Devon at 55 - A Difficult Place To Be

[Lat-Literal]

So - and this is the first drop of fine rain since I started : I'm on the bus from Crediton to Bow and I'm thinking "what's going on here?". I'm handling this and better than in the main. I've had five minutes here and there with umpteen people in a way in which most people just don't do and yet I'm not sitting down with people comfortably for much longer. Perhaps that is just my way. Too big thoughts go through my head. I am being a Palin or a Portillo or a Self? I have to say and it isn't in any way an easy thought that it is Self which rings the greatest truth not that there are any similarities other than it accentuates the unpredictable and slightly bizarre. Next I am in Bow. Five minutes walk from the bus stop, outside the White Hart in Bow to be precise. And I'm pretty gutted that on the sign it says it is closed all day on Tuesdays. I thought that I might be an hour ahead of lunch but with this I am bitterly disappointed. At least, I tell myself, it is still there. And then I decide just to walk round the back of it. I look at its garden. Where the troops once stayed in tents, there are tents with signs showing that they have recently had a cider festival. Then all of a sudden a woman appears with a fearsome dog and asks me what I am doing there. My opening words were not the most promising - "I'm 55, my mother is 88". "Yes" she snapped. How the hell we got any further I do not know. But then I went into the history of it and she completely changed. "Oh you must come in" she says. "We are closed today but my husband will be happy to show you all of it and he'll let you take as many photographs as you want to have".



So next I am through the gate and past the dog - "he's ok really; he just doesn't like people with rucksacks" - and I am in the bar which is totally empty except for them and me and I'm having to declare that I don't actually have a camera. He gets out his super mobile phone while I ramble on about darts and it is "where would you like to pictured?" Three are taken and then I give my e-mail address with instructions. "It won't be the same" they say "because that bit was blocked off when old Bill Freeman lived here" and I'm saying "yes, yes, yes, that was the name, Freeman, my Mum's friends". As bizarre scenarios go, I couldn't have wished for better....it was virtual delirium". Back at the bus stop, I am chatting to two blokes and they say "oh yes Bill Freeman he was there until at least the 1970s" so the links there were wholly maintained. Back at Crediton station, I decide a need a cup of tea to celebrate. And I walk into what is perhaps the most remarkable railway station tea room in Britain. It has only been in its current form for four weeks and given that this is the back end of nowhere it is an artistic grotto/masterpiece of art work made by autistic people in a wider voluntary scheme. It is absolutely stunning. There are three posh arty women at the table saying how wonderful it is, an old dear who is much more than an old dear because she is clearly very committed and been instrumental in setting it up and a mouthy geezer walking in and out with the intention of winding everyone up, telling me that I am not going to get very far without wearing a "f-----g" watch. It was one of the best hours I have ever had.

Well, anyhow, I moved on to Ilfracombe for Days 6 and 7 after that and I will leave these until tomorrow. The sad thing is that the photos haven't come through yet. I rang them tonight and they say they will chase him up on it but I was also told at the bus stop they are handing on the White Hart after 13 years this week so they'll be busy. I caught them on the cusp.

[Lat-Literal]

The remainder of Day 5 was a time for assessing what had just occurred. On my final night in Exeter I was still finding myself on different streets to the ones I thought I was on and ending up the same long heavily trafficked road. It was precisely in the last of these moments that I had heard my name called. I looked to see where it was coming from and it was Tristran again with his bike. He was again chatty and sorry to hear that I was moving on. He wanted to recommend to me a place I might like near the Quay. We went through the same elaborate process regarding maps on him mobile phone. It struck me now that I hadn't as I had thought before seem him riding his bike. On both occasions he was pushing it. I asked a few more questions about him but he was if anything more elusive. There was something almost zen about him but I also wondered about the Jehovah's Witnesses. When we had first bumped into each other, we were opposite their building with a lot of rather authoritarian types striding towards it. But they were in suits and ties and could have been American tele-evangelists whereas in the latest chance encounter Tristan in his cycle helmet could have been a character in the Truman Show with me in recent years having been Truman. The woman from the Jehovah's Witnesses had stood on my doorstep only a week before with a text that she had especially selected for me from Philippians. Something along the lines of not to worry about the anxieties of today as there will be more and greater anxieties tomorrow. I hadn't found that necessarily reassuring although was grateful that she had made the effort. It also seemed to have been a driver of sorts which may have contributed to my journeying to the South West.

Once firmly on the train northwards from Crediton to Exeter, there was a very strong feeling that I was now really heading to my place. What I had set out to do in the first four days had all remarkably been achieved. Most of the key symbols were from the 1980s - the university, the walking, the football, the historical pubs, the balancing of modest if expansive ambition with a leaning towards community rather than relationships - and all had been found or established in the true north. So this was all a kind of microcosm and in directional terms weirdly in reverse. I was now "leaving home again" but this time for when the 1990s re-engaged with the 1970s via further holidays with my Mum and Dad. While I was doing so many things during those years with friends, many of whom I had met at university, it was always the ones in and around Mortehoe with my parents that I had cherished most and which offered an escape from stresses in work and when living on my own in a tiny flat. Ironically, the stresses of today are principally about illness and those are not least in my parents. The closest now that I can get to that period is us as we were in my head in a very happy environment. The countryside beyond the train windows also seemed to epitomize it and seemed more easy to accommodate than anything I had seen in the previous days. I knew that the hotel had long gone and so had picked one in Ilfracombe along the coast. It had the same name as the one I have been staying at in Lowestoft which I hoped would be a good omen.

The brief break at Barnstaple as I waited to change onto a bus was a time to reflect on its differences with Exeter. These are, after all, the two main centres at either end of a short line between South and North Devon. Exeter is obviously a more substantial base. It is where, for example, people living in North Devon have to go for any serious medical treatment. And all one has to do is sit outside Exeter St David's railway station for a while to be aware of just how important the university is to its economy. The scene is one of hubbub with Eastern European taxi drivers always there in large numbers to ferry the streams of identikit young women with long dyed blonde hair and all the equally thin boys in drainpipe trousers preparing for a role in big business along with the oriental academics and Indian business magnates. Many of the young, of course, walk or cycle. That the university was built at the top of such a high hill shows its own early ambitions for heights and a wish to attract only the fittest. It is an establishment smarter than the university at York and it is one rung closer to Oxbridge. But Exeter only just passes as a city because it is so ordinary and small. York is far closer to Oxford and Cambridge and a better option for people who just want to feel and even claim that they are studying in a stereotypically traditional studying place. Whatever the mixed ethnicity of Exeter, the vast majority of people in Exeter appear to be English and white, not least because the university attracts a few Hooray Henrys. The ordinary folk are in the main unusually friendly if business like. There is a disappointingly large number of homeless people with drugs issues whose presence can make parks and some streets a little daunting to some. I saw several female students moving away from them n a somewhat haughty fashion but I found that to talk with them is to enter into good humoured banter about smuggling mushrooms out from breakfast.

I didn't find Exeter a particularly easy place for being a solo traveller seeking a meal in the evening. It has one too many chi-chi bistros for y liking and the alternative options are mainly the standard burger joints. A similar problem would have been had in Barnstaple but for different reasons. No doubt it has students and people of a range of ethnic backgrounds among its population. However, I never saw them. It is very much a white English town in which most eating places could easily pass for a schooner steak house of half a century ago. The youngsters here are mainly of school age. North Devon is full of them and it always has been. The visible lost souls are not homeless drug addicts but rheumy eyed late middle aged men with severe alcohol problems. They look as hard as nails but are warm, friendly and almost overly helpful in providing advice to tourists. Service in shops is curt but the covered market is splendidly atmospheric and a respite from the town's age old traffic problems. Once in my room at the Ilfracombe hotel, some 54 steps up from ground level, I made a cup of tea and then walked that town which I knew reasonably well and reminded myself of familiar locations. The Dolphin fish restaurant - well, a glorified cafe really - is beside the wonderful harbour and it turned out to be a terrific choice. Exceptionally friendly staff who on each evening greeted me as a long lost friend and were keen to knock the price down to the lowest possible level. Fish, jacket potato, peas and one of the best side salads I have even eaten to a backdrop of Tamla Motown when dining out. They first thought that I was a part of the circus by which they meant the fun fair that had just rolled into town and I'm not sure that they ever believed me when I said that I wasn't which says a lot, I guess, about my appearance. I went to the George and Dragon in time for its quiz at 8.30pm intending to be in a team of one. Gamesmanship was in evidence early on there with my stool being taken when I wasn't looking and most of the other seats removed. But I found another stool which happened to be next to a chap from Doncaster who was apparently with people on holiday although on his own for the night. He was not especially welcoming of the quiz master's insistence that we should form a team of two but mellowed slightly when he realised that I could answer a question or two. He played his cards very close to his chest. At most, I got out of him the fact that he was a carer of people with learning disabilities but I also sensed that he himself was on the autism scale. When the music lyric round took place, I was impressed that he got "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" almost immediately. He was less impressed that it took me over an hour of humming to get "Leaving On a Jet Plane". We got a high score but then so did everyone so we were not even in the leading places. As soon as the quiz was over, he just scarpered without any sort of goodbye which was pretty much the character he had displayed at the outset.

[Lat-Literal]

The remainder of Day 5 was a time for assessing what had just occurred. On my final night in Exeter I was still finding myself on different streets to the ones I thought I was on and ending up the same long heavily trafficked road. It was precisely in the last of these moments that I had heard my name called. I looked to see where it was coming from and it was Tristan again with his bike. He was again chatty and sorry to hear that I was moving on. He wanted to recommend to me a place I might like near the Quay. We went through the same elaborate process regarding maps on him mobile phone. It struck me now that I hadn't as I had thought before seem him riding his bike. On both occasions he was pushing it.

I asked him a few more questions about him but he was if anything more elusive. There was something almost zen about him but I also wondered about the Jehovah's Witnesses. When we had first bumped into each other, we were opposite their building with a lot of authoritarian types striding towards it. But they were in suits and ties and could have been American tele-evangelists whereas in the latest chance encounter Tristan in his cycle helmet could have been a character in the Truman Show with me in recent years having been Truman. The woman from the Jehovah's Witnesses had stood on my doorstep only a week before with a text that she had especially selected for me from Philippians. Something along the lines of not to worry about the anxieties of today as there will be more and greater anxieties tomorrow. I hadn't found that necessarily reassuring although was grateful that she had made the effort. It also seemed to have been a driver to my journeying. Once firmly on the train northwards from Crediton to Exeter, there was a very strong feeling that I was now really heading to my place. What I had set out to do in the first four days had all remarkably been achieved. Most of the key symbols were from the 1980s - the university, the walking, the football, the historical pubs, the balancing of modest if expansive ambition with a leaning towards community rather than relationships - and all had been found or established in the true north.

So this was all a kind of microcosm and in directional terms weirdly in reverse. I was now "leaving home again" but this time for when the 1990s re-engaged with the 1970s via further holidays with my Mum and Dad. While I was doing so many things during those years with friends, many of whom I had met at university, it was always the ones in and around Mortehoe with my parents that I had cherished most and which offered an escape from stresses in work and when living on my own in a tiny flat. Ironically, the stresses of today are principally about illness and those are not least in my parents. The closest now that I can get to that period is us as we were in my head in a very happy environment. The countryside beyond the train windows also seemed to epitomize it and seemed more easy to accommodate than anything I had seen from trains in the previous days. I knew that the hotel had long gone and so had picked one in Ilfracombe along the coast. It had the same name as the very good one I have been staying at in Lowestoft which I hoped would be a good omen.

[Lat-Literal]

The brief break at Barnstaple as I waited to change onto a bus was a time to reflect on its differences with Exeter. These are, after all, the two main centres at either end of a short line between South and North Devon. Exeter is obviously a more substantial base. It is where, for example, people living in North Devon have to go for any serious medical treatment. And all one has to do is sit outside Exeter St David's railway station for a while to be aware of just how important the university is to its economy. The scene is one of hubbub with Eastern European taxi drivers always there in large numbers to ferry the streams of identikit young women with long dyed blonde hair and all the equally thin boys in drainpipe trousers preparing for a role in big business along with the oriental academics and Indian business magnates. Many of the young, of course, walk or cycle. That the university was built at the top of such a high hill shows its own early ambitions for heights and a wish to attract only the fittest. This makes especial and increasing sense in what is the modern privatised age.

It is a smarter establishment than the university at York and it is one rung closer to Oxbridge. But Exeter only just passes as a city because it is so ordinary and small. York is far closer to Oxford and Cambridge and a better option for people who just want to feel or just claim that they are studying in a traditional studying place. Whatever the mixed ethnicity of Exeter, the vast majority of people in Exeter appear to be English and white, not least because the university attracts a few Hooray Henrys. The ordinary folk are in the main unusually friendly if business like. There is a disappointingly large number of homeless people with drugs issues whose presence can make parks and some streets a little daunting. I saw several female students moving away from them in a haughty fashion but I found that to talk with them is to enter into good humoured banter about smuggling mushrooms out from breakfast.

I didn't find Exeter an easy place for being a solo traveller seeking a meal in the evening. It has one too many chi-chi bistros for my liking and the alternative options are mainly the standard burger joints. A similar problem would have been had in Barnstaple but for different reasons. No doubt it has students and people of a range of ethnic backgrounds among its population but I never saw them. It is very much a white English town in which most eating places could easily pass for a schooner steak house of half a century ago. The youngsters here are mainly of school age. North Devon is full of them and it always has been. The visible lost souls are not homeless drug addicts but rheumy eyed late middle aged men with severe alcohol problems. They look as hard as nails but are warm, friendly and almost overly helpful in providing advice to tourists. Service in shops is curt - I had the impression that many of the women would leap at the chance of living in London - but the covered market is splendidly atmospheric and a respite from the town's age old traffic problems. Once in my room at the Ilfracombe hotel, 54 steps up from ground level, I made a cup of tea and then walked that town which I knew reasonably well and reminded myself of familiar locations.

The Dolphin fish restaurant - a glorified cafe - is beside the wonderful harbour and it turned out to be a terrific choice. Exceptionally friendly staff who on each evening greeted me as a long lost friend and were keen to knock the price down to the lowest possible level. Fish, jacket potato, peas and one of the best side salads I have even eaten to a backdrop of Tamla Motown, circa 1971, when dining out. They first thought that I was a part of the circus by which they meant the fun fair that had just rolled into town and I'm not sure that they ever believed me when I said that I wasn't. That says a lot, I guess, about my appearance. I went to the George and Dragon in time for its quiz at 8.30pm intending to be in a team of one.

Gamesmanship was in evidence early on there with my stool being taken when I wasn't looking and most of the other seats reserved. But I found another stool which happened to be next to a chap from Doncaster who was apparently with people on holiday although on his own for the night. He was not especially welcoming of the quiz master's insistence that we should form a team of two but mellowed slightly when he realised that I could answer a question or two. He played his cards very close to his chest. At most, I got out of him the fact that he was a carer of people with learning disabilities but I also sensed that he himself was on the autism scale. When the music lyric round took place, I was impressed that he got "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" immediately. He was not impressed that it took me over an hour of humming to get "Leaving On a Jet Plane". We got a high score but then so did everyone so we were not even in the top places. As soon as the quiz was over, he just scarpered without any sort of goodbye which was pretty much the character he had displayed at the outset.

[Lat-Literal]

Day 6 -

I have in my time known identical twins. I could tell them apart. The hotel which turned out to be a very good choice with a lot of attention to pleasant detail was ostensibly run by two twin brothers, 30-something, and originally from Lancashire. Each wore glasses. Each had the same voice and demeanour. Each could have been mistaken visually for academics. Each had a friendly and even an old fashioned, homely demeanour. I think, on balance, I have to accept that they are two people rather than one. However, I never could determine any difference. They were ably supported in breakfast duties by their mother who was equally welcoming and friendly and with her husband had initiated the purchasing of the hotel in 2002.

The extensive hotel literature described vividly how the tourist industry of North Devon had virtually collapsed in the 1980s and 1990s with people preferring to go abroad on package holidays. This became a constant theme in the next two days in sporadic, brief conversations and it was almost certainly a contributory factor in our Mortehoe hotel being erased and ultimately replaced by apartments. The Ilfracombe hotel has had its best ever years in 2017 and 2018. In 2017, business was aided by the lengthy stay of construction workers. This year it has been equalled purely on the basis of the tourist trade. After breakfast, I took the bus to Mortehoe, a journey of less than half an hour. As on all the days other than the connecting ones, there was bright sunshine and a pleasant breeze. The perfect walking weather. Setting foot on the road there beside the Post Office, there was some sort of surge in me. Within seconds, I was absolutely overwhelmed by emotion. I thought it would be a moving moment but it was like being engulfed in some sort of spiritual energy. Tearful but not sad. There are few times when I have experienced anything like it and it get welling up. In season, there are apparently hoards of people walking back and forth to the camp sites but we had always gone there out of season and as then it all felt like an absolute oasis of peace. Certainly in all senses including those of identity, it felt misleadingly more like home than home. I stayed there a while asking in the two shops and also outside the pub if anyone knew what had happened to the Rockham Bay Hotel. Did it really burn down in a fire?

Had anyone any news of the owners Colin and Bridget who I had heard on the grapevine might have moved to Ilfracombe to run a restaurant? Their names drew blank looks. One of the three I asked thought that the hotel had merely been demolished rather than being lost to fire. Then a little further up the road where four old council houses stand, an old couple, 80 something, originally from the East End of London as it turned out and now in their 80s emerged from their house with a trolley. They wanted to talk. Curiously it was at this precise spot one year when we had bumped into people we know who live just around the corner from where we live and are very similar in background and character. Initially the couple couldn't recall the hotel although it had been a two minute walk from them. Then they did remember. They missed it especially at Christmas time when the owner would be dressed as Father Christmas leading guests covered in tinsel up the road in a parade. "Ah", I said. "That was the previous one. He dressed up as Father Christmas most of the time when doing his quizzes as his glamorous American wife schmoozed and a leather clad Maggie bizarrely entertained the over 70s by bellowing out "Total Eclipse of the Heart" while astride a motorbike. She dished out many kisses while sitting in the laps of those who had simply expected to enjoy a quiet, modest break". They were a nice old couple and enjoyed hearing this stuff.

I hadn't known about the Christmas parade so that was interesting to me. But what was more interesting was the fact that those people were there for just one year and had truly made their mark. Subsequently, it was run quietly by Colin and Bridget for over a decade and no one had any memory of them. "Father Christmas" had provided my parents with such an elaborate route out of Mortehoe in their year there that they had joked it was almost like an escape route. And sure enough, when they enquired the next year why he had left, the locals had told them it was all very suspicious. They believed he had had to leave suddenly being on the run for smuggling activities. It appears that the route was as had been thought.

[Lat-Literal]

The apartments which stand on the old hotel site which had been a collection of ramshackle buildings which housed evacuees in the wartime - it was pre Beeching of course so the train line had run further then - are not so terribly out of place. They just seem inappropriate against the memories. There was little sign of the rabbits across the road that we watched from the dining room each evening. The walk - the best in England in my opinion but then I am biased - was commenced in various ways and I decided initially on leaving the village from the top campsite. All of the new signs seemed to suggest it was the only route. On getting there, I realised that this was a commercial ruse. There is something of a new complex there and while set very far back it isn't in keeping with what it used to be. When a footpath leads into a bar with sky sports on the television it becomes obvious that a proper route is required. So I returned to the apartments and then took the path to Rockham Bay. It opens out so quickly into vast sweeps of greenery leading down to the sea. The feeling is exhilarating. One just wants to turn to someone and say "have you never experienced this before?". I was full of excitement. Then it was the dramatic ups and downs towards the remarkable tranquillity of Lee Village and Lee Bay. In those three or so miles which feel so much further because of the inclines I passed no more than 15 people. All the while it felt like my very first time.

There are few properties in this area. It is nearly all scenery. But a surprisingly large number of homes are on sale. I don't know what that says about the economy. The one on the entry to Lee which is very grand and high on its own hill is a place I could live in easily but they want 2.2 million pounds for it. The sounds carry in surprising ways here. There are moments when you could hear a pin drop from the other side of the village. Buses run just once on a Tuesday and on a Friday. My memory is of the gentle sound of quiet lawnmowers on hotter days alongside the waves. The only commercial building of any note - the Lee Bay Hotel - has been empty for years. It was always a massive place with three members of staff and no customers. This suited the stillness of the place very well. Yet at the historical and quaint Grampus Inn, it is an ongoing matter of controversy. Its deliberate dilapidation. A planning application to replace it with 23 apartments which would not be in keeping with the area. The locals are furious and intend to stop it. I happily signed their petition. In the garden, about 20 folk were enjoying what looked like splendid meals and every one was accompanied by at least one dog. And at Woolacombe there seem to be more dogs than people.

The second section of two or three miles back to Ilfracombe starts with an unimaginably steep and long climb. "Good luck with that one" said the gardeners with a wink on observing me. The same had been said at the golf course in Seaton at the start of the Undercliff walk. I can recall that this is where my father's legs would get a tad wobbly, having just done the previous section, but mostly he was ok and my mother had had no problems with it. What dawned on me now was that I was noticing that it was probably a good thing that I hadn't waited any longer before trying to walk it again and yet they must have been either side of 70. I took it all for granted then. It wasn't as if either of them was sporty but they must have been extraordinarily robust. To my way of thinking now, they were almost super human. It must have been the war spirit combined with support in marriage and total positivity. I am just very pleased to have completed the walk. I loved every moment of it and, of course, it was also experienced in the context of having also walked to Polperro and to Lyme. My dinner at the Dolphin was followed by a well earned early night and the decision to go back to Mortehoe the following day, starting if possible a bit earlier, and walk in the opposite direction.

[Lat-Literal]

Day 7 -

I was back at Rockham Bay not long after 9am. For a good hour, there was not a soul around. Again it was emotional. I walked much less purposefully up to Morte Point. It had a fair number of ups and downs but I had opted for a meander. I didn't really want to leave there. Ever. Ultimately I came to Woolacombe and its spectacular beach. The television news had shown its several miles packed with people in the summer. On this morning, there was a healthy number of holiday makers. Quite a lot were young with pre school age children. There were also many 20-something surfers and some older people. The weather was glorious. I knew that sadly I would not have the time on this occasion to walk the full length of the beach so I just had an ice cream and people watched or more accurately people listened while waiting for the bus back. An elderly man said to an elderly woman that he had been going there for 50 years and it hadn't changed. She said that luckily it could never be overdeveloped because of, quote, "the sewage pipe". I didn't understand what she meant by that thought.

In the afternoon, I joined a boat at Ilfracombe and spent two hours on there with a guide who described the coastline I had walked. Its topography and its history. We went past the Bull light house and on to see the seals. He had a lot of people on board including some people with Downs Syndrome and the elderly. I realised that he carried a lot of responsibility. The tide rises and falls in the Bristol Channel more dramatically than any other place in the world apart from in parts of Canada. In the distance was Lundy Island, two and a half thousand miles before America, and Swansea some 184 miles away by road but only 23 miles as the crow flies. On re-entering Ilfracombe one is greeted by Verity. She is mainly made of stainless steel, very tall, weighs many tons and is an imposing figure standing on very large books and with a giant spear in her hand facing up to the sky. On her right side her internal organs are open to the element and show her very vividly to be in pregnancy. This Damien Hirst creation which is not necessarily there permanently is a "modern allegory of truth and justice for the unborn child". Typically it has proven to be controversial. Just up from the harbour, his bar is smart but so are its prices. One small bottle of golden ale cost nearly £6.

I declined the suggestion that I should have a meal there and opted again for the Dolphin before walking for one more time by the harbour. Music was being rehearsed from beside another pub and it sounded pretty impressive to me in a modern Elton John sort of way. On enquiries, I was told it was "Paul, the pub manager". Then it was a case of just sitting by the sea with a coffee for a while at the Landmark Theatre - the upside-down flowerpots or Madonna's bra depending on preference - and going back to the hotel where they gave me a personalised card with a picture of the building and a thank you note for my stay. Please come back soon. The fun fair was still in town when I left the following morning although I never really heard it. With all of its noise and flashing lights, it wouldn't be the sort of work for me. I'd have hallucinations. But I wouldn't mind joining a travelling circus in the next life, especially if it spent most of its time on the English coast. There would be plenty of opportunity for very good fish dinners and its probably more realistic than dropping out into Nepal.

Day 8 -

Returned.

[HighlandDougie]

Lats

Wonderful stuff! Even if I am currently 6,000 miles away from Britain, you have a great ability to evoke a sense of place (and your description of the comings and goings at Exeter St David’s Station immediately reminded me of the last time I was there). To my shame I’ve never been to Ilfracombe but it’s now on the list of places to visit. More please in due course on the next of your journeys.

[Dave2002]

Lats

Glad it went well. You seem to have, or have developed, a talent as a racconteur. Well done. When's your next trip?

[Zucchini]

I'll join Dave2002 - a delightful, beautifully written and observant narrative

[cloughie]

Your racontease has never been in doubt. Glad your West Country sojourn went well. Mention of Ilfracome's corvine proximity to Swansea - there were proposals a few years ago, indeed it has been suggested for a lifetime, for a ferry linking the two - not happened yet but can live in hope! Sadly the Beeching axe did North Devon no favours and now the line finishes at Barnstaple when at one time it continued to Bideford, Torrington and the other branch to Infracombe via Morthoe and Woolacombe hauled by the powerful, lightweight Bulleid West Country/Battle of Britain Pacific locomotives. The other line he also closed was the Great western line from Taunton-Tiverton-Dulverton-Barnstaple. Somewhere in the Woolacombe area lives Elkie Brooks. A friend of mine was on holiday in the area a few years ago and one morning, in fact it may have been each morning heard some lovely singing across the valley - it was Elkie practising! Keeping her voice in trim is important to her, which is why at 73 she still sounds good! I hope you'll keep up your support for the Grecians, as having lost out the last two seasons in the playoffs deserve a good season and automatic promotion.

[teamsaint]

Really enjoyed reading about your journey, in your own excellent idiom, Lat,and very glad it went so well. Thanks for going to the trouble of the extended narrative, which seems to me to have a touch of the eighteenth century about it. In good way.

There are plenty of things for us all to learn from in there, and much food for thought.

Like you, I think that The British coast in all its wonderful variety , has some very special places, and not only for beautiful scenery. And many of them seem , for the better, frozen at a variety of time points.

[Lat-Literal]

Thank you very much indeed for all the kind comments.

HighlandDougie, when you get to Ilfracombe be sure to see Mortehoe, Rockham Bay and Lee Bay. Dave 2002 and Zucchini - I went from total silence in groups to a raconteur in groups at age 19 but these days the latter is to be found mostly on this forum, as cloughie implies, or in rare opportunities for genuine two-way dialogue. When I am on my own as a traveller, I have a lot of 2-5 minute conversations with people along the way. They are the ones with the watches and the maps etc. I can't understand how people can come back from exotic places and not have any stories to tell but then many keep themselves to themselves. Also, I'm lucky in that I find I see stories quite easily and they often come to me. I do have some plans for more travel very soon - shorter in length; not necessarily closer - but we have some very difficult days ahead of us so I won't tempt fate by saying exactly what here today.

Cloughie - My parents and I walked past Elkie Brooks and her companion on a footpath 15-20 years ago. From memory it was on the path leading down to Woody Bay, west of Lynton and Lynmouth. Not another soul around. Good morning. Lovely day. Yes. 10 seconds. The Beeching axe makes for problems in access to North Devon. Ideally if there was a next time I'd come in from the Taunton direction and then Minehead and Combe Martin but its virtually impossible to find a connecting bus in key places, especially in the winter. On the plus side, it may have contributed to a lack of ugly development. The Grecians are up to second and I will be following them now. They have a great arrangement there. There is a also a very detailed supporter survey in the programme to complete which I shall do. Among other things, it says that a new ground is very unlikely but how would you feel if there ever was one? I will be saying not to do it under any circumstances. How wonderful it is to be able to walk back to bed from a football match. No transport. Teamsaint - The 18th century. I like that!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I have in my time known identical twins. I could tell them apart.

Moi aussi! Always look at their teeth.

[Lat-Literal]

Moi aussi! Always look at their teeth.

That is a very handy tip - in the past, I have looked at demeanour.