 | This article consists almost entirely of a plot summary .(February 2011) |
Spanish City is the second novel by the British author Sarah May. [1] It was first published in 2002 [2] and is set in the fictional town of Setton on the north-eastern coast of England. The chronology of the novel stretches from 1926 until 1981, although much of the narrative is related by means of flashbacks.
The novel opens in 1926 in Utah where a designer of roller-coasters called Delaval is overseeing the construction of a pleasure palace called Spanish City. [3]
The novel then moves to circa 1980, when an ageing schoolteacher, Hal Price, is kidnapped at gunpoint by two teenaged brothers, Victor and Will, who are former pupils. Hal is taken to a nearby café [3] and, while Victor awaits a message, recounts the story of his life to Will. Hal tells of joining the army as a teenager in 1944 and being sent to Normandy where he befriends Perkins, an ambitious Londoner who has an affair with Stella Armstrong, a spirited nurse. After a mysterious shooting incident, Stella disappears, accompanied by Major Delaval, the son of a wealthy Setton businessman and landowner.
After the war, Hal returns to Setton and becomes a teacher who enjoys dancing at the local Palace ballroom in the company of his cousin Ray Clarke, an undertaker. Perkins, who has become a private investigator, is engaged by Delaval to find Stella, who is believed to be travelling the world visiting funfairs and pleasure gardens. Delaval intends to fulfil his father's dream of building a funfair named Spanish City in Setton, with the hope of luring Stella to the town. As the funfair is about to open, Hal spots Perkins at the Palace and discovers that the body of a woman believed to have drowned in a boating accident has been delivered to Ray's premises. The woman, who is revealed as Stella, revives and is taken away by Perkins. Delaval arrives in Setton and tells Hal that he has an unrequited love for Stella, just as his own father once had a similar passion for Charlie, Hal's mother, who once worked for the Setton family and accompanied Delaval's father on a trip to Utah where the pair visited the funfair that was to inspire Spanish City.
Perkins and Stella begin living together, and raise a son, Victor. It is an unhappy relationship, and Hal begins an affair with Stella, who becomes pregnant with Will. Perkins sets fire to his own car in an attempt to kill himself and Stella, and both are believed to have died, leaving Victor and Will to be adopted.
Back in the present, Victor receives a message and takes Will and Hal to the abandoned Palace ballroom, where they are met by Ray Clarke and Irene Trench, a friend who knows the truth about the relationships between Perkins, Stella, the Price family, and the Delavals. Ray reveals that, although Perkins died in the car fire, Stella escaped and disappeared once more. Victor, furious at Ray's decision to withhold this knowledge, and at the truth about Will's parentage, opens fire with his gun while Hal shelters Will.
In an epilogue, Hal and Stella pay a visit to the flooded ruins of the Utah funfair that inspired Spanish City.
Setton is loosely based on the north-eastern English coastal resort of Whitley Bay, where the funfair, ballroom and pleasure palace collectively named The Spanish City was once located. Spanish city was closed for years, but was reopened in late 2018 after a regeneration effort. The building now functions as an event venue, and also has bars and restaurants. [4]
The town and river of Wiley in the novel, along with its ferry, are probably based on the town and river of Blyth, a few miles to the north of Whitley Bay. Blyth also once had a ferry that carried passengers from the main part of the town to the small community of North Blyth.
The cafe named Moscadini's may have been inspired by the Rendezvous Cafe, a long-established premises on the northern seafront of Whitley Bay. Like Moscadini's, The Rendezvous has a large mural of a Mediterranean scene on one of its internal walls. The Rendezvous inspired a poem by the Newcastle-based writer Julia Darling.
The Palace Ballroom may have been inspired by the Empire Ballroom, which was part of the Spanish City development. As in the novel, this later became a bingo hall. The space beneath the dome briefly served as an indoor skateboarding park and a venue for rock bands.
St Mary's Island is an actual tidal island, complete with lighthouse, between Whitley Bay and the village of Old Hartley.
As in the map of Setton provided at the beginning of the novel, Whitley Bay contains a cemetery, a Co-op, a seafront promenade and a former railway station now used by the Tyneside metro system. There is no colliery, although a quarry and a number of small coal pits were dug before housing development firmly established the town as a residential and recreational area in the late 19th century.
The street named Marine Parade does not exist, but there are streets in Whitley Bay named (for example) South Parade, North Parade, Marine Avenue and Marine Gardens.
A street named Front Street exists in nearby Tynemouth, as does a boating lake (although a paddling pool once existed on the seafront in Whitley Bay).
Paignton is a seaside town on the coast of Tor Bay in Devon, England. Together with Torquay and Brixham it forms the borough of Torbay which was created in 1968. The Torbay area is a holiday destination known as the English Riviera. Paignton has origins as a Celtic settlement and was first mentioned in 1086. It grew as a small fishing village and a new harbour was built in 1847. A railway line was opened to passengers in 1859 creating links to Torquay and London. As its population increased, it merged with the villages of Goodrington and Preston. Paignton is around 25 miles (40 km) north east of Plymouth and 20 miles (32 km) south of Exeter.
Herne Bay is a seaside town on the north coast of Kent in South East England. It is 6 miles (10 km) north of Canterbury and 4 miles (6 km) east of Whitstable. It neighbours the ancient villages of Herne and Reculver and is part of the City of Canterbury local government district, although it remains a separate town with countryside between it and Canterbury. Herne Bay's seafront is home to the world's first freestanding purpose-built Clock Tower, built in 1837. From the late Victorian period until 1978, the town had the second-longest pier in the United Kingdom.
Whitley Bay is a seaside town in the North Tyneside borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It formerly governed as part of Northumberland and has been part of Tyne and Wear since 1974. It is part of the wider Tyneside built-up area, being around 10 miles (16 km) east of Newcastle upon Tyne. Two notable landmarks are the Spanish City and St. Mary's Lighthouse, the latter on a small island near the town.
Broadstairs is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about 80 miles (130 km) east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St Peter's, and had a population in 2011 of about 25,000. Situated between Margate and Ramsgate, Broadstairs is one of Thanet's seaside resorts, known as the "jewel in Thanet's crown". The town's coat of arms' Latin motto is Stella Maris. The name derives from a former flight of steps in the chalk cliff, which led from the sands up to the 11th-century shrine of St Mary on the cliff's summit.
Bedlington is a town and former civil parish in Northumberland, England, with a population of 18,470 measured at the 2011 Census.
Blyth is a town and civil parish in southeast Northumberland, England. It lies on the coast, to the south of the River Blyth and is approximately 13 miles (21 km) northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne. It had a population of 37,339 in the 2011 Census.
A helter skelter, or helter-skelter lighthouse, is an amusement ride resembling a lighthouse with a spiral shaped slide built around the tower. Typically, fairgoers climb up a flight of stairs inside the tower and slide down the spiral on the outside using a coir mat. The ride is most prevalent in amusement parks and fairgrounds in the United Kingdom.
Seaton Delaval Hall is a Grade I listed country house in Northumberland, England, near the coast just north of Newcastle upon Tyne. Located between Seaton Sluice and Seaton Delaval, it was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh in 1718 for Admiral George Delaval; it is now owned by the National Trust.
Wansbeck is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Ian Lavery, a member of the Labour Party.
The Spanish City is a dining and leisure centre in Whitley Bay, a seaside town in North Tyneside, Tyne & Wear, England. Erected as a smaller version of Blackpool's Pleasure Beach, it opened in 1910 as a concert hall, restaurant, roof garden and tearoom. A ballroom was added in 1920 and later a permanent funfair.
Seaton Delaval is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Seaton Valley, in Northumberland, England, with a population of 4,371. The largest of the five villages in Seaton Valley, it is the site of Seaton Delaval Hall, completed by Sir John Vanbrugh in 1727.
Seaton Sluice is a village in Northumberland. It lies on the coast at the mouth of the Seaton Burn, midway between Whitley Bay and Blyth. In the 2021 census the village had a population of 2,956.
The Blyth and Tyne Railway was a railway company in Northumberland, England, incorporated by Act of Parliament on 30 June 1852. It was created to unify the various private railways and waggonways built to carry coal from the Northumberland coalfield to Blyth and the River Tyne, which it took control of on 1st January 1853. Over time, the railway expanded its network to reach Morpeth (1857/8), North Seaton (1859), Tynemouth (1860/1), Newcastle upon Tyne (1864), and finally Newbiggin-by-the-Sea (1872). It became part of the much larger North Eastern Railway in 1874.
Swanage Pier is a Victorian pier which extends into the southern end of Swanage Bay near the town of Swanage, in the south-east of Dorset. It was built in 1895 for passenger ship services. It is situated on the eastern coast of the Isle of Purbeck, approximately 6+1⁄4 miles (10.1 km) south of Poole and 25 miles (40 km) east of Dorchester in the United Kingdom.
Spanish City is a dining and leisure centre in Whitley Bay, England.
A sewer gas destructor lamp is a type of lamp used to remove sewer gases and their hazards.
Scouting in North East England refers to Scouting in the official region of North East England. It is largely represented by the Scout Association of the United Kingdom and some groups of traditional Scouting, including the Baden-Powell Scouts' Association.
The Kursaal is a Grade II listed building in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England, which opened in 1901 as part of one of the world's first purpose-built amusement parks. The venue is noted for the main building with distinctive dome, designed by George Campbell Sherrin, which featured on a Royal Mail special stamp in 2011.
Steven "Steve" Walklate is an English former footballer who played in the Football League for Darlington and in the Scottish League for Queen of the South. He began his career at Middlesbrough without playing first-team football for them, and also played non-league football for a number of clubs in the north-east of England, mostly in the Northern League.
Joshua William Nearney is an English semi-professional footballer who plays as a defender for Blyth Spartans.