It’s 10am on a rainy Tuesday morning in November and John Dalton and Peter Bailey have just finished their dip in the sea. The pair emerge from the waves and disappear into a seaside cafe to change and warm up with a cup of coffee.
Dalton is 70 and he swims in the North Sea here in Scarborough most days, “except when the weather is really bad,” he says. He is a member of three outdoor swimming clubs in Scarborough (there are four or five in total), but the ones he spends the most time with are the Salted Seanuts. He isn’t playing his harp for the entertainment of the residents of one of the local care homes, going to a jive dancing class every Tuesday evening, learning to tap dance, cycling on the nearby Yorkshire Moors or hanging out at the jazz club of Scarborough. .
Dalton retired here from Glastonbury four years ago. He knew no one other than to be closer to his mother, who lives near Peterborough, and his daughters in Scotland – and also to be close to the sea so he could swim as much as he wanted.
“People in Yorkshire are very friendly, and property is relatively cheaper here than anywhere else,” he says. And he likes that Scarborough is a real holiday resort, with plenty to do, a good cultural life and easy proximity to York and beyond via hourly trains.
He’s not alone. Last week, Scarborough was declared Britain’s retirement capital, with more than one in four of its 62,000 residents (27.6 percent) aged 65 or over. It’s not hard to see why: the city has two incredible beaches and is right next to the North York Moors, plus good infrastructure in the form of regular buses and train links to York and Hull, a hospital with a major new emergency centre. department and abundant and cheap housing. There’s also plenty to do, from Alan Ayckbourn plays at the Stephen Joseph Theater to rock concerts at the open-air theatre; tea dancing in the pavilion to pleasure gardens in Peasholm Park.
But actually it is the lure of the sea that is most attractive. As Tobyn Dickinson, who has recently opened a residential care home, the Mayfield, on the Whitby coast, and is opening a second in Scarborough next September, puts it: “People love the sea and many people want to retire to the Sea “. When you look at the ever-changing water, life never gets boring.
The town has an illustrious history as a place of holiday and healing: in 1626 Mrs Thomasin Farrer discovered a stream of acidic water flowing from one of the cliffs south of the town, leading to the creation of Scarborough Spa; a book about the waters from 1660 led to a stream of visitors. The first rolling bath machines were reported in 1735 and Scarborough became a popular summer destination for wealthy Londoners, only boosted by the arrival of the Scarborough-York railway in 1845.
And today, while Scarborough has retained its summer holiday attractions (and summer day trippers) with its long sandy beaches, colorful beach huts, amusement arcades and fish and chip shops, many of the current residents are those who have decided to switch their summer holidays from the past to a permanent reality.
Ken and Irene Barlow are one such couple. I met them in the fantastic art deco Stephen Joseph Theater – pleasantly busy even on a Tuesday afternoon – just after lunch; they had come by a few days later to reserve tickets for a cinema matinee.
The couple, in their 70s, are originally from Liverpool but retired here 20 years ago, in a small village called West Ayton, just outside the city itself. They keep themselves busy: Irene goes to dance lessons every week, Ken plays golf at North Cliff Golf Club and they enjoy a long walk on the beach followed by a seafood lunch at The Lookout on the pier, especially on a sunny day in winter. Moving to Scarborough was “one of our better moves,” according to Ken.
“It’s easy to integrate here and feel welcome,” says Phil Fletcher, director of local estate agency CPH Property. Fletcher has lived in Scarborough for 20 years and adds that he sees a lot of older customers coming through the door, attracted by the low property prices and the fact that the city has “everything on your doorstep”. Certainly, when it comes to buying a house, there’s plenty of choice, ranging from 15th and 16th century cottages in the old town to new-build apartments on the North Beach, with everything from bungalows to Victorian terraces in between – and nothing to beat. buy for much more than around £400,000.
The outdoors seems to be the biggest draw for most people I meet – all of whom are surprisingly happy to chat with any reporter. Sue Wood, 68, enjoys a cup of coffee on a lounger outside her bright yellow North Bay beach chalet, having just taken her three-year-old golden retriever Barley for a walk on the beach.
She makes me coffee in her little kitchen, tells me she’s moved back here, grew up on a farm nearby, and her plans to buy her beach chalet next year now that they’re all for sale (she has rented it for the past seven years). She spends a lot of time here, she says, with three of her grandchildren, walking the dog and watching the waves.
It all sounds idyllic, and most of the time it is, but there are undoubtedly downsides. While the city retains a certain grandeur, it is unfortunately of the faded variety; the high street is “a bit grim”, as Dickinson puts it. Even in the more charming old town, Eastgate’s main street can be “seriously depressing,” says 75-year-old Maggie Corder, who is renovating an “abandoned old house” in the area to retreat to. “There is no deli and nowhere to get decent coffee.” It’s frustrating, says Corder, that the council often doesn’t seem to care – the bins remain empty during the summer months, and “why don’t they have bathing huts on the beach like in Victorian times, or art on the beach to celebrate all the artists who moved here?”
For its part, the local authority points out to me the recently completed restoration of South Cliff Gardens, jointly funded by the National Lottery and the council, which contributed just over £2 million to the £7.158 million project; an upcoming renovation program for the West Pier and a plan for a year-round cultural offering at the Scarborough Fair, starting with a recently installed winter lighting display.
Other neighborhoods have their own character. South Bay is what locals ironically call the ‘Blackpool’ part of town: it has the classic seaside town feel, with entertainment, ice cream parlours, fish and chip shops and donkey rides on the beach. North Bay is wider and wilder, a place for breezy walks, surfing or enjoying the sight of the brightly colored beach chalets along the sand; the two are separated by the old town with its higgledy-piggledy cobbled streets, while the small villages on the outside of Scarborough are generally considered slightly smarter.
At the top of the list is Scalby, where Bryan Jaram and his wife Pam retired for good in 2008. Jaram, now 77, was born and raised in Scarborough and ran an estate agency in York; Now he paints and takes bike rides across the heath on his electric bicycle. “It just feels so healthy here. As soon as you get here, your lungs open and you feel like you can breathe again,” he says. “Even Pam, who is not from Scarborough, loves it.”