York author Andrew Martin back in town to promote his new book
THERE IS a great scene at the start of Andrew Martin’s new book in which he stands on the first tee of Pike Hills Golf Club – next to Askham Bog – in a gray drizzle.
He intends to write a book about Yorkshire, he tells his playmate Paul – but there is a problem.
Oh yes? Paul says. “I don’t live in Yorkshire anymore,” replies Andrew
At the end of the 320-page Yorkshire There and Back, a delightful book that is part York childhood memoir, part idiosyncratic guide to God’s County, Andrew had a change of heart.
The book ends with a visit to the Birch Hall Inn at Beck Hole, high on the North York Moors. Returning through the moors, Andrew begins to dream. “I started this book worrying that, since I no longer lived in Yorkshire, I was not qualified to write it,” he wrote. “I conclude by thinking that I would never have written it if I had not left! »
The author of the hugely popular York-based historical crime novels starring railway detective Jim Stringer comes across as wonderfully shy on the phone. Recalling that opening scene in Pike Hills, he jokes, “I cut out a lot of bullets in Askham Bog!”
Now based in London, he recounts how, growing up in York in the 1970s, he could never completely shake off the feeling that York wasn’t quite Yorkshire. It was too nice. The main employers were chocolate and the railroads. “But there was no heavy industry. And it was so flat! I was embarrassed.”
Nevertheless, it is obvious that he loves York.
His father was a railroad worker, so he used to go to the railroad institute gymnasium and play golf at Pike Hills – at the time the railroad golf club.
He often returns to York – and remembers how the city has changed. She misses Ken Spelman’s bookstore – and the Red Rhino record store. “I would buy an album and then sit in the cathedral and read the cover.”
He also remembers that there were far fewer restaurants in York at the time. In fact, he only remembers one.
“If you were 18 there was only one place to go – Ristoranti Bari in Shambles!”
The book is full of memories of 1970s York – from the “football-field-sized hole” that was the Coppergate dig; to perform in the York Mystery Plays; to play a gig in the Black Swan.
He also remembers returning to York with a London friend. The friend wore a tweed suit and hat and talked loudly about literature as he walked down Micklegate. Andrew felt anxious. They passed a man lying outside a pub, who stared contemptuously at the hat, then said, ‘You are a pair of…gobshites.'” York. Ever so distinguished…
Yorkshire There and Back by Andrew Martin is published by Corsair, priced at £20.
Andrew will be at York Waterstones from 7-8.30pm on Wednesday 25th May. More information at waterstones.com/events/search/shop/york