chapter 9

The next day, in the gloom of the late afternoon, I ventured out for a stroll to see just how my home town had changed.
The air was somewhat cleaner. That was a good start. Smoke from the coal fires sometimes used to collect in the valley, causing a choking thick smog that was impossible to avoid.
I had forgotten all about the smoke. It had always been there. I had grown up with it. Now the air was clean and it made a tremendous difference. The old stone buildings had been coated in thick black soot. Now they had been cleaned up, it was more apparent how beautiful they were. Covered in thick dust the details had been lost. Now one could see the delicate stone scrollwork and admire the brace gargoyles clinging to the roves and sticking out their tongues at me, mocking me for my longevity, yet they had clung to those buildings longer than I had been around.
Whitby had often been a busy town, but it was a whole lot busier now. There was not simply locals going about their business, there were day trippers, school parties, hikers and holiday makers. Campers took shelter from the incessant rain on the moors and hid in the shops, pubs and cafes.
I recognised some of the narrow streets with tall overhanging storeys. Some had been modernised thoughtfully and carefully, but some had been ripped apart, torn down and rebuilt, or they'd had their mullioned windows replaced with modern, practical UPVC.
The town had once had it's fair share of small independent butchers, bakers, grocers, florists, fishmongers, ironmongers, and haberdashers.
Not many of those old businesses existed any more. I recognised some of the inns in their old, yet new guises. But alongside those I saw cafes ran by big American conglomerates next to local fish and chip restaurants.
There was a souvenir shop selling seaside plastic buckets and spades, Whitby rock (long sticks of candy with 'Whitby' written through the middle), Whitby postcards. Indeed, it sold all kinds of cheap tat that had 'present from whitby' on it... or words to that effect.
There was an old jewellery shop that I recognised selling Whitby jet. It was ran by a different company, but it was the same shop. they made the jewellery on site. I noted how expensive their products were. They may be making good quality jewellery, but they were too expensive for the type of person who was buying buckets and spades in the other shop. Whitby jet had once been a fashionable commodity in the time of Victoria when ladies went into years of mourning and wore nothing but black. But these days the black stone was too morbid for most and a cheaper version made from recycled black plastic bags would make an affordable replacement.
A little further down the lane I came across a curious shop selling gems of all kinds of hues and shapes. The owners claimed the crystals could cure all kinds of ailments both serious and trivial. I doubted the efficacy of such quack medicine, but nevertheless, it was getting plenty of footfall from passing tourists.
One shop intrigued me completely. From the front, it appeared to sell naught but tee shirts. More specifically, black tee shirts with all kinds of logos upon them. I would never consider to wear such a casual garment, but this was not my era. Fashion had changed beyond any of my predictions and many modern day youths simply did not wear the layers of restrictive clothing that was popular in my day. I understood that many logos were music related, pertaining to some group I had never heard of before from the hit parade. Some simply bore slogans, that were far too rude to wear in public!
However, in a back room, the shop sold much more than tee shirts. It looked like a Victorian tailor's shop, a tailor's shop that catered for the mourning market because everything they sold appeared to be black.
I was most intrigued. How could black silk, satin and lace be profitable in this day and age?
I moved on, passing chain shop bakers, confectioners and even a bicycle shop.
Beyond the railway station was a modern chain store supermarket and car park that seemed to sap the culture from my town. I turned around and headed across the swing bridge to the other side of town.
Here there was the same mix of old and new, traditional and modern. I would take a guess that eighty per cent of the people there were not from Whitby and the surrounding area. The only local accents came from the business owners themselves.
I climbed the familiar steps up to the abbey. Despite my age, I managed it without having to take a rest to catch my breath, although I did not consider myself to be carrying any excess weight at the time.
At the top, I admired the magnificent view, alongside the tourists. Then a young couple caught my eye. They were getting their photographs taken on one of those tiny pocket computers that youngsters carried these days, often more commonly known as a mobile telephonic device. I never carried one myself. I could not get to grips with modern technology. It was simply too difficult for my eighteenth century brain to take in.
The couple were both extremely pale skinned, with long dyed black hair and heavy black eyeliner. They lady accentuated her paleness with bright red lips as well. They both wore clothing from head to toe from that cloud have been bought from the back room of the tee shirt shop. Her corseted waist and floor length skirts accentuated her slim waist, while he sported a lustrous embroidered waistcoat, top hat and cane.
Their dark appearance contrasted with their buoyant mood and technology. They looked like modern victorians. Then I remembered Dixon telling me about these people. They were called goths.
They were quite possibly why my own old fashioned and rather formal attire had not attracted the attention it often had on the streets of New York. I could not get used to the idea of leaving the house without wearing any head apparel, no matter how hard I tried.
I sucked in plenty of the clean sea air and headed off to my new residence in the royal crescent.
Dixon said he had found a new maid for me on his folding inter web or whatever it was. She was ready to start next week and her name was Wendy.
He showed me a picture. She looked like one of those goth types.