Laid up for the winter - Scarborough

An extract from Memorials of Scarborough entitled 'Laid up for the winter'.



It was a common custom in olden days for our sailors and sea apprentices to lay by, as it was called, for the winter months, when vessels were overhauled and repaired, and when the Clubs opened on the First of March, they would proceed to sea again. During the time our tars were on shore the town was alive with their pranks and merry makings, and many were cheerful meetings and partings which took place in Bell's or Donkin's stage waggons, before the railway ran them off the road. With these recollections in view, and as a memorial of the past, the late Mr John Pecket, sen., wrote the following lines some years ago, when in the eighty-second year of his age, and about year before his death; they were written on the back of one of his own sketches of the harbour:-

In winters past, all safely moor'd, Again we bring to view, When seamen got themselves refresh'd And ships made clean and new. When owners laid their ships safe by For winter quarter's rest, Partook of the Christmas cheer, With friends and family blest; While others pack'd their bundles up, To trip o'er hill and dale, To visit friends, enjoy their fare, And tell a seaman's tale, Oh! Happy, happy days gone by, They now much further roam; No real comfort can they find , Nor taste the sweets of home; 'Till, furrow'd and careworn through age, With changes of each clime, They yield, and venture home once more To linger out their time!



OTHER ARTICLES
• Harwood Brierleys description of Scarborough harbour at the opening of the 20th century
• The national RNLI and the Scarborough lifeboat of 1861.
• The 200 year history of scarboroughs RNLI
• Seabathing in scarborough - an article by John Rushton
• The early years of the Scarborough Lifeboat
• Watching for ships by the harbour walls in Scarborough
• The port of Scarborough in the late 15th Century
• Coastal erosion in the 19th Century around the North Bay and Scarborough Castle area
• Fighting the Scots in Scarborough Waters in the early 16th century. John Rushton
• A sea shanty about a storm on the Scarborough coast
• Scarborough sailors rescued in the Baltic - Thomas Hinderwell
• Hinderwells account of the first launch of the Scarborough Lifeboat in 1802
• Strange customs amongst the Scarborough shipbuilders
• The Borough of Scarborough formed in the 12th Century
• The need for canals in the scarborough area - discussions in the late 1700's
• Scarborough ships in the baltic - an article by John Rushton
• Tommy Rowley - stories about loss of life at sea
• Three Scarborough trawlers sunk by mines in 1920
• Thomas Crimlisk - First of the Crimlisks

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