Special visit wasmarred

I live in Cumbria but spent all my summer holidays growing up in Scarborough. I have many happy memories of the place and have revisited many times since my childhood.

Last year my dad died very suddenly. I have epilepsy and this threw me sideways.

After his cremation I made the decision to scatter his ashes by the rocks where we used to play in the South Bay near the old swimming pool. We always had a beach hut there.

So last year on July 12 I scattered my dad into the sea.

A tiny part was kept back to be made into some jewellery.

On July 13 I fell gravely ill and spent two weeks on a ventilator after suffering several seizures. I nearly lost my life. After several weeks in hospital, a messy tracheotomy scar and an arterial bypass too, I left in a wheelchair with right-sided weakness and permanent damage to my right arm.

Two weeks ago I returned to Scarborough for the first time since falling so ill. I had the remainder of his ashes to scatter.

My daughter took me to the Spa and we parked the car and paid our £4 for two hours parking. I have a Blue Badge but paid.

We went for a coffee to prepare me to return to what is a special, be it tiny, area of the beach to release the rest of him into the ocean.

We couldn’t take the car beyond the Spa Theatre and it was too far for my daughter to try to push me back from due to its incline, so I had to walk with my crutch.

I got there to the first slope exhausted and my daughter went to place him into the sea.

I had to rest there as it was physically and emotionally exhausting a visit for me. After a long sit on a cold damp rock we returned to the car.

This return walk took forever as I was in agony and my right leg was dragging due to my exhaustion. I had to keep stopping every few steps due to the pain. Hence when we returned to the car we had a parking ticket. We walked past the attendant so he must have seen the pain I was in. I will appeal this ticket and I know the answer will be to pay up as I can’t see them allowing the appeal. I was late to my car. Be it for a reason I could not fix.

I am so upset and distressed that on a Monday afternoon in mid-March when there would be maybe five cars parked, there was an attendant who saw my distress and sat and watched me walk by to my ticket.

Maybe I was filling his quota for the day.

I don’t see the point in an appeal as legally yes he was in the right, but I feel there is no place for understanding and allowance for what was a very emotional and exhausting visit to a small rock in the beach for me.

In all the years of visiting Scarborough I have paid up and followed the rules. We have never ever parked illegally. Even now with a Blue Badge, I won’t let my daughter park on yellow lines as it’s just wrong.

So where do I stand? And is this the memory I am to be left with of laying my father who loved the town with all his heart?

I am so saddened to see parts of the town disappear and demolished yet so happy to see other parts thriving.

But this ticket leaves me with sadness that this is the world we now live in.

Claire Coleman Brampton near Carlisle

Cumbria