#4 #Monday Meanders with #David W. Robinson

It's time for some more #Monday Meanders!

Today, I'm welcoming back a very prolific (and extremely helpful) Crooked Cat author friend-  David W. Robinson.

The location featuring today is one of those seaside resorts that I almost went to in my teens. My parents went there for a holiday without me but don't worry! -  No, I wasn't a neglected child, I was on holiday with my aunt who lived in Corby, Northants!

It wasn't till a couple of decades later that Yorkshire became 'go-to' destination for me, so much so that parts of it have featured in my own novels. However, today David's here to tell us all about his favourite part. 

Welcome again, David. Let's #Meander...

If it’s Yorkshire, it must be Scarborough

Asked about a location where I’ve set a novel, Scarborough was the first place that sprang to mind, but technically I’ve never actually set a novel there.

Scarborough Spa Complex- courtesy of D.W. Robinson

Sitting in two bays about 20 miles north of Flamborough Head, Scarborough lays claim to the title, Yorkshire’s Premier Resort, and with good reason. From the fine, sandy South Bay where all the usual souvenir shops, bars, restaurants, amusement arcades and chippies are located, to the permanent dockside funfair, round to the spa complex and theatre, which still attracts biggish show business names, to the more sedate North Bay, complete with its Sea Life Sanctuary and Peasholm Park, where, if you time your visit correctly, you can witness famous sea battles recreated with radio controlled model ships, Scarborough has just about everything.

Unfortunately for a man of my advancing years, it also has more than its fair share of humongous hills. Luckily, it also enjoys not one but three funicular railways to get you from the bottom to the top.

Nancy says: My dad found that in a lot of the seaside resorts they visited the hills were an absolute challenge because he always loved to walk around to get a really good 'feel' for the places! 

The  Grand Hotel, Scarborough  -courtesy of D.W. Robinson

Scarborough has always loomed large in my life. We were there as recently as a month ago, spending a couple of nights at the Grand Hotel, a place with a history to match its name.

In 1967, on holiday with my parents, I recall watching the absolute final episode of ‘The Fugitive’ and a flood of relief as David Janssen was finally proved innocent. I remember thinking about him as I walked round the ruins of the castle wall, looking out over the whole town and of course, the North Sea.

Scarborough Castle - courtesy of D.W. Robinson

Almost 40 years ago, I met my wife in the nearby resort of Filey, and we pay at least one visit to the area, but our focus tends to be on the shopping areas of the town centre. Over the years, my wife, a Mancunian by birth, has developed a taste for the cakes, pastries and buns of Cooplands. A well-known bakery on the East Coast, they never ventured into the North West. Manchester, you don’t know what you’re missing.

I’ve been a writer for over thirty-five years, and when a minor heart wobble compelled me to retire seven years ago, I turned to writing full-time, and within a year the first book in my Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries appeared under the Crooked Cat imprint. Entitled The Filey Connection, while Joe Murray and his gang of born-again teenagers are trying to solve a couple of murders in Filey, a good proportion of the book is set in Scarborough, where I recreate an Abba tribute show which my wife and I actually attended somewhere around 2006. I even have one of the characters suffer a mugging near the funfair.

My homage to this favourite Yorkshire resort doesn’t end there. I’m widely known for my light-hearted, or blatantly humorous works, but there’s another side to me, a darker side, one that yearns to turn out hard-bitten thrillers.

Under the pen name Robert Devine, I’m working on just such a series, based in the Yorkshire coastal resort of Landshaven. And Landshaven bears a remarkable resemblance to Scarborough, right down to the harbour, nearby funfair, and the ruins of a Norman castle on the towering north promontory of the bay.

As we meander into 2018 anticipating the lighter, warmer months, my wife and I are looking forward to a week of unabashed hedonism in Benidorm. I need that annual dose of Mediterranean ultraviolet and cheap beer. The rest of the calendar remains blank.

But I know that before long we’ll pencil in a visit to Scarborough.

The Filey Connection, Sanford 3rd Age Club Mystery #1 is available as an e-book and paperback, exclusive to Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007E2JTC2

If you would like free, sample e-books , visit:

http://www.dwrob.com/the-offer/

Thank you for sharing Scarborough (and Filey) with us today, David. Enjoy any visits you and your wife make, including to those other sunny parts that aren't Scarborough or Filey! 

I can definitely recommend The Filey Connection to anyone who loves a good cozy crime mystery and to anyone who just loves a darned good story. (Somewhere on Amazon there should still be a review of it that I posted when the novel came out.) 

Till our next #Monday Meander have a good week! 

Slainthe!