The Whitby Cast

We untangle a dramatic week at Whitby Town Council after five councillors resign together. Then we lighten the mood with pumpkin-field chaos, a pub makeover on the railway, road closure warnings, and a packed autumn calendar around Whitby and beyond.  • Five councillors resigning en masse • Independent investigators’ report and recommendations around disassociation  • What Whitby Town Council can...

A Romanian vampire is heading to Whitby Cast, a coffin velocipede is rolling back into Goth Weekend, and somehow we still end up knee-deep in the most divisive topic of the week: changing rooms at the leisure centre. We’re Emma and Ceri, and we’re catching up properly after a spell of half-takes and happy chaos, with a listener invitation to send us your best questions for Vlad ahead of his guest...

Whitby jet has a reputation as a souvenir but Sarah Steele knows otherwise.  A 5,500 year old craft, born from a Jurassic environmental catastrophe, kept alive by a handful of makers and a coastline that only gives up its treasures on the right tide.  We’re joined by Sarah Steele from Ebor Jetworks, a jet manufacturer and gemologist who’s also completing a PhD on jet identification and origins. Ta...

A car in Whitby Harbour. A stranger jumping in without hesitating. Nineteen mates on 40-year-old motorised cycles crawling coast to coast at 35mph. Then we dive into a tourist tax row that’s turning comments sections into a proper battleground. We start in familiar territory: the annual struggle of Christmas arriving in the shops while the weather still feels like summer, plus our plan for a mince...

Sheep in a graveyard sounds like the start of a ghost story, but the truth is far more down to earth and honestly quite brilliant. We promised we’d get an answer about the sheep at St Stephen’s Church in Robin Hood’s Bay, so we put it to the test and ring Deb while we’re recording. What we learn is a perfect example of conservation grazing on the Yorkshire coast: sheep keep the grass down, save hu...

Twenty-two crabbing lines, nets, and buckets pulled from Whitby Harbour in about an hour and a half is not “a bit of litter” We talk honestly about what is actually going wrong, why “just ban crabbing” misses the point, and what practical fixes might make it harder to leave a mess behind in the first place. From there we step into a bigger argument about pressure on the town: rules that exist but...

We’re back after a week off and catch up on the most Whitby chain of events imaginable, from a chaotic Egton Show photo that ends with a giant marrow on the floor to big ones like the whalebones being removed. We also share news from town, celebrate locally caught food, and reveal a major milestone for the Whitby Anchor as we move into our first proper office.  If anyone wants to bring a biscuit,...

A single conversation on Whitby’s swing bridge leads us to one of the biggest local stories of the year, a bluefin tuna landed in Whitby for the first time in around 90 years. The headline travels fast, but the detail gets messy even faster. We chat about what is actually true about tuna fishing and why regulated commercial landings aren’t the same as recreational catch and release.   Then we swin...

We’re joined in Ceri’s kitchen by Whitby favourite David Atherton, Great British Bake Off winner (2019). We chat about his illustrated kids’ cookbooks, his podcast Sticky Bun Boys, and the kind of kitchen disasters nobody forgets, including an unfortunate sausage flavoured flapjack incident. After we delve behind the scenes into filming Bake Off, we chat about all things Whitby - the old school tr...

Jon Stokoe, around the table. We laugh about the memories of trying to caption rowing winners at speed, the fear of getting a name wrong, and the moment someone gives you “Mickey Mouse” while the next team is already pushing forward for their photo. Then we get sensible, because Whitby Regatta is not magic, it’s logistics. Jon talks about the biggest challenge - not enough volunteers. A handful of...

We ride the wave of a viral Gothland Hotel story as Trisha Penrose takes over behind the bar and the internet decides we must be the pub. Then we step back 25 years with Sally Landers to remember Whitby’s Burberry factory, the graft, the laughs, and the bargains we all wish they'd kept. 

We’re back in person by the sea, catching up on Whitby life and the quaint history of the swing bridge. We dig into centuries of crossings, today’s funding headaches, and what it takes to keep a seaside town running. 

Champion sheep, a bull called Winston, and a Whitby ice cream clean sweep. We’re split this week, with Ceri back in Whitby and Emma reporting from a sweltering media room at the Great Yorkshire Show, comparing notes on the farmers we’ve met, the sheer scale of the livestock classes, and why winning at this show can boost breeding business.

We start a village walk, and a brand-new farm vending machine serving fresh milk and ridiculously good milkshakes in reusable glass bottles. It’s a small thing that says a lot about rural North Yorkshire right now - innovation and diversification. Then we head to the livestock mart, where the buzz isn’t only about animals, it’s about people getting off isolated farms and talking face to face. Next...

Join Emma and Ceri for a proper Whitby catch-up, from guilty confessions to the kind of local chaos that only happens when a town’s key link grinds to a halt. Plus flash floods and fresh planning debates.

We swap seaside confessions that start with a “secret flake” at Clara’s before digging into Whitby’s bigger headaches, from banking access and summer traffic to the swing bridge failures, before finishing with local updates, weekend plans and a chat with our work experience student Sophie. 

We celebrate a brilliant week for Whitby, from two award-winning butchers to a teenager raising thousands for a local disability charity. We also head to the RNLI boathouse to hear what really drives summer callouts, what cold water shock does to the body, and how the lifeboat crew stays ready year-round.

We hand Jimmy from Sunbeam a ukulele and ask for a Whitby Anchor jingle, so you can guess how this starts. Jimmy joins us ahead of Sunbeam’s tenth anniversary gig at the Royal in Whitby, and we get into the real story of building a band from scratch: the early pub gigs, the cover sets held together with lyric sheets, and the moment the sound shifts with a full five-piece line-up. We talk about wha...

From a rainy afternoon in an office at Whitby Lobster Hatchery, we talk with Whitby Lobster Hatchery's Joe Redfern about the practical work behind conservation aquaculture and what it takes to support a real fishing town while rebuilding marine wildlife.  We dig into the hatchery’s core process, including how “buried hens” are brought in with legal dispensation, how V-notching protects breedi...

Drama isn’t just for the stage, it’s rehearsal for real life. We sit down with Chris Colebrookw from Colebrooke Productions to hear how a local Whitby performing arts school grew from a handful of children into a bustling community of young performers and adult learners, and why Chris is stepping away from his day job at the Whitby Pavilion to put his energy where it’s needed most. Chris also shar...

We catch up on the week’s most local stories, from rural crime worries in Glaisedale to the creative North Yorkshire Open Studios.  Andrew Snaith joins us to celebrate Whitby Town’s centenary, reliving Wembley 1997 and looking ahead to a summer rebuild and a stronger bond with the community. 

A week of Whitby stories runs from an unexpectedly viral Penny Hedge clip to serious local questions about care, public services and wildfire risk. We share what we’re hearing around town, then chat to Archie ahead of the Fish and Ships weekend.

We catch up on a packed Whitby week that swings from hidden local gems to the arguments that flare up when a small town hits peak-season pressure. We share what we’ve heard on traffic, camping, schools, and community support, then look ahead to one of Whitby’s strangest and best-loved traditions. 

After our first full week running The Anchor, we’re back with The Whitby Cast - Week Two, to share the surprises, stories, and moments that made us laugh out loud while we tried to keep up. We discuss marine litter and whether Whitby should rethink crabbing when plastic lines and buckets keep getting left around the harbour. We chat about our rural crime reporting why a morning dog walk can make y...

Meet Emma Ryan and Ceri Oakes who have created a new online newspaper for Whitby.  We share a few memories from our early days in the newsroom and why it shapes what we value most about local journalism. Accuracy, high standards and asking the questions everyone wants to know. You’ll also hear what’s on our reporting list this week, questions around Eskdale School, Whitby RNLI shout figures and th...