An Antique Inspiration

One of my favourite places in the world is Whitby… I know, a bold statement to make, but I genuinely love it there. 

 I’ve spent a lot of time there, it’s a place I always find a sense of calm, no matter what is going on in my life, the moment I see Whitby Abbey looming in the distance a feeling of peace floods my body.

  So, a couple of weeks ago, me and Lucy (my sister) took ourselves off to the North Yorkshire coast for a weekend of sea air, walks on the beach and food in our favourite restaurants.

Me (left) & Lucy (right) in Whitby

  It turns out we had a stow away on our trip, in fact this stow away seems to be with me a lot. It’s Stanley Thomas, although as we know he’s a very bad man, so he probably doesn’t care that he’s gatecrashed our trip.

As we sat in our favourite cafe on the West Cliff having a whimsical cup of tea and looking at the sea, our conversation turned to Stanley and just why he was a very bad man.

Whale Bones in Whitby

The Beach Huts on the West Cliff

Captain Cook statue in Whitby

The view as we had a whimsical cup of tea


 After much thought and thank you for all your suggestions, I’ve decided that my book will be set in England in 1988, which means that Stanley was hung in 1953 at the age of 30. 

In that year, there were 5 main reasons you could be hung;
1.    Murder
2.    Treason
3.    Espionage
4.    Arson in the royal dockyards.
5.    Piracy with violence.

There were also other offences under military law that could be punished by death, but I don’t think Stanley was ever in the army.

  As much as I toyed with the idea of him being a pirate, I want to set the book in Mansfield and we’re not particularly well known for our history of pirates, there’s few (if any) tales of swashbuckling pirates sailing the River Maun, so that ruled that out that for Stanley.

Stanley danced at the end of the hangman’s rope for murder.

All that decided over a whimsical cup of tea!

After our brew, we wandered into the centre of Whitby and into some of the little antique shops that hide in amongst the Shambles. It was there I was drawn to a couple of items nestled in a glass cabinet amongst old medals and books.

Side by side were two death masks, one belonging to a Dr William Hame and the other to William Hare, the body snatcher. Apart from the £425.00 price tag, I wondered who on earth would buy them and hang them on their wall?

Dr William Hame death mask

William Burke life mask

It made me think of one of my favourite books, “Great Expectations” and how the lawyer Mr. Jaggers had two on his office wall. One of a client who murdered his master and the other of someone who forged wills and then murdered the people who had supposedly made them.

What if Stanley made death masks of the people he killed? He disposed of the bodies in a dastardly fashion, but his “thing” was to keep a death mask? Each one a depiction of the horror he’d caused his victim as they took their final breaths? What if those death masks were the thing that sealed his fate at the gallows?


Stanley Thomas, you are a very bad man, but I’m glad I took you to Whitby and I’m glad we wandered into the antique shop together.

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