Devon at 55 - A Difficult Place To Be

[Lat-Literal]

I am now revisiting the earlier posts with renewed interest and the benefit of hindsight.

I can only report my recent experience. Admittedly, I had been lone traveller for years - and prefer it because you meet and talk to more people than if anchored to family and friends. During my recent travels to France after a break of several years, foot and leg strapped up and with a walking stick (sadly, left behind on Brussels station on Day One), I was struck by how very kind and helpful people were. So do the things you want, and feel able, to do. It'll be fine.

This one was very helpful to me.

Thank you.

Very good luck with this. I hope the weather is good for you too. Will you be keeping us informed as you go, or will you be completely incommunicado?

You are young enough for this to be a feasible but interesting challenge. One of my neighbours (more than 55 I'd say) confessed recently that she intends to go walking in Spain and France alone in the mountains. She has apparently done things like this before, and she just "goes" and then turns up again a few weeks later. In the meantime her family don't know where she is. GPS and internet if you can get those will probably help, unless you want to completely go it alone.

I'm sure you'll feel great once you've done this.

Very best wishes for this venture.

And this one.

Sadly, cloughie and teamsaint, I never got to Tavistock or Dartmouth (or indeed Exmouth and Honiton both of which were nearby). On the train journey from Exeter to Looe I thought the best bit of scenery was around Dawlish. I'm aware that much of the best of South Devon is further south than the main rail line. I have been briefly to Torbay etc but it has never massively appealed and I'm much more for Exmoor than Dartmoor. Not too sure why this should be. But Bryn, I will have a look on the net at Ness Beach following your interesting comments which could be a "psychological route" in! Plymouth always seems to be a bit of a tease as I have probably travelled via it three or four times in my life and it feels like somewhere one should go to but it has never looked inviting in the slightest, possibly on account of what happened to it in the war. It would be interesting to hear from anyone who is really enthusiastic about it and any reasons as to why. Ferney - I do hope you manage to go to Devon at some point. As for the cream tea discussion, I knew the place where I was going to have one even if it now has a not very good looking pub beside it - but I never managed to do it. Perhaps I didn't do it precisely because of what had been built alongside.

[Lat-Literal]

I've walked the Undercliff in both directions (on different occasions), a few years ago now, once in spring and once in autumn. It is a very testing walk, and you need current information as to closures, diversions etc., as slippages are frequent. The Lyme Regis ("French Lieutenant's Woman") end probably best for pottering about, the Seaton end less interesting as I remember and the last part of it on a golf course [?]. I imagine public transport is fine.

Good luck anyway!

I can now second all of this post.

I speak as someone living in E Cornwall who is therefore duty-bound to rubbish Devon as being part of 'England', but won't (look the other way Cloughie!).

Devon is nearly as good as Cornwall at being a really slo-o-ow county. So just come and relax, chill, the natives really are friendly Tavistock is indeed recommended, as above. The pannier market is good for cheapo classical CDs and books, and a lot of food. Tavi is pretty great for food generally - I believe M*cd*n*lds opened there and were forced to close owing to unfair competition from local establishments who who insisted on going on cooking real, distinctive dishes

Loads of other places though. Exmoor if you like slightly bleak, & big clapper bridges. Right next to Tavistock Dartmoor even bleaker (in bad weather) but wonderful walks, climbs, neolithic settlements but with a good smattering of pubs. Don't try Widdicombe in a hurry though - bi-i-ig tailbacks while in the grockle/emmet season. This is a bit better now schools have restarted, but not yet over by any means.

Lynton & Lynmouth v scenic and a fun water-powered cliff railway to connect them. Ilfracome, Westward Ho (Kipling's old school, Stalky & Co etc), Bideford. Just pick a gazetteer and choose at random!

There are loads of other places, even Plymouth and Exeter if you feel a yen for city amenities. But try not to: just take it real slow.

Do let us know how you get on!

[On the above vital cream-tea issue I do of course support Cloughie's orthodox-Cornish position set out in #13, bur here in E Cornwall there are some local farmers who've somehow been duped into marrying W Devon girls who still get it wrong Have to concede that with eyes tightly bandaged and spoon feeding, the flavour is almost indistinguishable!]

This post might explain my preference for Exmoor over Dartmoor. I prefer slightly bleak to even bleaker but there is also the fact that I first set foot in Exmoor at age 12 and Dartmoor only several years later (a stay in Moretonhampstead which unusually for me I couldn't put a year or age to.) Westward Ho! was almost certainly the first place in Devon I went to when aged two and I was surprised by the number of buses which appeared to have it as its destination. I'm a bit dismissive of it - and Bideford which I have probably never visited - purely on the grounds that I don't really feel I know what they are about and they have never captured my imagination. I see them as being "on the wrong side" of Barnstaple which may be very unfair and in contrast have a vague merging of Westward Ho! and the very far removed Weston-Super-Mare in my mind purely on the grounds of names. I don't know Weston-Super-Mare at all either but I was told recently by someone it has "very much improved". I do know Lynton and Lynmouth well and love them. I was last there earlier in the current decade when against the odds my parents and I went on a coach holiday at the end of October and in their early eighties they just about managed to walk to the Valley of the Rocks.

Your comments on Cornwall are interesting. On asking a woman in Exeter station what the journey to Looe would be like she simply said that "once you get into Cornwall everything is slow". A bit of light Devonian prejudice there albeit with an element of truth. I was actually pleasantly surprised by what I saw of Liskeard. It seemed to me to be a rather lovely sleepy town. There is that idea people have about small inland Cornish towns not being especially attractive and it made me question that slightly. If you feel able and willing to offer a small list of Cornish towns that along with Liskeard could counter that idea that would be of considerable interest to me. It would steer me towards facts away from that instinctive attitude.

[Lat-Literal]

Just stumbled on this thread. Hope you have a good time Lat.

I'd just mention that Devon is a HUGE county and different bits of it are, well, very different. South Devpn (Paigntom, Torquay and all that) is busy busy. Rural North Devon is...well, rural and inland somewhat remote. East Devon, away from the watering holes of Sidmouth and Budleigh, is actually my favourite. Inland, it is well off the beaten track, especially blessed with footpaths and very beautiful as it merges into West Dorset. If you're driving, Exeter is a nightmare. Don't even think about it in the rush hour.

Welcome to Devon the most beautiful county in England. If you do go to North Cornwall - part of the most beautiful county not in England - can I reccomend the stretch of coastline between Boscastle and Crackington Haven ? It's quite strenuous but , crucially , reasonably well served by bus . I also recommend the area of Dartmoor around Lustleigh, Widecombe and Exmoor south of Lynton.

I treat the thick cream as I would butter, and put that on the scone (scon) and then finally add the jam.

Haven't been to Devon for years but was looking enviously at a friend's holiday pictures the other week, fond memories. Salcombe and environs on the south side, Bideford and peaceful rolling fields on the north. Clovelly is a lovely, tiny place.

Have a great holiday, Lat-Literal!

OH DEAR!!!

The Somerset lass to whom I'm married would scorn your scone method, ff. Real clotted cream..which itself should have buttery lumps in it...goes on the bare scone followed by the jam.

Going back to Devon, and changing the subject just a bit, I wonder if Lat would consider a visit to Haccombe Church near Newton Abbot? It is one of only two churches to have an Archpriest, answerable directly to the Archbishop of Canterbury and not the Bishop of Exeter. Haccombe is the family seat of an ancient Devon family going back to the Norman conquest. (The house itself is nothing sepcial having been re-built in Georgian times, undistinguisehd and now divided into flats.) The tiny church of St Blaise however is incredibly special, having spectacular medieval monuments, one being a Heart Burial...which was supposed to have been banned by Pope Boniface VIII in the early 13th century.

Give Newton Abbot a miss though.

Thank you for these posts. I have a similar question about small inland Devon towns. As the train passed through the likes of Newton Abbot and Honiton, I was left to wonder what they were like and whether they would be of interest to tourists. Now I am reminded that I was right to miss Newton Abbot but comments o Honiton and a list of the unexpectedly good would be helpful. I am not sure whether I have been to Sidmouth or Budleigh although many years ago I stayed briefly in Beer. I can't tell you how many years I've looked at the Sidmouth Folk Festival website without ever actually making it to there. I have never been to Haccombe. It sounds fascinating. I doubt that I have been to Salcombe but I have been to Clovelly which is at its nicest at the end of the day when everything is quiet. Boscastle and Crackington Haven - yes, I know this section along with Hartland Quay, Bude, Tintagel etc. It is spectacular. The gap with me is a bit of the bit between Barnstaple and the Devon/Cornwall border. The next gap on that side is the section - actually quite a few miles of it - around Newquay which now sounds like it has become "wild town" as I know St Ives and walked much of that peninsula with friends in the mid 1990s as well as going down the Geevor Mine. I also know the Lizard pensinsula having been twice to it in 1980 and 1981 but I couldn't say that I have walked it in the true sense. Just strolls from Mullion and by car to the villages.

Is North Cornwall in the United Kingdom?

Hah.

From memory, there is many a black flag flying from the rooftops.

More generally, the words "England" and "English" crop up quite a few times on this thread. "The best coastal walk in England" etc. This is not to exclude Wales (I regard Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire as having been the place of my first proper holiday in 1972 and went there four times in that decade as well as once several decades later and have briefly seen the Gower and the Criccieth/Portmadoc area of North Wales) or Scotland (which I went to in 1973 - a marathon car journey as far as Ullapool, taking in a range of places, but Nairn perhaps apart, not any on the coast). I just don't feel qualified to have an opinion on a "best in Britain" whereas I do know a lot of the English coast now. And it seems to me increasingly that if the English were to want to carve out a separate identity, there is something about the English coast that feels like it is and should be a key part of that. Certainly I think several parts of the Pembs coast are among the best in Britain. The Scottish coast is so extensive and no doubt extraordinary as well as a challenge : I'd have loved to have seen more. I also think Ruth Livingstone made a mistake in not trying to walk the coast Scotland earlier in her remarkable adventure. She is, of course, there now and while older will be for a number of years.

371 - Connel to Benderloch - https://coastalwalker.co.uk/

[BBMmk2]

How come you going on your own, Lat? I wouldn't!

[Serial_Apologist]

How come you going on your own, Lat? I wouldn't!

Ah well, he's a brave man, our Lat, see? - venturing into the prehistoric wilds of the west, where cave-dwelling hairy beings armed with huge clubs hewn barehanded from granite, dressed only in sabre-toothed tiger skins, lurk unbidden by the unwary traveller, waiting to nick your abacus, latest model. And that's only describing the women!

[vinteuil]

Ah well, he's a brave man, our Lat, see? - venturing into the prehistoric wilds of the west, where cave-dwelling hairy beings armed with huge clubs hewn barehanded from granite, dressed only in sabre-toothed tiger skins, lurk unbidden by the unwary traveller, waiting to nick your abacus, latest model. And that's only describing the women!

... I'm told you even have to go beyond the M25 to find such places.

Brrrrr!!!


.

[cloughie]

Is North Cornwall in the United Kingdom?

UK yes but not in England!

[Lat-Literal]

How come you going on your own, Lat? I wouldn't!

Quite a difficult one to answer, this, but no matter how many friends one consciously collects along the way, the wheels ultimately fall off the bus. I might have said that the main reason historically was that a few got married and had offspring. However, there is not especially a connection there with those and no longer staying in touch. Some did and on a regular basis while having their own lives to lead. There was one death at 40. Two became severely disabled around 50 - one married, one not. There were some dramatic fallouts.

Those were with the high and mighty over the economic crash, ostensibly in 2010, although only this year I had my rose tinted spectacles on at least one other removed. She too proved after 30 odd years to be a fake in the exchanging of cards with kisses and along with that the jury is now out on one who I long considered to be my best mate. That's a blow.

Many others were lost when I lost my job on the grounds that I wasn't prepared to meet up for evenings in London anymore, especially with those who prefer to holiday abroad which I don't and the ones who just like to watch soaps. A further one, a nice bloke, is otherwise engaged battling drink as he puts it and having very recently joined an art class. Frankly, if it wasn't for the one with whom I have been to East Anglia twice now on consecutive Augusts even though we have only met up once locally in the past eight years there would have been nothing in terms of friends and holidays. I feel now I slightly underestimated him as a friend although we have known each other well since the 1990s. He not being averse himself to lone holidaying too has unwittingly provided me with the support I needed to find an impetus. One could say "what about relationships?". I don't do them and hardly ever did.

There is a whole bunch of issues around that one including having been an only child, an unusually close relationship with both my parents, severe complications, along with many uncertainties, early on in my life outside the family home, and the fact that I neither appealed to anyone much in that sense and vice versa. One thing I know now is that you don't take on board just one other. You take on their families and swaths of agendas re for example travel and cultural preferences that don't necessarily fit in with your own, not that I would have rationalised it in that way in past times. I'd have just felt it. But against the odds I did get away for breaks on most years after 2010 in limited fashion with my Mum and Dad.

That is no longer possible with a deterioration in their health. And my health ain't good now. Far from it. I've got a sort of "must get these things done before anything more happens to any of us" urgency in my head. It could well be me first. I'm not sure. It's all very difficult and should on paper be an insurmountable barrier but my drive isn't conventional and it tends to surprise me as much as everyone else. I guess some might call it very unpredictable but that's their prerogative. The older I get the less that matters. I'm less paranoid in that sense.

And there is a fair bit in my background where I have been left to find my own way. I suppose I ought to be grateful to the late Lance Grainger who having accompanied me to UN Geneva as my boss and the Committee Chairman, gawd bless 'im, said "right, there's the hotel, there's the bus stop, you've got your tomato sauce and tins of peas for some peculiar reason and for the next two weeks and on any other further trip I expect you to know what to do without speaking to me at all". I didn't like the attitude much but on the plus side it played to what I wanted which was to avoid having to sit round tables every night talking about what bored me. Mostly, I suspect that I feel more comfortable when in my own head.

[Lat-Literal]

Ah well, he's a brave man, our Lat, see? - venturing into the prehistoric wilds of the west, where cave-dwelling hairy beings armed with huge clubs hewn barehanded from granite, dressed only in sabre-toothed tiger skins, lurk unbidden by the unwary traveller, waiting to nick your abacus, latest model. And that's only describing the women!

Hah. How did you know I have an abacus? I did spot a few of the women you mention but they like, the rest of us, are all Amazonians now. In all seriousness, and without wishing to turn this into a me, me, me thread, it has all given me an opportunity to assess where I am. The album, naturally, would be called "At 55". And, yes, the word "brave" has been used.

That is, by several in the neighbourhood. Obviously I like it. They, of course, know that in eight years I have only socialised in any sense on this forum, if they know that at all. I am sure of itself that this has an impact on the identity. One just doesn't know it until one goes away. We do have here a meeting of minds on a variety of interests and I talk here in writing much as I have spoken since 19 in a developed sort of way. Crucially, I also read - for which read listen - and what I find is that it is much harder for me now to take in general chit-chat or be with people whose interests are significantly different. Earlier, I wouldn't have had so much difficulty in absorbing whatever was being said. Furthermore this very much extends to most of the mass media. Perhaps it is an age thing too. Less flexibility. Less tolerance. More wariness of things others might say inadvertently which would alarm or upset.

On the other hand, I am acutely aware that my openness to the widest range of others when alone in three to five minute bursts is quite unusual given that one take on me would be insularity and although I am blowing my own trumpet here I think I do those exchanges exceptionally well, I enjoy them and I find them very rewarding. In that approachability, there is almost a journalism thing - Reeve? - which works for not being under journalistic pressure. People in the main respond to it well - I know it is not at all uncharismatic whatever the faults - although we all probably wouldn't want to spend an hour or more in each other's company. Beyond the absence of common interest, it is their inability to categorise me that would be in their way. More deeply, I am sort of aware that in my identity there is a separation anxiety thing. It was always "I could leave my parents but they couldn't leave me". Actually, they could leave me but not in my mind and that had a complex impact neurologically as well as psychologically with other dependencies. I do feel instinctively that when they go, we all will.

[Lat-Literal]

Back on topic, I would be interested to hear opinions on the following - Honiton, Tiverton, Dulverton, South Molton. Cullompton. Eggesford and Torrington. And not quite so on topic: Lostwithiel, Bodmin. Launceston, Wadebridge and, I guess, Truro. Sleepy v hubbub; Historical interest v no such interest; Hilly v flat; Rural visible around it v not so...that sort of thing.

This in some ways is the "off the normal tourist trail question"; one hears names and wonders. I was very surpised by Liskeard - thought it would be a much bigger, noisier, uglier place.

[teamsaint]

Tiverton has a nice museum.

Dulverton seemed lovely on my one brief visit.

Most of the small towns in central/South mid Devon ( if that is the correct description, north of much loved Newton Abbott) are now ghettos of ex BBC and media types.

I like Perranporth and Truro.

[Serial_Apologist]

The Honiton railway tunnel runs through a large outcrop of Greensand, which shows up beautifully to the south, along the corresponding section of the "Jurassic Coast" - a distant outlier of the main bands which make up Leith and Pitch hills in Surrey, and one whose location I've never been able to fathom, having amateurishly studied the geology, appearing as it does to leapfrog older Jurassic beds to its east (Lulworth Cove, Purbeck etc)..

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Back on topic, I would be interested to hear opinions on the following - Honiton, Tiverton, Dulverton, South Molton. Cullompton. Eggesford and Torrington. And not quite so on topic: Lostwithiel, Bodmin. Launceston, Wadebridge and, I guess, Truro. Sleepy v hubbub; Historical interest v no such interest; Hilly v flat; Rural visible around it v not so...that sort of thing.

Dulverton's a bit off-topic too, being in Somerset. It's a delightful town, but suffers like so many rural towns, with no bank and some struggling shops.

[Lat-Literal]

Thank you teamsaint, Serial and Eine for these contributions. On your point, Serial, I have only in recent years become aware of the links between areas south of your London clay, including mine, and the Jurassic Coast formations. This came about when investigating potential for fracking which incidentally is virtually nil in Cornwall as well as East Anglia. The geologicial bands are very narrow from Purley down to, say, Crawley and across to the Dorking area. Perhaps most obviously this is seen north and south of Reigate. Only on one side of that town - south - would one be walking a part of the sandier Greensand Way.

Having taken in so much in the last month and a half, I have been making a few errors which I need to correct. One such involved the reference to Rick Stein in relation to Looe and Polperro. This, I now realise, was wrong which could explain why I didn't see anything of his stamp when there. He is, of course, based in Padstow although his restaurants have now expanded so that there is even one in Poole. I will correct the misleading posts.

[Dave2002]

Padstow - has a Malcolm Arnold connection - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9fuRYAnE6OE

I think there’s a version of that which actually features the original “siren” thingie which produces the very strange and loud sound in that piece. OK - it’s a bit OT, and not Devon.