Blighty Pt II

or, Exploring Devonian History

Over 70-plus days of travel, I probably misplaced my glasses about 70 times. Maybe more. Such is the state of my brain nowadays.

As quiet as always, Brixham.

Yet returning to Brixham, Devon, after more than 20 years, was like pulling an old memory out of its dusty, timber box, brushing it off a bit, and discovering it still worked as good as new. I managed to navigate easily to my friends’ house and remembered the names of nearly all the pubs on the walk from there to the town centre. Which is quite amazing considering the amount of partying that took place at each of them in my youth.

Best of all I found that Nicky and I still had the same chemistry that made us instant mates at Uni, and that John is still as laid-back and fun as the day they married.

Still, Brixham in 2012 is a very different place to the one I last visited over New Year’s Eve 1989-1990. Not least of all because at least four of the old drinking buddies from then are now dead, and it’s fairly safe to say that heavy drinking and smoking played a role in each of their deaths. That’s a sure-fire way to get you thinking about your health and mortality….

Along the new harbour walk, Brixham.

We discovered, in Brixham as elsewhere, the ban on smoking in pubs has seen a lot of ‘locals’ struggle to stay open and they have had to reinvent themselves to stay viable. Beer gardens for smokers is one answer, but many have also pulled up the sticky carpet, replaced the pool table and darts area with dining tables, and transformed themselves into country inns offering meals and accommodation, rather than just bars for the old boys.

As I mentioned last post, the good news is that the food served in most of these seems to be pretty good, and reasonably well priced, too. In fact, after returning to Aus and being reminded of prices in Melbourne, we found that British pubs are now better value than many Aussie ones, especially the trendy inner-city ones, where you can pay the same for a pot (under half a pint) as you do a full pint in the UK. Brit pub grub was definitely cheaper and more interesting, too (despite “Cheesey chips” - which are pretty good, but not so good that I'd risk blocking my arteries by going back for more...).

In Aberystwyth – which used to boast 44 pubs and 40 chapels – I noticed at least four pubs had become restaurants or shops, including the one where I used to pull pints, The Farmers Arms.

Valerian growing on Slapton Sands

Back in Brixham, we replaced  pub crawls with exploring the great outdoors and it was excellent rambling around the countryside while being able to tap into John and Nicky’s vast knowledge of the bird and plant life in their favourite haunts, such as Slapton Sands (reached by catching the ferry across the Dart, which was fun) and up on Dartmoor, where the resident ponies made a mockery of the tag “wildlife”.  The ones snuffling into people picnics and plates of pub food that we saw seemed completely domesticated – but that’s easily said when you’re only feeding them, not trying to harness and ride them, I guess.

Cheeky Dartmoor ponies enjoying lunch al fresco.

We were thrilled to hear a couple of cuckoos calling (a first for the summer and the only ones we heard in the UK, as it turns out) as well as seeing my first stone chat and being treated to a close up view of a buzzard – one of the birds I barely remembering seeing in the past, but which is incredibly common now. As too are Red Kites, which have increased from only seven breeding pairs (near Aberystwyth when I was at Uni there) to being sighted and breeding right across the UK – even down near Southampton.

Buzzard obliging with a pose.

Probably because I now have more interest in wild flowers, but also because we were visiting earlier in the year and after good rain, I also noticed far more varieties on the many walks we enjoyed across the country. It is probably also due to EU support for farmers to allow parts of their land to remain fallow and be returned to habitat for flora and fauna, and partly fashion – wildflower meadows are now very trendy for gardeners, as well, which is good news; a wildflower-inspired garden was even included in the Chelsea Flower Show, which was on while we were in the UK. (No, we didn’t go - tickets sell out months in advance and you have to enjoy close encounters with large crowds to endure it; I don’t. We did enjoy the nightly TV coverage though.)

My serene mother surrounded by mad family.

After seeing south and central Dartmoor with Nicky and John, we explored some of the northern section with my family during our three-day stay in a large, YHA-owned mansion overlooking Okehampton. The whole extended family of siblings, nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews came along (except poor Kerris, who had to work) and had a brilliant time sharing massive cooked breakfasts, endless games of hide and seek (so good in a big house), attempts at bonfires (after weeks of rain and while being attacked by clouds of midges), post-kids-bedtime drinks, movies, shopping trips, walks – and gorge scrambling.

A dry-ish walk.

Gorge Scrambling involves donning a wetsuit, old runners, life jackets and helmets and wading upstream through raging gorge streams, stopping only to jump into a few deep (and very cold) pools along the way. Actually, I don’t think the streams are usually raging – which is why the YHA organisers said it was safe for kids over 6 to go – but after several days of torrential rain, they were pumping.

A couple of smaller kids from another group were terrified from the first moment of setting foot in the icy water and, having braved 20 minutes or so, gave up. But our brave Keira and Sophie, both aged only 7 and each weighing less than a cream puff, stuck it out for the full hour or more and went back time and time again to jump into pools from increasingly high rock ledges.

A gorge-scrambling group (not us).

Needless to say we all went home and had hot meals and showers, but it was great fun.

Sadly three days went way too fast but it was certainly better than nothing. And I discovered that I could make a 45-minute phone call from my (borrowed Nokia N9) mobile phone to the kids in Australia using a regular pay-as-you-go Sim card – and it cost barely more than a pound sterling.

Next stop was Wales and we barely got through before flooding closed a few roads, but more of that next time.... 

Barely relevant Devonian facts

William of Orange (later William III of England and Holland and King Billy II of Scotland) landed in (invaded) Brixham on 5 Nov 1688 (the day after his 38^th birthday) and declared: “The liberties of Britain and the protestant religion I will maintain.” This is the famous William who married his first cousin Mary II and later defeated Mary’s father James (Britain’s last Catholic monarch) at the Battle of Boyne in 1690. It is one of the few reigns in which both partners were seen as equal rulers. We celebrated Queen Elizabeth’s 60^th jubilee in Brixham, to complete the regal circle.

Parachuting Rat, Banksy-style. 

Brixham has an active Banksy fan who keeps busy adorning local walls with stencilled images copied or inspired by the graffiti artist Banksy.

A 15” naval shell was presented by the National War Saving Committee to the people of Widecombe (on Dartmoor) in 1920 in recognition of their efforts during WWI gathering sphagnum moss for use in the treatment of wounds.

Widecombe-in-the-Moor is the site of the fabled Widecombe Fair, to which “Uncle Tom Cobley and all” rode on the grey mare (see words of song here). There’s a display based on this in a corner of the local church, St Pancras, which also has a poem inscribed on one wall relating the tale of how the church and congregation were struck by lightening one Sunday in 1638, killing several people. The incident was put down to a visitation from Satan himself….

The crew off to Widecome Fair...

Clapper Bridge - eons old - on Dartmoor.

My 'Uncle' Mike's house - also in Devon, and with new roof - decorated for Jubilee.

Tiny grassland flowers, Dartmoor. Saw them in Lake District too.

Playground in Okehampton; a goodie.

Bracken Tor, the YHA house we rented in Devon.