Pleasant Dreams

The relativity of pleasure, as seen with one family escaping Castleford for the delights of a brisk Scarborough beach, sea and donkey rides.

Keen amateur filmmaker Eric Bolderson films one of his many trips to Scarborough in the 1950s; here with his wife Irene, getting covered in sand as she lounges on a deckchair on the South Bay packed with many other holidaymakers trying to stay warm on a blustery day. Meanwhile the children are having a great time playing in their swimwear on the beach, despite the cold.

Eric Bolderson ran a bookies’ in Castleford, following his father, and was well known locally, especially for his sense of humour. This shows in many of the films he made in the 1950s and ‘60s, which he would show in a makeshift cinema in his small attic. Eric frequently had trips to Scarborough at this time – this one shortly after Irene had her first child, Janet – and was later to retire there. Perhaps rather surprisingly, among the places that can be seen in the background, the ice cream parlour, Pacittos, is still there (with the same sign) as is Corrigan’s amusement arcade, while Sulman's fancy good shop and the Futurist Theatre were only closed in 2015, as was the life boat house – to be replaced with a new one.