A Rum Do! Smuggling in and Around Robin Hood's Bay

I have known and loved Robin Hood's Bay from the time I took my first stumbling steps on its beach at a very tender age, never imagining in the dream-like holidays of childhood which followed, each glorious long summer, that it would eventually become my permanent home, and the place where I would teach my own daughter to walk on that very same stretch of sun-warmed sand.

So it was that the kind hand of fate led us to follow up a newspaper advertisement whilst searching for a new home 'somewhere by the sea' immediately prior to marriage in 1967. The three hundred year old 'house on the cliff' (shown on the cover) charmed us, in spite of its - then - somewhat precarious position. Since 1976, however, it has, with the rest of the cliff clinging cottages, enjoyed the protection of one of the largest sea walls in Britain.

The joys of newly wedded life, combined with the advantage of being able to fish actually out of the kitchen window, and the excitement of high tides and strong winds hurling sea spray high over the top of the house, confirmed that, in spite of family opinion that we were crazy, this was 'the place for us'. Seeing the house for the first time, my mother prudently bought us a lifebelt for a wedding present; it has remained our house sign to this day!

Now, thirty years on, and steeped in its charismatic atmosphere and history, my love for 'Bay in its setting of unsurpassable beauty, is deeper than ever; from each morning when the sun rises from the sea in a riot of brilliant colour, through to the nights of dappled moonshine on the water, it weaves its magical spell of things past, present, and yet to come.