In the army now
BRIDLINGTON: Who do you think you’re kidding? But it’s true, the Dad’s Army platoon have decamped to the Yorkshire seaside town.
ILMING started last week in the wilderness fields of nearby Bempton where actors Michael Gambon (Private Godfrey) and Tom Courtenay (Lance Corporal Jones) began work on scenes for the new film based on the much-loved wartime sitcom. It is highly likely to include the Yorkshire white chalk cliffs doubling as those immortalised by Vera Lynn, as the platoon in the film script is meant to have been sent to Dover on a mission.
Bridlington’s Old Town saw its own action this week with interior scenes under way in St John’s Avenue and exterior shots on the High Street that is made up of largely Georgian-built shops and houses that have been restored to their 1940s look. The more unkind may have asked what work was needed, but this a shot in the arm for Bridlington’s fortunes and one that the town hopes to capitalise on between now and the film’s release in 2016.
West Riding “comforts” as they are known (come for t’ day) have loved Bridlington for decades, as have the people of Hull in the East Riding. It’s only 24 miles from 2017’s City of Culture and was always a very popular week or fortnight away when I was growing up in either Lambwath Road or Sutton-on-Hull in the 70s. It’s now hard to imagine that back then a holiday was taken just a couple of dozen miles away from where we lived, when today many of us travel so much further in search of wall-to-wall sunshine. If my dad’s reading this, which he probably will be, he’ll be hoping that I don’t mention a time when he and my brother Dave found Bridlington’s sunshine just a bit too much. So I won’t.
I have particularly fond memories of playing cricket on the beach; our very own Berry Open annual golf tournament between dad, Dave and me at Sewerby Hall’s nine-hole pitch and putt course – which to us was an ideal length for any course; watching a then young David Byas hammering balls towards the cliff edge at Sewerby cricket ground, surely one of our county’s loveliest settings for the game; and once causing the greatest tailback of traffic from Bridlington back to Hull by slowing down through all the villages and places where no-one could pass, only to put my foot back down (within speed limit regulations you understand) so that the tailback remained when we slowed once more. Yes it was me, back in the late 70s or early 80s before the Leven bypass and dual carriageways were thought of in Holderness. What a jolly jape!
The village of Sewerby and Sewerby Hall and Gardens lying just to the north-east of Bridlington is a personal favourite. The famed Bridlington land-trains still make their way over the cliffs to Sewerby. There are four of them today whereas back then there were just Burlington Bertie and Bridlington Belle. I love the name of one of today’s team the Spalight Express. Sewerby Hall is a grade 1 listed Georgian country house that was once home to the Lloyd Greame family. It hosts regular exhibitions and during the winter there are music recitals held every Sunday in the Orangery. The village is also home to one of the area’s best-loved pubs, The Ship, run by Charlie and Lou Kilburn.