THERE'S a great scene at the start of Andrew Martin's new book in which he's standing on the first tee at Pike Hills Golf Club - next to Askham Bog - in a grey drizzle.

He's planning on writing a book about Yorkshire, he tells his playing companion Paul - but there's a problem.

Oh yes? Paul says. "I don't live in Yorkshire any more," Andrew replies

By the end of 320 pages of Yorkshire There and Back, a delightful book that is part memoir of a York boyhood, part idiosyncratic guide to God's Own County, Andrew has changed his mind.

The book concludes with a visit to The Birch Hall Inn in Beck Hole, high up on the North York Moors. Driving back across the moors, Andrew gets to musing. "I began this book by fretting that, since I no longer lived in Yorkshire, I was not qualified to write it," he writes. "I conclude with the thought that I would never have written it had I NOT left!"

The author of the hugely popular York-based historic crime novels featuring railway detective Jim Stringer comes across, on the telephone, as wonderfully diffident. Reminded of that opening scene at Pike Hills, he jokes: "I have sliced many balls into Askham Bog!"

Now London-based, he talks about how, growing up in York in the 1970s, he could never completely shake off the feeling York wasn't quite proper Yorkshire. It was too genteel. The main employers were chocolate and the railways. "But there was no heavy industry. And it was so flat! I used to be embarrassed."

Nevertheless, it's obvious he loves York.

His dad was a railwayman, so he used to go to the railway institute gym, and play golf at Pike Hills - in those days the railway golf club.

He comes back to York often - and reminisces about how the city has changed. He misses Ken Spelman's bookshop - and the Red Rhino record shop. "I would buy an album, then sit in the Minster and read the sleeve."

He also remembers there were far fewer restaurants in York back then. In fact, he only remembers one.

"If you had an 18th birthday there was only one place to go - Ristoranti Bari in Shambles!"

The book is packed with memories of 1970s York - of the 'football pitch-sized hole' that was the Coppergate dig; of performing in the York Mystery Plays; of playing a gig in the Black Swan.

He also recalls returning to York with a London friend. The friend was wearing a Tweed suit and hat, and talking loudly about literature as they walked down Micklegate. Andrew felt anxious. They passed a man lounging outside a pub, who stared at the hat with contempt, then pronounced: 'You're a pair of.... gobshites'." York. Always so genteel...

Yorkshire There and Back by Andrew Martin is published by Corsair, priced £20.

Andrew will be at York Waterstones from 7-8.30pm on Wednesday May 25. More information from waterstones.com/events/search/shop/york