On a misty Wednesday morning in December 1914, Scarborough was waking up to an ordinary winter’s day. Fires were being lit, shops were opening and the post was out.
Just before eight o’clock, German warships loomed out of the mist off the headland and opened fire.
It’s a story I first heard from a brilliant tour guide at Scarborough Castle, when I visited while researching Murder at Docere House. It stayed with me long after I left, and it was the reason Tommy decided to join the Army long before conscription.
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The morning the shells fell
More than five hundred shells rained down on the town that morning. The castle, which had stood guard over Scarborough for centuries, was one of the targets. Its great tower took damage, and the old barracks inside the walls was so badly smashed that it was pulled down afterwards and never replaced. Down in the town, the Grand Hotel, the lighthouse, churches, shops and family homes were all hit.
Seventeen people were killed that morning, and two more died of their injuries later. They were ordinary people doing ordinary things: a postman with the morning letters, a maid at work in a kitchen. Among them was George Taylor, just fifteen, a Boy Scout who had gone out for the morning paper. Of all Britain’s Scouts, he was the only one to lose his life in the whole of the war.
From Scarborough, the ships steamed north to Whitby and shelled the abbey headland, while another squadron attacked Hartlepool, which came off even worse. By nightfall, well over a hundred civilians along our coast were dead.
“Remember Scarborough!”
The whole country was outraged. These weren’t soldiers at the front; they were families in their own homes, in a holiday town with nothing to defend itself. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, called the attackers “the baby killers of Scarborough”.
Before long, “Remember Scarborough!” was printed across recruitment posters, and young men all over Britain answered the call.
If you’d like to read more about the raid, English Heritage has a page on the shelling of Scarborough.
Why it matters to Tommy
I always knew that Tommy had volunteered to serve in the Army but until I visited Scarborough and researched the area, I wasn’t sure why. It sounds a little funny to say that, but I don’t always know why my characters choose to do the things that they do! However as Tommy was very idealistic and cared deeply about his family, I knew that a young Yorkshireman like him would be very angry that the coastline near his home was being attacked and he would want to do something to protect his home and family. Docere House, the school where he spent his boyhood, sits in the North Yorkshire countryside not far from Scarborough. When I sent him back there for this book, I knew the war would come with him.
Back to Docere House, October 1923
Nine years after the raid, on an unseasonably warm October day, Tommy and Evelyn arrive at his old school to put their baby daughter Lady Isabelle’s name down for a place. It should be a happy visit.
Then the science master, Ralph Gower, an old army friend of Tommy’s, is found dead. Ralph has left behind a trail of coded clues, and following them takes the Christies, with Aunt Em, Grace and Constance close behind, deep into the secrets of the war years.
If you love Agatha Christie-style whodunits with a touch of Downton Abbey, Murder at Docere House is book nine in my 1920s Tommy & Evelyn Christie cozy mystery series.
Did you know about the Scarborough raid before today? Or is there a piece of wartime history from your own part of the world that you think deserves to be better remembered? Tell me in the comments.