I have just been given a painting of the hospital ship Rohilla which may be of interest to some members, A friend was on his way to the council tip with it in his boot, It is no real work of art but I felt it was worth rescuing. On the back is a 'recent' note which reads, "Painted for Mr James Speechley who was proprietor of the Black Swan at Whitby at the time of the Rohilla disaster. He was my Grandfather. signed S Powell 25/2 /14

Good save Taximan, remembering a maritime disaster and the superb efforts by those who did their best to rescue those on board at great risk to their own lives.

Your friend has no sense of history, a simple check in Wikipedia would have led him to the full story of this incident, and the gallant efforts of lifeboats from as far away as Tynemouth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Rohilla

northeast wrote:Your friend has no sense of history, a simple check in Wikipedia would have led him to the full story of this incident, and the gallant efforts of lifeboats from as far away as Tynemouth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Rohilla

Actually my friend is usually very interested in local history, but the sea and ships are completely lost on him which seems strange living in Whitby. His loss is my gain

If your friend is keen on history on the land around Whitby there is a great place to visit alongside the Whitby/Scarborough Road, the Wartime Tank Firing Range even has a Tank still sat in the deep Bog a blip of oil shows it’s location, unfortunately due to the Boggy conditions it was decided not recover it,
Going to Scarborough by Road was interesting Post War as you could not walk on the Moor due to Unexploded Ordinance which was cleared by the “Scarborough Squad “ which still exists, now civilianised they travel the World although I suspect the members have changed or unfortunately taken a short cut to “Welkin”

Didn't know about mines around there , all the times that I did the Lyke Wake Walk!

In the particular area I was thinking about no Mines NE but unexploded ordnance from the Tank firing, if you go to Google Earth to ref 54 deg, 23 min North, 0 deg 32min 53 West you will see the concrete road leading from the Whitby/Scarborough Road-to the hard standings for the Tanks to fire across the Moor at a moving Target which was on a railway line some distance away (as a pilot once said when towing an aerial target “ don’t forget I am towing the target not pushing it” ) I suppose the little motorised target driver felt the same. There was other targets scattered around the firing area to live fire at, old Tanks etc.
The rest of the Moor was indeed a Training Area for the Armed Forces to train on, being a boggy area I would guess that there will still be ordinance underfoot

Good Lord,that's exactly on the Lyke Wake route, used to cross the Pickering-Whitby line (NYMR) and skirt round the north side of the Golf Balls, Lilla Cross was a marker across the broad moor until we crossed the Scarborough Road just about where the concrete road is, I suppose we might have used the last few yards of it, too long ago to remember now!