Whitby on the Yorkshire coast. Famed because of Captain Cook and Dracula, not many places can claim that….

Whisper it, I read Bram Stokers vampire novel when I was about 12. I had just started Senior School and on the way home would walk past a little dusty old library. A tiny place, maybe not much bigger than a large living room. With so few books, I quickly exhausted the readable options. But on one visit, as I desperately tried to find something new to read, I noticed sat on the returned counter, a little book with DRACULA emblazoned across a gothic cover which had clearly seen way better days. Picking up the courage, I sandwiched the horror book between a couple of nondescript nonfiction books and hoped. Hoped the librarian wouldn’t notice. It was noticed….

A long over the top of the glasses, Paddington stare, was followed by clearly a few moments contemplation. Unbelievably the book was then stamped with the quiet warning…. ‘Don’t have nightmares…’

Little did the Librarian know, in-fact little did my Parents know, that for months I had been sneaking down stairs on a Friday night to watch the late night Hammer Horror movie on TV. As a result I was already well versed in Christopher Lee’s Dracula.

The book didn’t give me nightmares. But I loved it. I loved it because for the first time I was reading a story set in a place that I knew, a place where I had been. The book came alive to me, it still does.

Move forward several decades and I was summoned to see the Teacher at Hawklad’s first school. The Teacher was concerned that I had let my 7 year old watch horror movies. Hawklad had in class told the Teacher that he loved watching Dracula, Werewolf and Frankenstein. One little detail that Hawklad had left out was the name Scooby Doo. Scooby meets Dracula, Scooby meets Werewolf, Scooby meets….

On a sunny day like this one, Whitby even with a Dracula Museum, is probably as intimidating as a Scooby Doo cartoon. But come back here during winter, when a nighttime storm is battering the Port, when a thick fog has descended. Then try reading Dracula and not feel just a little bit on edge. That book can still bite…..

38 thoughts on “Dracula and Captain Cook”

  1. I recall myself and Isabel Thomas watching horror movies as kids, while we were left alone in her house. I wonder what she is doing now. She taught me how to peel a spud, was good company, and painted my nails to stop me biting them (it worked). Seriously, I wonder not only what she is doing now, but truly hope she is still on this mortal plane and enjoying a good life. Bless her.

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      1. Oh man alive, t’Internet says so many things about folks with the name, that I really shouldn’t have looked. I’ve decided to just hope and leave it at that.

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  2. Lovely photos. It’s strange how early books can shape our reading habits and even our character. I read all the children’s classic editions my parents bought me and developed lifelong loathing of many perfectly good, though dull authors. Once I discovered Captain W E Johns I became hooked on reading, though it probably gave me a distinctly 1930s outlook for a small child in the 1960s.

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  6. Great post. Not just been in Whitby in winter with a storm coming in but when I as young I watching old horror movies on my won late at night in the freezing cold –no coal after a certain time to save on it, no lights either–with a bag of broken rock. And brill re you and Hawklad.

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    1. wow, yes I forgot that. It was freezing watching at night in winter. No central heating, just a coal fire. I sat on the floor right next to the tv to keep the noise down and wrapped myself in as many blankets as possible. I would grab a bag of Tudor crisps…

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  9. I’m chuckling at the Scooby Doo part being left off. 😂

    I read a junior and shorter version of Dracula in Grade 4. It had black and white accompanying illustrations and it just terrified me especially when Lucy started falling sick after being bitten.

    Horror movies are a wonderful rite of passage and I can’t wait to introduce the Scream and 80s horror movies to T one day when he’s older. Scooby Doo might have to do for now!

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  11. I read many classics as a youngster, too. Also watched my share of Dracula movies and other horror shows. I am still reading the classics. The shows, not so much. I enjoyed reading your post, thank you. 🧛🏻‍♂️

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  14. I also watched the Hammer collections as a kid and a cousin would chase us around our apartment building in Frankenstein mode. I read Dracula years later and also fell in love with the book. Flash forward to vcr Era and my granddaughter watching the Hammer collection on tape during daylight hours. Timeless and priceless.

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