A YORK councillor and composer has told how he turned his hand to writing stories set in and around historical Whitby - and ended up selling thousands of books.

Wheldrake LibDem councillor Christian Vassie says that as a film and television composer, he sometimes used to be frustrated that his job was to add sounds, music and emotions to other people's stories.

"When my hearing started to go around 2009, I was composing the music for a supernatural adventure drama series watched by 20 million viewers every week,"he said.

"It was fantastic fun but I realised I would soon struggle to mix music to broadcast quality so I changed course; turning first to filmmaking, making short environmental films in ten European countries, then to photography and design, including three years as a product designer and design manager, working with Fair Trade producers in India, Thailand, and Bali."

Christian said he had been going to Whitby since he was a child, and viewed it as a 'magical place that draws us back again and again; the raging sea, the cliffs and fossils, the narrow streets, those steps up to the abbey.'

He said that as a councillor who had sat on York planning committees, he was relieved that, early in the 20th century, Whitby's town council did not knock down the whole of the old town on the grounds that the dwellings weren't fit for human habitation.

"In 2015, I was in Whitby with the family on Goth Weekend. Seeing the amazing costumes, the walking undead, top hats and bodices, people carrying their shopping in coffins, etc.

"I had a thought: what if real bodies turned up on the streets of Whitby during Goth Weekend? Would anybody notice or would we all just think they were props?

"And so SCRAVIR - While Whitby Sleeps was born. When last year the book was published and immediately started selling hundreds of copies a month, I was faced with a dilemma.

"I wanted to explore Whitby's history in further depth before writing the sequel so I threw myself into research. The result has been first The Whale Bone Archers - a collection of short stories set in Whitby mixing humour, hauntings and history - and then

The Whitby Trap, a time travelling adventure set in the old town, that throws modern day characters into an adventure into a world on the cusp of scientific discovery."

He said life was tough for fishing families in 1820 as the whaling industry spluttered to a close, ship building faded and press gangs raided to steal fathers, husbands and sons to use them as canon fodder on the king's ships. 

Christian said his books were available in bookshops and tourist information centres along the Yorkshire Coast and online on the injini press website and Amazon.