Life by the Sea: Youth Perspectives in Scarborough
It is the morning following a stormy day in the Yorkshire seaside town of Scarborough. The waves, which had been dramatically crashing against the harbour walls the day before, have now calmed. A few determined surfers have entered the water with their boards. Nearby, a man throws a ball for his dog on the beach, while a kayaker bobs gently on the waves.
Just a short distance from the seafront in the town centre, Jack and Charlie, both 17 years old, lean forward attentively as 19-year-old Keane recounts his recent visit to a drama school in London. Keane hopes to apply for a place on an actor training course once he has saved enough money.
“I walked outside the school and there was this girl on the phone,”he says.
“I didn’t know the context of the conversation she was having but she went … ‘I just want to know now if he has left me any money,’”he adds, mimicking the voice in a high-pitched posh accent.
“And I thought, ‘you won’t hear anyone say that in our town,’”he continues, as the three teenagers laugh together.
“It’s not that I’m slagging her off,”Keane quickly clarifies.
“It’s just that something like that feels like planets away from where we are. We make money, we don’t wait for money to come to us.”
Scarborough, located on the North Yorkshire coast, was one of England’s first seaside resorts.
This distinction about money and opportunity is important to Keane, Charlie, and Jack, who are eager to discuss the differences in financial circumstances between families in their town and those in more affluent areas.
Keane, who had to retake his English GCSE and admits to having had difficulties at school, initially planned to apply for an apprenticeship. His father, who faced his own struggles to achieve his current position, encouraged him to start earning money as soon as possible. However, at the last moment, Keane accompanied a friend to visit the sixth form at their local college and enrolled in the drama A-level course.
“There were a lot of my mates growing up in school who have now got apprenticeships,”Keane explains.
“They’re working in trades in Scarborough, or maybe furthest in York. Not a lot of people have pursued higher education,”he adds,
“but that’s about money.”
Keane currently works as a cleaner in a local hospital to save money for his ambitions.
Against the Tide: Exploring Coastal Youth Lives
Over the coming year, ’s Seascape team will report on the lives of young people in coastal communities across England and Wales through the Against the Tide project.
Young people in many English coastal towns face disproportionate challenges including poverty, inadequate housing, lower educational attainment, and limited employment opportunities compared to their inland peers. In the most deprived coastal towns, they often contend with deteriorating public services and restricted transport options that limit their life choices.
For the next twelve months, accompanied by documentary photographer Polly Braden, the team will travel to port towns, seaside resorts, and former fishing villages to engage with 16- to 25-year-olds. The goal is to hear directly from them about their lives and their feelings toward their communities.
By centering these voices, the project aims to examine the changes needed to help young people build the futures they desire.
Drama and Identity in Scarborough
Before taking a coffee break and chatting, Jack, Charlie, and Keane had been warming up their vocal cords at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, where they participate in Arcade, a drama training programme for older children and young adults. They were rehearsing lines from a play titled Feral.
Keane wrote Feral as a love letter to his hometown. The character he portrays, Adam, struggles with the decision to move to Leeds. Adam desires a brighter future but also deeply loves where he lives. This dilemma is common among young people in British coastal towns who often feel they have no alternative but to leave.
The play was also a response to a 2023 article by the Daily Express that described Scarborough with the headline: “Beautiful seaside town reduced to ‘battleground’ with ‘feral’ youths’ reign of terror.” When Keane, 17, performed Feral, his powerful monologue earned him a standing ovation at the Scarborough Fringe Festival.
From left: Jack, Charlie and Keane. Jack, who lives with his grandparents in Scarborough, says Eastfield, though much maligned, has ‘a special place in my heart’
Charlie is accustomed to being judged based on where he lives.
“I’ve been judged for living there before,”he says.
“People have been like, ‘oh, he’s from Eastfield, what a tramp.’ But they’re saying this and they don’t even know me.”
Eastfield, once a suburb of Scarborough but now considered a separate small town, was the focus of the Express article. It has experienced social challenges but remains home to Keane, Charlie, and Jack. Jack, who lives with his grandparents in Scarborough, expresses affection for Eastfield, stating,
“I love it like home. It has always had a special place in my heart.”
Rob Salmon, head of creative engagement at the Stephen Joseph Theatre and mentor to the three young men, comments on the context of their lives.
“When there isn’t much money in a place, then people’s choices are taken away from them. It’s important that the voices of people who are living in that context, and who understand it, dictate how they are seen,”he says.
All three aspire to become professional actors but acknowledge the difficulty of pursuing such careers in Scarborough, which can feel isolated and distant from major cultural centres.
Geography and Transport Challenges
Scarborough is located on the Yorkshire coastline of northeast England, approximately an hour from York to the west and Hull to the south. Like all coastal towns, half of its potential area for opportunity is limited by the sea. As Salmon puts it when describing the challenges of attracting theatre audiences,
“Half our catchment area is fish.”
Similar to many English coastal resorts, Scarborough has been overlooked as a holiday destination in the era of affordable foreign travel. This situation is exacerbated by poor transport connections, which local residents frequently cite as a significant frustration.
The train service between Scarborough and York typically operates once an hour, and the A64 road connecting the two is a single carriageway. Despite decades of requests to widen the road to alleviate congestion, no immediate plans exist.
Scarborough’s Cliff Bridge. Like the 19th-century footbridge, much of the town’s transport infrastructure belongs to a bygone era.
Alison Hume, the Labour MP for Scarborough and Whitby, recently described the town’s inadequate transport links as leaving the area with
“opportunity and growth being choked off.”
A 2024 analysis suggests that constituencies where the Reform party has been elected, such as Great Yarmouth, Boston & Skegness, Clacton-on-Sea, and South Basildon, share the common factor of a
“road to nowhere.”This refers to roads that have been the subject of repeated promised improvements or ones that were needed but never constructed.
David Skaith, mayor of York and North Yorkshire since 2024, identifies transport as one of the main challenges in his role.
“Access to quality transport is the thing that underpins everything,”he says.
“A lot of people that we speak to on the coast feel trapped, which I think is such a horrible way to phrase where you live, but because of that lack of connectivity, a lot of young people in particular feel that way,”Skaith adds.
Local Voices on Transport and Employment
Emily, 29, who works for the Scarborough Arcade, grew up in nearby Bridlington and attended university in York. She believes a more frequent train service to Scarborough would significantly improve residents’ lives.
“By making it easier to work in York it would create more of an incentive to stay in Scarborough or Bridlington and contribute to the town,”she explains.
Scarborough’s Coney Island, a traditional amusement arcade converted from the old Marine Baths swimming pool.
Nineteen-year-old Daisy, who also works for Arcade, commutes to Scarborough from Bridlington by car, citing the train as
“not the most reliable.”She is pleased to have secured long-term, regular employment locally.
“Working in the winter months is a whole new experience for me,”Daisy says.
“I’ve never worked at this time of year before because every other job I’ve had, like in a gift shop on the harbour and that sort of thing, it’s always been seasonal.”
Emily and Daisy have organized an event at the Gallows Close community centre in the Barrowcliff neighbourhood. The event features Chiedu Oraka, a rapper from Hull who calls himself Oraka and recently collaborated with a professional orchestra.
Emily, 29, says a better rail link to jobs in York would create more incentive for people to stay and contribute to Scarborough. Daisy, 19, who works for a local arts charity, is pleased to have a proper long-term job in town.
Community and Creativity: The Work of Chiedu Oraka
Alongside musicians from a professional orchestra, Oraka is helping a group of children aged eight to 17 compose their own song about their community.
The Hull rapper Chiedu Oraka at a children’s workshop at Gallows Close community centre, with a volunteer, Stacey, 24; Farrah, 10, (in pink); and Teyha, 10.
“I despise the way these sorts of [left behind] places are talked about in the media and elsewhere,”Oraka says during a break from working with the children.
“But I also know there will be so many young ‘hidden gems’ in places like Scarborough because, these kids, they’ve got so much to say.”
He encourages the children to express their feelings about their neighbourhood.
“What does Barrowcliff mean to you?”he asks.
Responses vary:
“It’s a bit scary round here,”says one child. Another adds,
“It’s all right.”
Oraka reflects on his own upbringing:
“When I was your age, I used to say ‘it’s all right’ about where I lived too. But it [where he grew up] has given me everything. People said I wasn’t good enough and I proved them wrong. And that’s what I want you lot to prove as well.”
Leaving and Staying: The Emotional Ties to Home
Back at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, Keane has just finished rehearsing the final passage of Feral, where Adam prepares to board the train to Leeds. If Keane himself makes it to London, how will he feel leaving Scarborough?
“When Adam gets on the train, only part of him does,”Keane says.
“A part of him stays in Eastfield. And really, there couldn’t be truer words. When I leave here, there’s always going to be a part of me that stays behind.”
Jack watches as Keane and Charlie embrace after rehearsing Keane’s play Feral at the Stephen Joseph Theatre.
Additional reporting by Antonia Shipley.
The Against the Tide series is a collaboration between and documentary photographer Polly Braden, reporting on the lives of young people in coastal communities across England and Wales.
