WHITBY GOTH FESTIVAL 2009

Once upon a time a young lady called Jo was the only Goth in the small northern mining town. She put an advert in NME asking for pen friends and got 150 replies. She eventually felt sure enough of about 50 of them to suggest meeting up in a public place, somewhere neutral. She chose the coastal town of Whitby because the Dracula society had already held events and the hoteliers were used to people who enjoy dressing up. Two hundred people turned up that first weekend - and that was just to have a drink and be a Goth.

This year Halloween Goth Weekend extended from the Wednesday Loki's meetup, through the Thursday night benefit for the Sophie Lancaster Foundation and all the way on to Manic Monday at the Metropole. In between it took in bands at the Spa, a Carnival and Burlesque show, a comedy venue, three large trading centres, a Goth Ball, a Custom Car rally, and whimsical events such as the Goth bring-and-buy sale, the Goth Dog Walk, a Goth football match (Gothic Real v Athletico Gazette), Goth Pool (all the balls are black), and lectures and demonstrations in aid of the Bat Conservation Society. Alongside the Goth festival were fringe events such as table-top sales, and English Heritage held days of major events at the Abbey including illuminations and visits from recreationists such as a highway man, demonstrations of Victorian science, and a full Victorian Funeral procession. Above it all sailed the almost-full moon, silhouetting the Abbey.

Whitby was not a tourist town - it was a working estuarine port and had been since the 7th century - but the coming of the railway in 1839 added another stream of income to fishing, trading and transport. This was lucky because traditional industries such as shipbuilding were already in decline, although to the casual observer they would have looked healthy enough. One visitor, Bram Stoker, brought Dracula ashore there after a shipwreck as he heard the story of the Russian shipwreck the Dmitri on the dramatic sweep of the bay, so close to harbour. It makes perfect narrative sense; the skeletal Abbey broods on the cliff-tops and below it the church still has all its graves in place with the stones sticking up instead of being leaned against the walls, the wind blowing the grass flatter than sheep could graze it.


The view which Stoker had can still be imagined when they sail the small ships out to sea through the twin piers and harbour mouth which creates a stretch of smooth water before the swell of the open sea. The streets are still cobbled and zig-zag down the cliffs to the harbour side, with smooth cuts through between the houses which are slides for dragging goods on sleds. The high narrow houses still hug the cliff walls with as many spy windows as possible so that the householders can see when the boats come in. The late Victorian world of photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliffe was not swept away - as can be seen from the then and now sequence of pictures.

However, times must have been hard with the reduction in the fishing fleets. The slightly-seedy look of some of the hotels and the number which were changed to dusty-windowed DSS lets is always a sure sign of landlords taking benefits tenants because the tourist trade had fallen off. Having escaped the worst of WWII and the post-war developers, Whitby's luck came to the rescue; the last 15 years have seen a blossoming of the Goth trade, making this the Goth Capital of the world. The faded grandeur of the Metropole, all dusty pink, matte gold and pitted mirrors is the perfect ambiance for them. Goths don't mind a touch of decay - a street needs ankle-breaking cobbles and plenty of hooded pubs, cafes and doorways to pose in.

Pose they did this weekend, favoured with weather so mild it was possible to promenade on the West Cliff in full Victorian corsetry with nothing but a parasol to protect the skin from the pale autumn sun. Whitby is also the decollete capital of the world. Every size of breast gets an outing from high glassy aristocratic ones poised on elegant laced kitten-heel salon boots to billowing cloudy stotties sailing along atop substantial Goth boots. The male equivalent, a frock coat and waistcoat, does wonders for hundreds of men who would otherwise look like refugees in leisurewear. When enough people come in dressed in formal coats and hats - find them in the Goth bazaar or wedding shops - the timeslip happens and the town shifts back to 1900.

There are dozens of places to eat; follow your nose to the one which suits you best or have a picnic on the cliff or beach. The tea room at Botham's of Whitby celebrates Victorian and Edwardian splendour. Since 1865 successive generations of the family have run the tea room and bakery. In a clever-clogs world they would have sold the intellectual property in the brand, let the recipes be degraded and retired to the Bahamas. This is Yorkshire - they don't do food like that. A pox on the sanctimonious bankers who once treated precious money as seriously as the Bothams treat their ingredients; they should go and have a cup of tea to learn how to do fair business properly again. When did you last see a banker dash down the road to the lifeboat station and go out to sea to save someone's life? Nick Botham the baker does.

(Ed: mmm, fish & chips)

As the money flows back in to Whitby the properties are being slowly renovated, the ironwork restored, the mouldings recovered. The apartments at Church Square survived as reasonable examples of polychrome domestic town houses in the Gothic Revival style(pdf). It is true you can't make a living taking each other's washing, so wealth has to be generated further up the economy if the virtuous circle of people coming in to spend money in the town is to be maintained. Creating the conditions for that is the proper business of government; enabling enterprise, cutting the red tape the government itself imposed to strangle small business and reducing taxation all help. Attempting to micro-manage peoples' lives does not.

Fact box:

The next Whitby Goth weekend is Friday 23 to Sunday 25 April 2010. The website will give details as they are confirmed. Some features, such as the trading halls, are free entry, and promenading costs nothing. Tickets are available for paid-entry events at the Spa £39.50 - a free upgrade is available for bookings before 15 November.
Goths expect a lot for their money and don't fling it about like the Glastonbury hoorays. Instead, they create a Gothic ambiance of bookish nostalgia for everyone to share . There is a nucleus of permanent Goth shops in the town. Pubs which are Goth-friendly display a little bat sign.

Accommodation is available from dozens of small hotels and b&b establishments both in town and further out on the moors - but use Trip Advisor to check carefully as some of them are haunted by the ghost of Basil Fawlty. As one hotelier protested "If you had required luxury then a sea front B&B was not the right choice for an overnight stay". However, most of them aren't like that. The town is tolerant of camper vans, allowing them to park in the leisure centre car park and along the West Cliff. There is rail access, parking is reasonably priced (£5 per day) or free on the streets further out. It is easy to park up on the West Cliff until about 9.30 am, after that spaces fill up rapidly and you can get stuck in queues of cars cruising to find the remaining spaces. If you need to leave early it is best to park on one of the streets further out and catch the steam bus (chargeable) along the cliffs and down to the harbour as it can be slow to clear cars from the pinch-point near the leisure centre.

In a perfect world one might come in to the harbour by boat - if you knew a sailor with a ship - but that's strictly for professionals as the sea can be savage even on a fine day.

Full local press coverage of the Gothic events: The Whitby Gazette, published since 1854.

The Free Whitby Campaign blog is run by local insurgent Nigel Ward who wants Whitby to throw off the shackles of Scarborough Borough Council and Whitby town council - which he says is ineffectual - and replace it with a unitary Whitby & Esk Valley Community Council. He's been denounced as an idiot in the papers by one councillor and a fine argument is brewing.


Author: Sabine de Quincy

WHITBY GOTH FESTIVAL 2009