The Setting: Why Beckdale? Why North Yorkshire?

If you read tourism brochures, North Yorkshire is nothing but rolling Dales, centuries-old drystone walls, and quaint tea rooms. But the real reason I set The Elaborated Code is far less the Brontë’s Haworth, and far more the chaotic logistics of a new relationship and the architectural contrasts of social class.

For the first six months of my relationship with Mrs Warbreck, she was deployed by the army in rural North Yorkshire. I was living in Lancashire, working remotely and winding down my full-time publishing career. For the twelve months after that, she was still stationed over there while I trained to teach back in Lancashire.

Because of that eighteen-months, North Yorkshire, specifically the market town near her base, alongside Ripon, Thirsk, Knaresborough, and York, became intensely romantic to me. It wasn't just a location; it was the weekend escape. It was the backdrop to the beginning of our relationship, entirely associated with adventure, relaxation, and shutting out the real world. I even began looking for my first teaching job over there.

But ultimately, the gravitational pull of Lancashire was too strong. Mrs W made the decision to leave the army, and we moved back home for family reasons. And when I say "home," I mean it: we were brought up less than a mile apart, and our families still inhabit the exact same postcode area. Between six out of seven of our nephews, four parents, and a small army of siblings and in-laws, the draw of Lancashire won this (slightly) smaller-scale War of the Roses.

We still visit North Yorkshire, though. We still stay in the market town pub that planted the creative seed for The Bag O'Nails in my fictional village of Beckdale. But during those visits, I started looking past the grand and the imposing and started fixating on something much more interesting, the housing on the outskirts.

I became fascinated by the jarring juxtaposition of wealth in these historic towns. In the centre, you have grand buildings built in traditional York stone, inhabited by the same moneyed families for generations. But grafted onto the outskirts, you have the post-war, ex-council estates.

Having been raised in a sensible, Victorian, Accrington brick semi, I have a deep appreciation for practical housing. Currently, Mrs W and I live in a three-bed, post-war ex-council house on the fringes of a Lancashire market town. Like my protagonist, Harrison, I have a visceral aversion to (what I view as) flimsy new builds (other opinions are equally valid). Having renovated one about ten years ago, three-bed red brick semis have ‘good bones,’ solid proportions, and are infinitely customisable.

But here is where the comedy, and the class tension, really lies. On the driveway of our deeply practical, ostensibly working-class council house sits a massive, brand-new car with the horsepower of a 747 and a footprint larger than our third bedroom.

I love that visual contrast. The executive and self-important vehicles parked outside 1950s council houses is the perfect architectural shorthand for the social friction I wanted to capture in The Elaborated Code and in Beckdale.

Let me preface this part by saying that I am neither a geographer, a historian nor a sociologist; this is based mainly on my observations with some very light research. Placing these post-war estates in North Yorkshire provides the ultimate canvas for that friction. The reality of the county's housing tells a grounded story about class that the tourism boards ignore:

The Outskirts of Affluence (Harrogate & York)

Harrogate is famous for Betty's Tea Room and spa-town elegance. But on the outskirts, you find estates built to house the working-class people who actually kept the town running. Similarly, York’s Tang Hall estate offers practical brick semi-detached houses sitting in stark contrast to the medieval wealth just a few miles away.

The Coast (Scarborough & Whitby)

Towns like Scarborough have large post-war developments, like the Eastfield estate, built to move people out of cramped older housing. They have a weathered, North-Sea-battered feel, far removed from the quaint tourist aesthetic of the harbour.

The Market Towns (Thirsk, Malton, Skipton)

Even the picture-postcard market towns have streets of 1950s pebbledash or red-brick semis just a five-minute walk from the cobbled squares. Thanks to the ‘Right to Buy’ scheme in the 1980s, many of these council houses passed into private hands. Because North Yorkshire is so desirable, they are now frequently bought up by wealthy commuters priced out of the historic stone cottages. This is the ‘terminal gentrification’ of Beckdale. It is the brilliant, jarring visual of a 1950s working-class semi with brand new Land Rover Defender on the drive and an artisanal Farrow & Ball front door.

I didn't want to write about a Brideshead Revisited Yorkshire. I wanted to write the Yorkshire where the £35,000-a-year elite boarding school of Caldwell Grange College sits just up the hill from an ex-council estate. The Yorkshire where the local cafe is desperately clinging to its faded 50p Kenco sign while being suffocated by commuters demanding £4.50 artisanal flat whites.

It perfectly mirrors the linguistic themes of the book: the "elaborated code" of the elite clashing violently with the blunt, practical reality of the locals.

And right in the middle of that clash is a missing girl, a forged email, and an English teacher who cannot let something drop.

OSW