsing the bookshelves and Stuart got himself a copy of Gray's Anatomy. Promises were made about parties and we departed to go and get our dinner - bangers and mash for the others and a rather elaborate form of cheese on toast for me (Erith likes to be creative with these things).

It was to be Erith's party that night, but he wasn't in a good mood, banging things around in the kitchen and stomping. As the evening drifted by without guests appearing he only grew gloomier. I was unsure what to do, not daring to beat him at Scrabble again and make him feel worse. EdwardS popped by for a flying visit, driving between Hawick and Birmingham, and it was cool to catch up, but Erith had no faith that people would appear to celebrate his birthday (to be fair, he had already had one party back in Glasgow, during which he had become very drunk and attempted to suffocate young Korin). In truth, though, everyone was just busy with pub stuff, or experiencing the usual baby-related delays, and once midnight rolled around they duly made their appearance.

They came, for the most part, directly from Bits n' Pizzas, all armed with cardboard boxes from which arose a most unholy stench. As they ate I found myself a seat at the far end of the room where I could talk to Wraithlady and her husband and admire the delicious home made damson rum they'd brought with them. Ashbet came to join us and it was nice to have adult conversation, whilst zombies gnawed away at the screen in the background for those who hadn't wanted to forsake their other Hallowe'en fun. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Siani had somehow contrived to lose half her clothes and Erith was eating donner meat off her breasts whilst other people drew on her. A conversation about potatoes was conducted on her arm and Pacman chased food across her shoulder. I was offered a pen, but declined, not trusting myself.

Sabrina responded to this misbehaviour with disdainful looks and occupied herself with the more respectable business of trying to insert her hand into the video recorder, effortlessly commanding her part of the room. I enjoyed catching up with Giolla, who had just come from a wedding and looked terribly smart, and Stuart joined us for a little while, demonstrating that he could snap effortlessly in and out of seeming as drunk as the other younger ones. Prudence flirted with Donald, snogged Erith and then moved on to Squiggle, prompting Erith to pick on her about the ten times she's written off her car, at which she laughed and said her daddy had paid for it. Eventually the crowd thinned out and Siani, still stained with kebab sauce and with a large penis drawn on her back, went off to have sex with Gib in her car, whilst Jez slumped unconscious on our couch, prompting a game of stuffonmyjez.com. By that point we were out of irn bru and I was quite ready for my bed.

On Sunday we woke up shockingly late. I was worried that we wouldn't have time to get anything done, but Stuart and I still made it down to Endeavour Books to do some shopping, and I bought an Alfred Bester anthology. We got scampi and delicious panga from the chip shop and took it back to the cottage to eat. Other goths stopped us to ask what it was. "Alternative fish for alternative people," I assured them, trying to do my bit to stop the depletion of cod and haddock stocks in the North Sea. There wasn't a lot of time to eat, though, as Stuart had to get ready for Eighties Night, dressing in the skintight saffron-coloured catsuit he'd recently acquired in a Scottish Ballet sale. Apparently this caused some considerable consternation because, under the lights in Laughton's, many people's first impression was that he wasn't wearing anything at all.

I spent most of my evening in the Elsinore, talking to Spooky for a while before he ran off to doll himself up in silver spandex and try to compete; thereafter catching up with Ant. Donald joined us and we watched a local Stones cover band. They were so bad that several musicians up and left, unable to take it, but I found the friendly atmosphere - a good mix of goths and locals - quite enjoyable, so we hung around for a while. At midnight, as usual, I went to collect Stuart. Erith set up his chairs in the street and we soon acquired a good crowd of friends. Stuart was wasted, though - after he'd polished off a bottle of wine and some tequila in the queue, somebody had given him a very long straw, and he had drunkenly wandered round sticking it in random people's drinks and helping himself. He slumped on my arm and told me he wanted to go home. After he'd changed, we popped into the Resolution to see if anything was happening there, but it was still overcrowded and the music was awful, so it was back to the cottage again for tea, pizza and bed.

When morning came, Stuart was bright and bouncy, completely hangover-free, which prompted him to declare that he's now going to eat a pizza every night before bed. I guess that would have the added advantage that I could easily roll him home. Erith, refusing to be picked on about how much he was eating, had made himself a t-shirt with the legend 'je ne suis pas une pie'. 'Tarte', I corrected him, though I wasn't sure it was completely true.

After a blustery first half to the week, Monday was beautiful, with intermittent blue skies and genuinely warm sunshine. Stuart and I decided to take advantage of it by walking down to the beach, where somebody had carved an enormous sand wanger. A traditonal fertility symbol, I figured, and good luck in our situation. We stopped to pet some donkeys who were strolling on the beach looking for children to carry. Then I ran to the cave. It's hard to describe how exciting this was for me. It's the first time I've run for years. I would have been afraid to try it on hard ground - there's a serious danger of me breaking bones if I should fall - but I figured the sand was safer. Though it was much harder work than I'd imagined and I couldn't lift my legs up very high, it was still running, and I was thrilled. I also climbed up on a rock in the cave by myself. Doctor Marten has revolutionised my life.

After lingering for a while by the sea, we went for a stroll on the pier, where Stuart camera geeked with a local and a telescope stole my money. We walked back along the promenade; he picked up lost change in an arcade and turned it into more money; I bought candy floss and got him a bag of flying saucers. It was then time to go to the chocolate shop, where we raised eyebrows with the amount of stuff we were buying, but it did include presents, and it's intended to last for the next six months.

Having checked in on Erith and dropped off our loot, we made our way to the offices of the Whitby Gazette to order our newspapers and find out that their team had beaten Real Gothic 4:1 in the previous day's football match. Up in the Shambles we met Cav, Lucy, Sabrina, Ashbet, Josh and Donald, and it was fun to hang out for a while, as plans were made for future visiting and Sabrina picked a fight with another baby. Afterwards we went to get more tasty panga - the last in the shop - and chatted awhile with an ex-pat couple from Dumfries

That night was the night of the fire, so we wrapped up super warm and fortified ourselves with rum and grapefruit juice. There was a good crowd on the beach and the fire had been well prepared in a deep pit. Drinks were shared around and some people cooked sausages. Although the wind was up it was a fairly warm night and Chewy had soon stripped off most of his clothes, revealing a pair of white underpants with 'Maverick' written on the back. He had something in common with Tom Cruise, it was said, because he too had dumped a bird for being ginger. Soon other people stripped too, revealing themselves an an organised Top Gun themed team. They then threw themelves onto the Maffball pitch to start playing with fire.

The Maffball went well, despite Giolla's plan to hurl a bucketfull of fire onto the pitch at half time being thwarted when someone diluted is paraffin at the last minute. I didn't watch all of it, taking the time to slip off into the dark and go in the sea by myself, something else I'd missed, though it's always important to be careful around those harbour currents. Afterwards I dried off in the wind and rejoined the crowd in time to see Marconi go on fire. A quick roll in the sand and he was extinguished with no real harm done. I also enjoyed watching some spectacular burning steel wool spinning and other fiery stunts.

Once the fireworks began to fly - uncoordinated this time - Stuart and I decided that it would be safest to leave, trooping up past the Duke of York, along Church Street and over the swing bridge as fog began to creep across the water. The Elsinore and Little Angel were already closed and nothing else exciting seemed to be happening, so we retired for a cup of tea and a game of Scrabble before bed.

Despite having planned to leave early this year, Erith didn't get back until seven in the morning, just three hours before we got up. The weather was unpleasant again but we had shopping to do, to find presents for the people back home, and we had to book our cottages for next year. Sadly, because the next event falls on Easter weekend and the one after it in the English school half term, we were unable to get our beloved Haven cottage again. The physical inaccessibility of most other cottages left us with very limited choice, so we settled fora Victorian apartment on the West Cliff. Not quite what we'd hoped for, but adequate - and of course, I shall have to see what happens with my course and my pregnancy before I know if I can attend at all.

Unfortunately, though I had been in unusually good health all week, I started to cramp up quite badly when we reached the old town, where we bought some spidery arm warmers for Korin. We went to visit Donald on Henrietta Street so that I could rest and we could catch up. He was only just out of bed and in a very good mood, having pulled the night before. He fed spicy potato stuff to Stuart and they sat around watching a cop movie. When I felt better I climbed out through the window onto the balcony and stood there in just my corset, skirt and boots in the wind and the drizzling rain, enjoying the superb view out across the sea. Then I discovered that there was no handle on the outside ofthe window, so, having decided I was now too cold, I had to stand there and bang and get laughed at before I was helped back in.

We walked down to Bobbins from the cottage and then, since the rain had become fiercer, took a break in a fish restaurant where I ate a toffee sundae, one of the few ethically acceptable things on the menu. Afterwards we did some tidying back up at Haven Cottage and Stuart settled down to watch his friend Dawn in Channel 4's ridiculous beauty pageant programme. I have a very low tolerance for that kind of bullshit at the best of times (how is it liberating women to convince them to be a blander kind of object?) and I really didn't need their focus on skin cancer when I have to go for a biopsy myself next week on account of the drugs I need to take to stay alive. I went to sit outside in the rain and Erith came and took me to the pub.

Mercifully, there were real people in the Elsie, and real conversation. The crowd grew as the evening went on. After his programme, Stuart went back to Donald's cottage to help him carry his bag over to ours so we could drive it back home (Donald had injured his leg) and then the two of them joined us as well. It was nice to see Adsevin and The Emperor Penguin for a bit, as, though we live in the same city, they hardly ever come out. Of course, this meant the Adsevin and Stuart spent much of the evening in camera geekery.

Of the three of us, I was the last to leave. There was already a pot of tea ready when I got home and Stuart was stretched out on the floor watching US election coverage. He said he wanted to stay up for all of it; I pointed out that some states wouldn't declare until six, we had no idea how close it might be, and we had to get up at seven thirty. So we watched the first couple of results and then went upstairs to curl up together on our last night in our favourite cottage.

In the morning I was so fuzzy and tired that I quite forgot about it all. I lay propped up on the pillows, absently admiring Stuart as he dressed and then watching him pack his case. Then suddenly he stood bolt upright, shouted "Election!" and bolted off down the stairs. I dragged myself upright and pulled on my new dress, clung blearily to the banister. I could hear him and Erith talking excitably downstairs. "What happened?" I enquired, and they shouted back "Obama! By a landslide!"

Of course, when one considers the overall popular vote, that's not quite true, but we didn't know it at the time. I was concerned that there was no information about California's Proposition 8, which some of my friends have been working very hard to stop, but I was still pleased by the general news. I joined the others and Erith fed me a lump of celebratory emmenthal. Not really the best start to the day. This was followed by further amalgamations of leftovers. On the television, wide-eyed faces shone. I knew the cynicism would start soon but I was glad to see them have this moment. People who talk about what will and won't change politially are missing the point - something has changed. These people believe now that their political system can respond to them, and nothing will be the same after that. It won't change the world or human nature, but for millions of people it will change enough.

I hadn't really expected it to happen. I'd thought all along that somebody would put a bullet in Obama first, top security staff or no. Sometimes the future is hard to see. Outside our cottage it was hard to see much at all. The fog had closed in so that the ends of narrow streets faded away as if their artist had forgotten to finish them. We packed the car and ran last-minute errands. I felt really sick, but there was not much I could do about it. We said goodbye to Whitby, and Erith bravely drove us onward into the all-enveloping whiteness.

Will we return? I expect so, though perhaps not quite in the same way. The Whitby Gothic Weekend is not what it once was, either, but nevertheless, this is my kind of cheese.

Photos appearing on these pages are courtesy of Potatojunkie. You can see more of his collection from this Whitby here.

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Last updated 10th January, 2009