Just the ticket

JOE Coates is a good lad, understand, and a Shildon lad to boot. Scarborough’s fine, too, as quintessentially English as a St George’s day column might hope to happen upon, and not least when the April sun shines as invitingly as it did on Tuesday.

It was neither for the sun nor for the pleasure of a reunion with Joe that chiefly I headed to the seaside, however, but for the first ride since Sunday School trippery on the North Bay Railway.

Joe, by happy chance, has just written and published what he hopes will be the first of a series of children’s books based around that miniature marvel.

In the first, the engine driver stops to rescue a teddy bear dropped on the line. “It’s about the most dramatic thing that’s ever going to happen,”

says Joe, a retired primary school teacher.

“There’ll be no robberies, no fires, no mobile phones. The books will just capture the simple delights of being at the seaside.”

We kicked around a bit together as kids, mainly on the footy field. Joe was good enough to play a few games for Darlington Reserves, in the Northern League, for Shildon and West Auckland and – Coates of many colours – for Cockfield when they were canny.

I wasn’t even good enough for Timothy Hackworth school team. “I remember you as a safe pair of hands but not very agile,” said Joe, far too kindly.

Though always an enthusiastic writer – “I liked science fiction and horror stories” – he’s had to wait until retirement before venturing into print.

“I’ve written nativity plays, the sort of thing you do as a primary school teacher, but never made a book. Now ideas are shooting into my head all the time.

“Basically, I did the wrong A-levels.

I took physics and chemistry because someone said that if I did English I’d only end up as a teacher.”

He left the blackboard jungle 20 years ago, came to Scarborough with his wife Margaret to manage a Christian conference centre, returned to teaching after three years. Scarborough, and particularly the North Bay where now they live, has never for a moment lost its ozone attraction.

“It’s just everything about it. Margaret and I still walk down to the beach almost every day, just to have a look at the rocks or the sky or to see what sea birds are about.

“In the morning you see wonderful reflections of the sun behind the castle and it’s just as special in the evening when the sun has gone down. Some of the colours are incredible; if you did a painting like that, people wouldn’t believe it.

“We bring the grandchildren and others down here all the time. I like the South Bay, too, but it’s a different sort of elegance. Scarborough’s a simply wonderful place to be.”

THE train from York to Scarborough is very much more crowded, positively wick with folk, than the North Bay Railway will prove to be. Have they no jobs?

Have they no schools? Have they no Over 60s clubs?

Mostly they appear to be retired railway employees travelling for nowt, cheerfully comparing who’s alive and who’s been shunted off the mortal coil since last they freepassed that way.

Natural wastage notwithstanding, you still can’t stir for them. One in particular seems to have remained particularly vigorous. “He went on’t London Marathon, met a bird and kept on running,” says his mate, admiringly.

Joe’s waiting at Scarborough station, takes the scenic route to the North Bay, enthuses endlessly.

The 20in gauge railway was opened on May 23, 1931, cost £5,500, runs the seven-eighths of a mile between Peasholm Park and Scalby Mills, where now the Sea Life Centre stands. It operates throughout the year.

Neptune, the first locomotive, still hauls away. Triton, which arrived the following year and thus is numbered 1932, appears equally ageless.

Both are reckoned third-size models of A3 steam locomotives like the Flying Scotsman, though both have always been diesel operated. In 2006 they were joined by Poseidon – so this is the Poseidon Line? – and by a tank engine called Robin Hood.

Peasholm Park station is said to be modelled on Ribblehead, on the Settle and Carlisle, but may be altogether less draughty. The line runs past Northstead Manor Gardens, where once a 7,000-seat open-air theatre played its part.

Joe waves at everyone – “it’s that sort of railway, waving’s almost obligatory” – provides a running commentary. “You sometimes see a kingfisher over there, foxes and badgers up there, great-crested newts in that pond, wonderful flowers in those gardens.”

His enthusiasm extends to Peasholm Park, said to be home to some of the tallest trees of their species and still the setting for those famous naval battles on the boating lake.

“At one time it used to be really upto- date, like fighting for the Falkland Islands. Now it’s just general goodies and baddies, but still tremendous.

“I remember a few years ago bringing some children to watch and they weren’t impressed at all. They’d seen too many Hollywood special effects.”

The first book’s called Teddy Bears’ Picnic at North Bay Railway.

He hopes to have produced another five, appealingly illustrated, by the end of the year. Intended chiefly to be read to children, the opener has eagerly been embraced by the residents of his mother-in-law’s retirement home.

“It’s an extended hobby. I realise there’s a lot of local potential, but at Christmas we’ll see if I go any further with it. It’s not about making a lot of money, it’s just a celebration of this railway and this town,” he says.

“As the song in My Fair Lady goes, there’s nowhere else on earth that I’d rather be. It has to be admitted, Scarborough is probably even nicer than Shildon.”

■ Teddy Bears’ Picnic costs £3.50, available from the North Bay Railway or from the National Railway Museum at Shildon.