Seascale And The Scafell Hotel

A Memory of Seascale.

I was 9 and My mother Vi worked part time at the Hotel doing afternoon teas. Phil and Betty Roddis managed the Hotel. They had just had a young daughter, Phillipa. I spent many a day within the hotel. I remember the Entrance Hall swing doors and the hotel's wood paneling. My father Tom Brookes used to help out in the bar when he was not on shift at WINDSCALE.

I can remember in 1957 my father coming home late to our house at 12, Whole House Road and telling mum not touch touch anything in the garden as there had been a fire in one of the piles. He went back to work. I saw him again about 2 days later. We were down on South Parade when I saw a camera crew from the BBC. Fyfe Robertson was interviewing the locals about the Fallout.

I spent a lot of my time train spotting, what lovely station Seascale had, I remember the steam engines and in particular the day the Queen came to open Calder Hall, we all stood on the platform to wave our flags as the train passed, all I could see was 2 dirty black engines. I remember the special train that brought girls to the Calder Girls Private School and their suitcases being taken up to the school on the back of the local coal merchant's lorry.

Summer holidays were spent nearly always on the beach with our friends Joy and Roy Rushworth, their son Duncan and daughter Pauline Rushworth. Somehow the weather was and seemed kinder then. We really were The Nuclear Family. I left Seascale when my father died in 1968 and returned in 2002 to visit Yes the place has changed, but my real sorrow is that the Scafell Hotel has gone!