Village life and its characters inspire book
Eileen recaptures place she knows and loves
Three years of research and a lifetime of her memories and those of family and friends have gone into Eileen Beaumont’s book.
Ravenscar Village Life After the Town that Never Was recounts Mrs Beaumont’s life in the village between Scarborough and Whitby.
She was born there and first left in 1977. “It covers everyday life spanning more than a century, starting in the mid1800s and moving through to the 1980s,” said Mrs Beaumont who lives in Scarborough with her husband, organist Howard.
“It is an account of enterprising businessmen and happy times documenting how we used to live,” she said.
Mrs Beaumont hails from a farming family in Ravenscar. She went to what was then Scarborough Girls’ High School and enjoyed a career in banking starting with NatWest in Scarborough.
She later ran a hotel overlooking Peasholm Park.
She has used her own knowledge and that of two of her aunts now in their 90s to write the book.
There are more than 100 photographs to illustrate life and events in Ravenscar.
They include the opening of golf links by the Earl of Cranbrooke in 1898, a porter at Ravenscar railway station and the wreck of the Mandalay in 1908.
Mrs Beaumont also recalls sporting prowess of the cricket club, local shows and the snow-bound winter of 1947.
Her accounts of two world wars remembers heroes and the loss of loved ones.
“It always gives me great pleasure to revisit this beautiful village and to remember the many happy years I lived there,” she said.
The book is published by Farthings and is available now from Whitby Bookshop.