Whitby Goth Weekender

It had been ten years since Lyssa and I were last at the Whitby Gothic Weekend. We used to go every year to sell our corsets and costumes . We never sold a lot as we liked making coloured corsets and the goths wanted black, black, and more black, (those were also the days before corsets became de rigeur for the gothic comunity) so we thought it might be fun to have a reunion tour and see all our old friends and visit the old haunts. We were not to be dissapointed ;0

We packed our best frocks and headed off to Thorpe Hall in Fylingthorpe - our residence for the weekend. All the b and b's in whitby had been booked long ago - and oh my but we were pleased they had been. Thorpe hall is an absolute gem of a guest house, run by Angelique and David Russell, it is a lovely tudor mansion, one of those oak pannelled, secret passageway houses you long to explore. It was more like staying with lovely friends in the country than in a posh hotel, the plumbing squeaks and the roof leaks on the stairs, (as it should in all real old manors) but the ambience and warm welcome (as well as filling breakfasts) are great.

We wandered into Whitby fashionably late, to hear the strains of a song that sounded very familiar, It took me a moment to recognise them (and the band has had a name change) but there, live on stage, were my old Goth friends from my days at Hastings art college "Children on Stun"!
A happy reunion, and some fish and chips later we wandered back to the Hall to sleep....

Next morning we had a good shop at the bazaar, and in the town, I treated myself to a t shirt with Daleks on ;) then hung out with the steampunk contingent at Bothams tea shop. Everyone looked splendid, wearing their best adventuring outfits and an aweful lot of tea and cake was consumed... we also bumped into our friend and costume diva Olivia aka "the wicked lady", it was so lovely to see her again, exquisitely dressed as always.

Then we grabbed a carpet picnic from a little deli and headed back.

For the evening we decided to dress in Highwaywoman garb, squeezing on the 18th century corsets and donning teeny tricornes, before going to the spa to dance the night away, once more meeting lots of friends.

On Sunday we had tea and cake in Sanders Yard with the amazing artist and sculptor Dr A and his lovely wife Briony, who I hadn't seen for years. His new steampunk range of characters The Mechtorians are absolutely gorgeous, and he presented me with DJ Gramo (a gorgeous little wind up gramaphone figurine.) We spent ages talking modelmaking and steampunk and faeries while Lyssa got comandeered by a cat and the baby blew bubbles...

We visited The Magpie for fish and chips , well, they are a Whitby institution and then Sunday night we stayed in, having the whole Hall to ourselves...

After running about pretending to be characters from Scooby Doo,tapping the pannelling looking for hidden doors, we took our duvets down to the lounge and watched The Talented Mr Ripley with a bottle of wine and chocolate biscuits (not a usual combination but we'd eaten all the cheese...)

Monday we headed into Whitby once more for cake - this time at Marie Antoinettes. There were still plenty of goths around, making the most of the sunshine. We also saw a few of the steampunk society, also heading for cake. There are so many special goth shops now, in some ways it's very different from 10 years ago, but the original happy spirit of the whitby goth weekend is still there, along with many smiling familiar faces.

Sadly Lyssa is still waiting for Dracula to descend from the Grande Turk....