Scarborough maritime museum prepares to reopen - this is when you can see its World War Two exhibition

It will open from 11am to 4pm on Saturday July 4 and Sunday July 5 and then every Friday to Sunday until the end of July.

In August they should be back to their normal hours.

Coronavirus guidelines will be in place, allowing only two people or one family in at a time with hand sanitiser on entrance and exit.

The exhibition is inspired by the 75th anniversary of VE Day and is about Scarborough during World War Two.

During that time there was a danger of the Germans invading the north-east coast in 1940 and 1941, so the town was heavily defended with troops, artillery, barbed wire, pillboxes, minefields and concrete anti-tank cubes. The top secret “Y” station listened into German naval communications and sent this information to Bletchley Park for decryption. The people of Scarborough experienced difficult times during World War Two.WW2.

The tourist trade was badly affected. The fishing industry, already ailing before the war, suffered too. In the first half of 1940, Scarborough fishermen were attacked on numerous occasions in the North Sea, and throughout the war sea mines were a serious danger to fishing boats.

There were more than 20 Luftwaffe air raids, which were mostly concentrated in 1940 to 1942, but throughout the war constant air raid alerts imposed a considerable strain upon the community.

The arrival of evacuee children from Hull, West Hartlepool and Middlesbrough, many of them impoverished, was a considerable challenge for the town, as were later, smaller waves of evacuees from London and other provincial cities. By the end of the war, Scarborough was disfigured by bombed out buildings and there was a serious housing shortage that lasted well into the post-war years.

Chairman, Mark Vesey, said ‘It is great to be reopening as our volunteers have really missed seeing each other and talking with the public. We have been putting more historical information on our website but nothing beats actually visiting the Centre and talking with our expert volunteers."