My Yorkshire: Chris Monks

What's your first Yorkshire memory?

I'd have been about four years old, and I can vividly recall playing in the garden of our old council house home in Sheffield – at Cowboys and Indians. I am an only child, so I'd have been playing with my friends, and more than likely we'd be re-enacting scenes from the TV favourite, Bonanza. I think that I've got a picture somewhere of a small me wearing my cowboy hat (I was never cast as an Indian) to which I was seriously attached. My mum has told me that she had extreme difficulty in getting it off my head, even when I went up to bed. I certainly never took it off at mealtimes.

What's your favourite part of the county – and why?

The North York Moors, they are so wild and beautiful. I love walking, and sadly, with pressures of work being what they are, I simply do not get enough time to do as much as I once did. But whenever I need to clear my head, or when I need a bit of inspiration I go up there, and I stride out and just think.

What's your idea of a perfect day, or a perfect weekend, out in Yorkshire?

A long walk, a good meal at the end of it, and a good comfy bed. It could be anywhere in the county. I am not now a camper. The idea of flapping canvas, a damp groundsheet and a musty-smelling sleeping bag makes me shudder a bit – I like my comforts. I once walked from Whitby to Pickering, booked in at The White Swan, had my dinner and it was bliss.

Do you have a favourite walk – or view?

The Raincliffe Woods near Scarborough and the Forge Valley is beautiful, and I am immensely lucky in that I can get to it almost literally from the bottom of my garden. You can smell the wild garlic in early summer. It's an ancient wood that is maybe thousands of years old, with bits of it adapted for cover for game shooting by the Sitwell family. The forest has a brook running through. You can go round the four miles, and when you reach the top, the views are breathtaking – right across the town of Scarborough below you and out to sea.

Which Yorkshire sportsman, past or present, would you like to take for lunch?

I bet a lot of people will remember Charlie Williams as a great comedian, but I wonder how many know that he was also a fine professional footballer. He was a black man of his day and he made it to the very top, despite all prejudices, without losing sight of his roots. What a double life, and what tenacity to survive. He's an amazing example of Yorkshire determination, and today he'd have been another Lenny Henry.

Which Yorkshire stage or screen star, past or present, would you like to take for dinner?

I am ashamed to say that I fell in love with that marvellous film The Night of the Hunter before I knew that it had been directed by Scarborough's very own Charles Laughton.

Watching that film is the most primal, scary experience – and then I found out that it had been panned by the critics at the time and, terribly wounded by the notices, Laughton had never directed again.

There's an amazing Gothic feel to it, reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe, and there are some terrific performances – especially from the children involved.

Laughton was one of the finest stage and screen actors of his generation, really more of a character actor than a star, and character actors are always the most fascinating.

Give me the Wilfred Lawson men and the Irene Handl women any day of the week. I'd like to talk to Mr Laughton about how he was so flexible with

his performances.

If you had to name your Yorkshire "hidden gem", what would it be?

Can I have two? It would be either Beverley Minster, because of the beauty of the carvings, which are so fresh and luminous (to my mind it's far better than York) or Burton Agnes Hall, for the gardens and for the amazing, jaw-dropping, art collection.

What do you think gives Yorkshire its unique identity?

The landscape, the industrial past and the people. So much beauty on our doorstep. I never fail to have a few laughs when you're with a group of Yorkshire folk, even if you don't know them very well to begin with. We can laugh about anything – including the hardships that our nation has endured. I went out with some friends the other night, and the mother of one of them who I'd never met before.

Five minutes in, it was like we'd been friends forever.

Do you follow sport in the county, and if so, what?

I am cricket mad – but again, I really don't have much of an opportunity to get to matches, so there's no point in getting myself a season ticket. I was at Headingley earlier in the year when Yorkshire stuffed Lancashire, which gave me a warm glow, and also a fiver on a bet I won. My beef is that there are so few good grounds these days – it's Leeds or Scarborough, and that's about it, and the game is being sullied by all the big money that it now attracts. Same with football, and I'm a Wednesday supporter. It's not a sport now, it's a multi-million pound business. I stopped playing cricket about two years ago.

Do you have a favourite restaurant, or pub?

I am a veggie, and I adore the Nutmeg Caf here in Scarborough, which I go to as often as I can. It's run by Sue and Rob, and everything is as fresh as fresh can be, and even carnivores love it. It's nothing special to look at, but boy, the wholefood is superb.

Do you have a favourite food shop?

No. Because my Geordie partner Jan is a proud allotment holder, and a fanatic about fresh food, and just about everything that goes on our table comes from her plot. When I get home some evenings and she says: "It's an allotment dinner tonight", I start salivating straight away. Courgettes, marrows, spuds, tomatoes, greens, you name it, and she grows it. Tasty, tasty, tasty.

How do you think that Yorkshire has changed, for better or for worse, in the time that you've known it?

It's much better – apart from the constant good weather that I remember as a child! However, I am dismayed and alarmed at the way that transport services are going – cuts everywhere, and the impossibility of some people to get from A to B. It is impossible for many audiences to get to the SJT by train, see and evening show, and then get home again. They have to stay overnight, which is an impossibility for many of them.

Who is the Yorkshire person that you most admire?

My mother, Irene, who is 88, and rather frail, and who now lives nearby in Scarborough. I cannot begin to tell you what that woman has achieved, and what times she has lived through. She is a great survivor, and has an indomitable spirit. She keeps smiling, and she still has drive. An amazing person.

Has Yorkshire influenced your work?

Utterly and totally. I just would not be who and where I am today had I had the misfortune to be born anywhere else.

Name your favourite Yorkshire book/author/artist/CD/performer.

Greed kicks in again. Two, please! The first is the song Wuthering Heights, by Kate Bush, but only in the version by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, and sung by George Hinchcliffe who is an old mate of mine from school days. He gets it spot on – and it's also hilarious. Secondly, absolutely anything by David Hockney, who some people are surprised to find is a Yorkshireman – they associate him so much with his work from California. But his recent work from the Wolds is amazing, and I'd give anything to own one of his canvases. A little beyond my financial reach, I fear.

If a stranger to Yorkshire only had time to visit one place, it would be?

Staithes, preferably in winter time, when it is so wild. It's one of those places where you can believe you are back in the Yorkshire of 1910, not of today. The sea can be wickedly crashing and boiling, but there's always an element of calm to the harbour. I just love it, and can't get enough of it.

The Snow Queen opens at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough on December 1.

YP MAG 25/9/10