Burniston Map

 

Rievaulx or Reivaulx

The house in Burniston Gardens named Reivaulx (Rievaulx) was built by my Dad in the 1930's. He made the Windows, doors and stairs. As I remember, it is a dormer type bungalow having two bedrooms upstairs, a bedroom, front room, living room, kitchen, and bathroom downstairs. We lived in the house from the mid 30's through the war years.

I was told that my mother and father chose the name because the original Rivis name was derived from Rievaulx. The story is that the locals living in the village of Rievaulx some 400 years ago, pronounced it “Rivis” or “Rivers”.

I have two copies of The Illustrated Guide To Britain, published for the AA. In the first book it mentions the pronunciation of Rievaulx, as “Rivers”, but the later edition it was changed to say that it is now pronounced “Reevo”. I never have discovered why it was changed.

Burniston Bombs

At the beginning of the second world war I lived with my Mother, Dad and sister, in a house called Rievaulx, (I always spell it Reivaulx) in Burniston Gardens. There was a reason for the house being called Reivaulx, which I will explain in a later post.

I didn't see much of my dad because he was working on the war effort at various aerodromes, and for the last three years of the war he was in Belgium and Germany, with the REME.

We were issued a steel air-raid shelter which was assembled in a spare bedroom. When the sirens sounded we scrambled into a makeshift bed on the floor of the steel cage. Before we had the shelter three of us would scramble into the tiny under-stairs cupboard. I remember the door knocker rattling from the vibration of the planes and the bombs.

Bombs did drop close to us, I remember one day after a lot of noise in the night, we walked to a field adjacent to our house to look in the huge crater, and I picked up quite a few bits of shrapnel.

Remembering Sid

In the 1950's the Vernon Road roller skating rink in Scarborough was a busy place. I spent a lot of time there helping out with skates and helping people with their skating. There was a man called Sid, I cannot remember his surname, who played the records from a little cupboard off the side of the skating area. I talked to Sid a lot. He was interesting because he was an amateur radio enthusiast and the equipment fascinated me. He could never skate as he was afflicted with what was called at the time, a club foot. So he was lame. My mother and dad often picked him up in their car to bring him to the rink, and transported him home again. Poor Sid was found at home one day, electrocuted. I think he had been plugging something in which had no earth (ground) – a now extinct 2 pin plug- and touched the prongs on the plug.

Marine Drive, Scarborough

Scarborough, UK

I was born in Scarborough and as a young teen roller skated at the Vernon Road rink. I also played in a small band and we practiced in our front room once a week. The noise upset the Duchy agent who lived in a large house on the other side of the street. He complained to my Dad more than once, but my dad had played drums in a band in his younger days and so encouraged us, even though we did have to close the windows.