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Otterton sculptress's work to honour courageous journalist

2012-01-24T03:00:00.000-08:00

Journalist Najam Sethi, speaking up for the free press in Pakistan

A Cambridge college will honour one of its distinguished former students next month at a ceremony marked by the presentation of an artwork sculpted by a Friend of Fairlynch.

Sculptress Angie Harlock Wilkinson, who works from a studio in Otterton, hopes to attend the event at which her bronze figure 'Isadora, Joy' will be presented to the journalist Najam Sethi.

A prominent journalist in Pakistan who studied at Clare College from 1967 to 1970, Mr Sethi is known as a convinced democrat, an advocate of moderation in foreign policy, and an opponent of religious extremism and violence.

On numerous occasions he has incurred the anger of autocratic governments. He was imprisoned for two years by the Zulfikar Ali Bhutto regime in the 1970s for siding with the Baloch nationalist movement. In 1984 General Zia ul Haq imprisoned him for a month for publishing a book - From Jinnah to Zia - by a former chief justice of Pakistan, Mohammad Munir, which was highly critical of the 1977 coup. In May 1999, he was imprisoned for one month without trial but was released after an international outcry. In 2009 he was awarded the Golden Pen of Freedom, the annual press freedom prize of the World Association of Newspapers.

'Isadora, Joy', inspired by the courageous dancer Isadora Duncan

Angie feels that the choice of this particular figure in recognition of Najam Sethi's courage is highly appropriate, showing as it does "the brave and inspirational Isadora Duncan absorbed in dancing her instinctive and emotional style of free dance which she performed tirelessly and taught to girls all over the world."

The Outstanding Alumnus of the Year Award made to Mr Sethi by the Clare Alumni Council is designed to provide a role model to current Clare College students, to demonstrate that it is possible to contribute to society without necessarily achieving financial or professional 'success' in traditional terms.

Clare's Alumni Council has elected Dr Alice Welbourn as Alumnus of the Year for 2012. Dr Welbourn has spent her career working to raise the profile of HIV-positive women. She is the author of Stepping Stones http://www.steppingstonesfeedback.org/, co-founder and chair of trustees for the Sophia Forum http://www.sophiaforum.net/ and the Director of the Salamander Trust http://www.salamandertrust.net/

Local sculptress and Friend of Fairlynch Angie Harlock Wilkinson

Originally from the Cotswolds where she grew up, Angie, who also studied at Clare College, has had longstanding family links with Devon. She feels that she has come back to her roots in the West Country after a career which included teaching modern languages for a number of years in local Cambridge schools. During the 1980s and 90s, she helped her husband start and develop a successful English language school.

In 2000, she started to devote more time to her passion since her late teens. Working in wax, she tries to capture these fleeting moods and sensations in her dancers, figures and many studies of lively horses.

Angie's bronze figure of a shire horse "enjoying a satisfying roll in the grass after a hard day's work"

"Expressing my sense of what is exhilarating and elemental in nature is intrinsic to my work," she says. "Amusingly, I created a female figure called Devon Woman - for the 'Coast' exhibition at Otterton Mill two summers ago - which was inspired by the rugged Jurassic coast along the cliffs by Ladram Bay, and was a rusty-reddish bronze nude in several pieces, suggesting the stacks broken off from the beaches, but only a few people really 'got it', and my own mother wasn't one of them!"

Angie often creates pairs or little groups to better express the elusive flow of feelings. RHS Rosemoor http://www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/rosemoor has put her four bronze 'Dancing Maenads', pictured above, in its celebrated Winter Garden as part of its Winter Sculpture Exhibition. "The Maenads would entertain revellers at their feasts with their music and dancing," she explained, "so I thought they would make a nice subject to inspire joy and freedom of spirit in the viewer."

Angie only recently joined the Friends of Fairlynch although she had visited the Museum on many occasions.

"I do love history, and look forward to learning more about the area from the archives, in part so as to feel a deeper understanding for, and gut connection with where I live," she says. "And also how the landscape that means so much to me, and to my artistic well-spring, has evolved."

For more information about Angie's work, click on http://www.angieharlock.co.uk/

Click on http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/aboutus.php to see how Najam Sethi is defending the freedom of the press in today's Pakistan.

Alan Tilbury looks back

2012-01-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

Alan Tilbury wearing his chain of office as
Chairman of Budleigh Salterton's Chamber of Commerce
Photo credit Ray Ambrose www.randacreative.com

Not everyone knows that Fairlynch Museum is a member of Budleigh Salterton's Chamber of Commerce. In spite of being a charity the Museum shares many of the Chamber's interests. It has a shop, it depends for its income on attracting visitors to the town and it even shares a President in the person of Fairlynch co-founder Priscilla Hull.

Alan Tilbury retired recently as Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. His wife, born in Budleigh, is a volunteer steward at Fairlynch and he has always had a soft spot for one of the town's best-known landmarks. Both are Friends of the Museum.

Here he looks back on a career in retail which gave him over more than half a century an intimate knowledge of the town's commercial life.

Originally a Londoner he feels sufficiently naturalised in our area to know the town by its proper name of Salterton.

He was born in Putney in 1941, in a house belonging to a friend of his mother's after his parents' house was bombed. The family moved to his grandparents' house in Exmouth before settling in Budleigh Salterton in 1947.

Perriam's stores, one of Budleigh's longest-established shops, now no more

He got his first taste of running a shop in 1956, aged 15. "My career in retail began very small in Salterton in 1956, in a grocers named Perriam's Stores in Fore Street where the Spar is now situated," he explained. Three years later, being an ambitious young man, he moved up the road to where Budleigh Wines now have their shop, to work for a company then named Fosters where he thought he would have better prospects.

"After two years another move within the town, to World Stores, where What Katy Did is now trading. This company was larger with even more chance of advancement. I was taken on as relief manager in the area from Chudleigh to Seaton and Honiton. This worked very well for me," said Alan. "It was during this time Jenny and I married in 1963 in the Temple Methodist Church where we were both members and in the choir. We rented a flat in Exmouth near the seafront and it was here one year later our son Mark was born."

Still ambitious and confident that his future lay in retail, Alan felt that he should be broadening his horizons. "It was time to grow up and look for greater things," as he put it. "I asked my area manager and he secured me a position in Warminster in Wiltshire as provisions manager."

A happy year was spent in Warminster, where the family moved in November 1964 but then came another move to Yate near Bristol, where Alan worked for three more happy years as provisions manager at a large supermarket in a new shopping centre, gaining an insight into man-management and progressing to grocery manager. The couple's twin daughters Sarah and Karen were born in Bristol's Southmead Hospital in 1966.

Two years later came the offer of managing a store in Chandler's Ford, Hampshire where Alan spent a further "not quite as happy" three years. But it was here that they bought their first house.
A further move came in 1971, to Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, in the Midlands where Alan managed another large supermarket. It was a period which he remembers fondly. "The store was huge for those days with 100 staff where I learned so much about management," he recalls. "We were so happy, with a lovely house. We made lots of friends and the children were settled."

But the constant moves were beginning to take their toll, and seemed likely to continue. "The thought of another move which was sure to happen was more than our kids could cope with," Alan explained. They decided that if they were ever going to settle down it would be in the area that they knew best.

"In 1974 we returned to Exmouth to live and rented the shop that is now Hospicecare as a greengrocers which we named Tilburys in the High Street in Salterton. Later we bought the freehold and moved into the huge flat over it and lived very happily there for over 30 years."

It was now that Alan became involved with the Chamber of Commerce. He was elected onto the Executive Committee and began to take responsibility for different sections of the organization. 1999 saw him as Chairman for the first time, for which he feels he was well supported.

Tesco's arrival: no help for Budleigh shopkeepers

Ironically, in view of his previous experience of running supermarkets, it was the arrival of a giant store just a few miles away in Exmouth that Alan remembers as causing problems for many of Budleigh's shops. "I remember the town trading as a mainly fresh food shopping centre," he says. "This all ended when Tesco opened. Suddenly every trader lost one third of their takings. It was a very traumatic time but we steadily moved forward with some casualties in the fresh food area."

What progress was made was confined mainly to non-food traders, he recalls. At that time Alan remembers lots of antique shops, but the impact on local traders following the arrival of the superstore was long lasting and the town had a number of empty shops.

In spite of the threat to Budleigh as a commercial centre, Alan is convinced that the town has numerous assets to attract business. The biggest is free car parking places, where Budleigh gains on other towns, he believes.

"That is so unusual that we sing it from the tree tops as often as possible. Then we have a number of dress shops where so many original designs can be purchased, along with other excellent shops where customers can browse. That has to be an attraction to the discerning customer. Then of course these same people will buy their fresh foods."

Marketing such trump cards to consumers outside Budleigh is vital, he says. "More advertising is always a good way of promotion and something we should
pursue with vigour."

Alan Tilbury with Chamber of Commerce members in 2007.
On his left is Priscilla Hull, Chairman of both
the Chamber of Commerce and Fairlynch Museum
Photo credit Ray Ambrose www.randacreative.com

Looking back on his time as Chamber of Commerce Chairman Alan feels that among his positive achievements was the building of a good relationship with the Town Council. "As far as I was concerned our Town Council were never really Chamber oriented. I like to think that, during my second tenure as chairman, this has changed to full support following our own interest in their procedures."

And what of Budleigh's future as a commercial centre and in particular the role of the Chamber of Commerce? It's a difficult issue, he admits. "Times are changing, and more customers are thinking in terms of supermarket shopping. The trend, especially among our younger population, is to bulk and internet buy. It is up to our members to give a really personal service that surpasses everything a large store and IT can offer. With the overhead costs of trading increasing at an alarming rate, people should be made aware that if you don't use it, you will lose it!"

Where it all started:
Alan Tilbury outside the building where he started work in Budleigh

Having said that, Alan agrees that Chamber members have to think positively. "We must strive to be the best in all things. Our Tourist Information Centre is run by a good team, they are very necessary for promoting us to the distant and nearby visitors Mostly, we consist of independent businesses who really must be aware of customer needs."

"The Chamber must have close links and interaction with Council, Museum, Charity organisations, Music and Literary Festival, Churches and all traders."

Many visitors to Budleigh and indeed many residents value the town for its old-fashioned ways, and Alan recognises that such unique qualities have their place. "Some will say we are in a time warp. This could be an asset as nostalgia is a powerful thing. People love to be among their memories of how things used to be. But, is it enough?" he asks.

Evidently an increasing number of traders are asking that question, and are keen to embrace the advantages of modern technology in their businesses. A report including the results of a recent survey of local traders makes interesting reading.

"Far from being ‘sleepy’, many businesses in Budleigh are modern, enterprising, moving with the times and pushing the boundaries," it concluded. Of 41 local businesses - with an average of 17 years of being established - it appears that 90% are on email and are happy to receive electronic communications, 76% have their own website, and 39% are already using social media such as Facebook, Twitter or blogs.

And that, we're glad to say, includes Fairlynch Museum.

Audrey Levick 1890-1980

2012-01-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

Murray and Audrey Levick returning from Canada in 1939

A noted sportswoman, Audrey Levick was the wife of Surgeon Commander Murray Levick RN, the zoologist and medical officer on Scott's Antarctic expedition of 1910-13. She played an important role in helping to run the expeditions of what became known as the British Schools Exploring Society which her husband had founded in 1932. The couple moved in retirement to East Devon, where they settled just outside Budleigh Salterton.

Edith Audrey Mayson Beeton was born on 30 July, 1890. Her grandmother was Mrs Beeton, the compiler of the celebrated book on cookery and household management pictured above.

She was the second daughter of Sir Mayson Beeton (1865-1947), a former Daily Mail journalist and friend of the newspaper proprietors Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) and Harold Harmsworth (later Lord Rothermere). Mayson Beeton had investigated the sugar bounty question for the newspaper in 1896: the drop in the price of sugar caused by subsidised continental sugar was causing immense hardship for West Indian sugar cane growers. Four years later he crossed the Atlantic to Newfoundland with the Harmsworths to obtain timber concessions and build paper mills, becoming a Director and then President of the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company Limited. The company was set up in 1905 in order to guarantee newsprint supplies for the Harmsworths' newspapers in the event of war with Germany.

It may well have been this link with that part of Canada which led to so many of the BSES expeditions to Newfoundland, including five in the 1930s.

Roedean School today Photo credit Tony Corsini

A possible photo of Audrey Levick in the early 1900s

Audrey Levick herself was educated for four years at Roedean School, outside Brighton, where she was Head Girl and where she developed a passion for lacrosse. Roedean was one of the first schools to encourage it as a sport for girls, and the Southern Ladies' Lacrosse Club, the first Ladies' Club, had been formed in 1905 by a former Roedean pupil Greta Hindley.

The Southern Ladies Lacrosse team in 1911. Audrey Levick is centre

Audrey Levick left in 1909, having gained a place to study at Oxford University, and in the same year was elected Captain of the Southern Ladies' Lacrosse Club, going on to compete as an England international player.

In April 1912 she founded the Ladies' Lacrosse Association (LLA), becoming its Honorary Secretary and Chairman and in the following year was involved in organising the first international matches in the sport between England, Scotland and Wales. Later, from 1928 to 1931 she was Vice President of the All England Ladies' Lacrosse Association (AELLA) and then its President from 1933 to 1936.

The marriage certificate for Murray and Audrey Levick

The 1914-18 war saw her joining the Red Cross, where she was part of a team specialising in massage and electrotherapy. This was an area of medicine in which she had a shared interest with her future husband Murray Levick, whom she married on 16 November 1918.

Murray Levick in naval officer's uniform a few years before his marriage

She continued after her marriage to share such interests. On his retirement from the Royal Navy at the end of the war Murray Levick pursued his medical career, specialising in the treatment of disabled people. He was appointed as electrologist - medical officer in charge of the Electrical Department - at St Thomas's Hospital, London.

He also worked at the Victoria Hospital for Children in Chelsea, pictured above, where Audrey Levick sat for many years on the Ladies' Committee. The Hospital had been opened in 1866 after a group of local residents raised funds to found a hospital for "poor afflicted children" and its first medical officer was Sir William Jenner, physician to Queen Victoria. New buildings had been added in 1905 and 1922 providing 138 beds.

Audrey Levick in 1932 with two unidentified children

But it was from 1932 that Audrey and Murray Levick found themselves most closely working together with the foundation of the Public Schools' Exploring Society (PSES).

Audrey Levick on the 1934 PSES Newfoundland expedition

His objective was to foster the spirit of adventure in British schoolboys and teach them how to fend for themselves in wild country, with the aim of encouraging them to develop a longing for physical fitness. Some were as young as 15 on the early expeditions.

Isabella Beaton, aged 26

Murray Levick was still well known as a survivor of Scott's Terra Nova expedition and his wife's family name was almost as well known. In fact it was in 1932 that Sir Mayson Beeton had donated the only image of his mother to the National Portrait Gallery. It was the first photographic submission they ever accepted and when the picture of his mother was presented to the National Portrait Gallery it caused a public stir when it was exhibited on Boxing Day that year: people found it difficult to reconcile the fashionable young girl of the picture with the mature woman that they had imagined as the author of the 1861 cookery book.

Audrey Levick in 1938 with Col Carkeet-James at Deer Lake, Newfoundland

Audrey was elected honorary secretary and a Council member of the PSES from the start. For those closely involved with the organisation she will long be remembered as one with almost as much influence as her husband on the rules and structure of the British Schools' Exploring Society as it exists today.

In the first years of the Schools' Exploring Society, Audrey Levick went out in advance of eleven expeditions with the stores and equipment - to Finland, Newfoundland, Northern Quebec and Northern Norway. She went far into the wilds to select and establish the basic camps, and then maintained communications with the expeditions, often through amateur radio.

Audrey Levick in 1948

In 1948 she became vice-president of the Society, which by now had become the British Schools Exploring Society. The post of secretary was taken on by Commander Nigel Waymouth, RN who had retired after commanding the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in Hong Kong in the early 1950s.

Audrey Levick showed herself to be a very dedicated and determined woman, especially in the face of what she considered to be unwarranted opposition, giving her husband invaluable support in his work for the BSES. After his death in 1956, when she became its Patron, she strove to maintain what she considered to be his ideals in the Society's councils. She maintained an active interest until her retirement from the Council of BSES in 1967, and since then, although physically incapacitated in her last years, kept up her general interest. She died on 23 July 1980, just before her 90th birthday.

Photos of Audrey Levick kindly provided by Justin Warwick, BSES Expeditions Archivist, and Tom Cruikshanks.

TUT, TUT...! Trees Under Threat!

2011-12-06T03:43:00.001-08:00

They may have been condemned as diseased, dangerous and pasttheir sell-by date - a bit like me and quite a few of my Budleigh Saltertonneighbours I suppose - but the unexpected loss of those two magnificent 25-metrehigh Monterey pines on West Hill has saddened the town's tree lovers.

Surprisingly the two trees, situated between Woodlands andSherbrook Hill, were not covered by a Tree Protection Order (TPO). But even ifthey had been their fate would have been sealed when one of the pines wasdiscovered to have been attacked by the Sparassis fungus, better known ascauliflower mushroom, pictured above. Asthe name implies, this parasitic fruiting growth is edible although it isusually eaten by squirrels rather than humans. But for pines like the West Hillspecimens the fungus is usually fatal when it spreads into the roots. Thesecond tree was apparently rotten within the trunk.

Lloyd Fursdon, of Knowle Tree Services, the firm whichsupervised the trees' removal estimates that the trees were 130 years old."With 40 to 50 tons of timber involved there was a serious risk of damageto the neighbouring building had the trees been left. We definitely endorsedthe findings of the original inspection. Unfortunately the row of evergreenoaks in front of the pines had to be felled to facilitate access for thecrane."

Seven years ago, in the Town Design Statement produced withhelp from various organisations including Fairlynch Museum,the trees on the western approach to Budleigh Salterton from Exmouth weredescribed as "forming a wonderful canopy all the way into town."

But positive action is now beingcalled for to safeguard this verdant heritage.

One of the recommendations of theTDS was that Budleigh Salterton Town Council should be encouraged to appoint asmall team of Parish Tree Wardens to carry out a tree survey with a list ofnoteworthy and ancient trees to be preserved by possible TPO listing.

Above: the trunk measured over 5' in diameter. On the left of the picture can be seen a stump of one of the line of evergreen oaks which unfortunately had to be felled along with the two Monterey pines.

However Budleigh Salterton Town Councillor Lynda Evans points out thatmany of these ancient trees are coming to the end of their natural life andmany others are not being properly maintained. "I've been concerned about the two Monterey pines on West Hill for a long time,and their removal was unavoidable", she said.

Earlier this year Cllr Evans, who acts as Budleigh's TreeWarden, expressed her concern at the number of trees being felled in the townand wondered if the Town Council should, in the future, be asking forreplacements to be planted.

"We can't insist on it," she admits. "But weneed to start planting for the generations to come."

Photo of Sparassis crispa (cauliflower mushroom) by Jean-PolGrandmont

Reg Varney (1916-2008)

2011-12-02T03:22:00.001-08:00

Reginald Alfred 'Reg' Varney was an English actor, most notable for his role as a cheerful Cockney bus driver in the 1970s TV sitcom On the Buses.

For ten years he lived at Dark Lane House on picturesque Dark Lane in Budleigh Salterton, seen above. Millions of television viewers remember him with affection. He has been described as belonging to the old school of comedians, with his dislike of much contemporary television and his pride in never using swear words to get a laugh.

Varney was born on 11 July 1916 in Canning Town, which was then part of Essex but is now part of East London. His father worked in a rubber factory in Silvertown and he was one of five children who grew up in Addington Road, Canning Town. He was educated at the nearby Star Lane Primary School in West Ham and after leaving school at 14, he worked as a messenger boy at the Regent Palace Hotel, pictured above.

Above right: A WindmillTheatre poster. The first 'Revudeville' act opened in 1932. The shows only becameprofitable when the Lord Chamberlain, in his position as the censor for alltheatrical performances in London,allowed glamorous nude females on stage. He was persuaded that the display ofnudity in theatres was not obscene since the authorities could not crediblyhold nude statues to be morally objectionable. The theatre presented its nudes- the legendary 'Windmill Girls' - in motionless poses as livingstatues or tableaux vivants.

Varney took piano lessons as a child and was good enough to find employment as a part-time piano player. His first paid engagement was at Plumstead Radical Club in Woolwich, singing and playing the accordion, for which he was paid eight shillings and sixpence (42½p). He also played in working men's clubs, pubs and ABC cinemas, and later sang with big bands of the time. He and his mother decided that show business was the career for him, and he gave up his day jobs. For a time he worked as the resident pianist at the Windmill Theatre in Soho with its all-nude revues.

During World War II, he joined the Royal Engineers, but continued performing as an army entertainer, touring the Far East for a time. After being demobbed, he starred on stage in the late 1940s in a comic revue entitled Gaytime. His partner in the double act was Benny Hill. He then went on to become an all-round entertainer, working his way around the music halls.

In 1961, Varney was given the role of the clothing cutter and foreman Reg Turner in the popular television sitcom, The Rag Trade, which made him a household name. The cast included rising stars like Barbara Windsor, Miriam Karlin and Sheila Hancock, along with established film actors such as Peter Jones and Esme Cannon.

Also around this time he starred in a show for BBC TV called The Seven Faces of Reg Varney where he performed seven different characters in front of an audience at the Shepherd's Bush Theatre in London. Varney rushed about at a frantic pace on stage as he changed clothes between characters. After that followed another comedy role in Beggar My Neighbour; this also starred Pat Coombs, June Whitfield, and Peter Jones. Pat Coombs played the wife of Varney's character and she would later appear in the On the Buses movie. The series ran from March 1967 to March 1968 (24 episodes of 30 minutes' duration) and a short special was shown as part of Christmas Night with the Stars on 25 December 1967.

On 27 June 1967, the world's first voucher based cash dispensing machine was installed at the Enfield Town branch of Barclays Bank. Varney lived in Enfield at the time and for publicity purposes he was photographed making the first withdrawal from the machine.

In 1968 he appeared in a TV play The Best Pair of Legs in the Business, playing the role of 'Sherry' Sheridan the drag artist-cum-compère past his prime at a caravan holiday site. Unusually for Varney it was a part marked by pathos rather than comedy and drew praise from writers including John Osborne and Harold Pinter, proof that he had considerable talent as a straight actor. It's been said that such a role would have puzzled his fans but for his most devoted admirers this is hardly true. "An entertainer at the end of his career but who tries to kid himself he can return to the big time," is how the On the Buses Fan Club sees the play. "It is about how his life revolves around the need to perform even though it is a dreary caravan park. It is about having hope when there is no hope. A sad comedy that sees Reg Varney giving a brilliant performance."

Varney's greatest success was in the sitcom On the Buses which was written by Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe, who had also written The Rag Trade. The series ran for 76 episodes from February 1969 to May 1973. Varney played the lead role of bus driver Stan Butler, a long-suffering but loyal man who never has much luck where romance is concerned and is always pitting his wits against Blakey, the neurotic bus inspector with the Luxton & District Traction Company.

Varney took his acting seriously. In his autobiography, The Little Clown he describes one humiliating episode early in his career which he blames on the applause and flattery that he had enjoyed and which had made him "self-opinionated, smug, cocky and swollen-headed". A moment of truth came at a club in Kennington when the audience greeted in silence his over-confident rendition of 'Chapel in the Moonlight', a song of which he had failed to learn the words.

With The Rag Trade he had been aware that he was the only cast member without West End experience and worked hard to remedy any deficiencies. For On the Buses he went as far as taking bus-driving lessons and gained an HGV licence so that he could be filmed actually driving a bus on the open road. It was also a testament to his acting abilities that he was able to play so convincingly the role of the somewhat immature Stan Butler while in his mid-fifties.

There were also three spin-off movies made, On the Buses (1971), Mutiny on the Buses (1972), and Holiday on the Buses (1973). Varney was 53 when the series started, although his character, who lived at home and was often trying to attract women, seemed to be in his mid-thirties. Stephen Lewis, who played Inspector Cyril 'Blakey' Blake in the series, was actually 20 years younger than Varney, who, by the time On the Buses ended, was 57.

The show was a hit both in the UK and abroad, being shown in 35 countries. At its height it boasted 16 million viewers. But Varney left part-way through the final seventh series as he felt the series had run its course and was beginning to decline in standard.

Reg always enjoyed acting in films. His first film role had been with Margaret Rutherford in Miss Robin Hood (1952) and he had also appeared in comic roles in films including Joey Boy (1965) and as Gilbert in The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery (1966). Films in which he now appeared included Go for a Take (1972) and The Best Pair of Legs in the Business (1972), a film version of the 1968 play. In spite of the praise that he earned for his performance as 'Sherry' the film was not properly marketed and flopped. This was followed by Down the Gate (1975-76), in which he played the Billingsgate fish porter Reg Furnell, but it was not a great success. He was also in the remake of the film The Plank (1979).

From April to June 1969 Varney co-starred with Scottish entertainer Billy Raymond in 15 episodes of Australia's Channel O TV entertainment series Rose and Crown before returning to appear in yet another On the Buses series.

He also made six hour-long spectaculars called The Other Reg Varney, and later his cabaret act toured Australia, New Zealand and Canada. In 1988, On the Buses went on to the stage and again Varney went to Australia to play Stan.

During the 1990s, Varney was forced to retire because of health problems. He had had a heart attack in 1965 and in 1981 he had suffered a more severe one. Subsequently he divided his time between his home in a small village near Dartmouth and a villa in Malta.

Varney moved to East Devon in the late 1990s. A former resident of Dark Lane remembers him at a party where he was in his element, surrounded by admiring females. But he was devoted to his wife during their 63 years of marriage and much of his time in Budleigh was spent caring for her when she became ill.

He was a talented artist, having learnt to paint during his convalescence, and enjoyed painting landscapes in oils like the one shown here; there were several exhibitions of his work locally.

His autobiography, The Little Clown, was published in 1990 and is described as "touching" and "honest" for its insight into his early acting background.

He made two brief comebacks, in the 'Tonight at 8.30' play Red Peppers (1991), and Marital Bliss (1995), in 'Paul Merton's Life of Comedy' series. He lived alone following the death at the age of 87 of his wife Lilian in Budleigh Salterton in 2002.

Varney died aged 92 in Pinewood Nursing Home in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, on 16 November 2008, after suffering a chest infection. His grave and that of his wife are in an unmarked plot in St Peter's churchyard in Budleigh. He was survived by his daughter Jeanne Marley along with two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Reg Varney's contribution to British TV and film comedy will be remembered for generations to come, with admirers joining sites such as the On the Buses Fan Club and http://www.onthebuses.net/forum/ There will no doubt be a further revival of interest in his career with the forthcoming centenary of his birth.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reg_Varney
Picture credits: http://www.southallfilmstudios.com/
http://www.onthebusesfanclub.com/

This post is a link from http://www.devonmuseums.net/People-from-the-past-3:-Reg-Varney-%281916-2008%29/Latest-News/Fairlynch-Museum/Museum-News/

Andrew Stuart Hibberd MBE (1893-1983)

2011-11-20T11:05:00.001-08:00

Above: Stuart Hibberd's memoirs, published in 1950 as This - is London...

Stuart Hibberd was one of the best known voices on radio in the early days of the BBC. He joined the Corporation in 1924 and was its chief announcer until his retirement in 1951. He settled in Budleigh Salterton, living in Westfield Road.

Stuart Hibberd was born on 5 September 1893 in Broadstone, East Dorset, and educated at Weymouth College from where he won a choral scholarship to St. John’s College, Cambridge. He was always proud of his West Country roots and remained as Vice President of the Society of Dorset Men until the end of his life.

On the outbreak of war in 1914 he joined the Dorset Regiment, serving with distinction in the Gallipoli campaign and also with the army in India, where he gained the rank of Captain.
In 1923, he married Alice Chichester, a cousin of the future round-the-world sailor Sir Francis Chichester (1901-72). From a military family, she was the daughter of Lt Col Gerard Chichester, who had gained the rank of Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel in the service of the 4th Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment. An uncle was Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Chichester, 9th baronet.

The following year he joined the BBC at its headquarters at 2 Savoy Hill next to London's Savoy Hotel, having seen a newspaper advertisement for an announcer. His impeccable enunciation and received pronunciation were clear factors in his favour. The Corporation was just two years old and had recently moved from its previous base at Marconi House at the junction of the Strand and Aldwych.

It was at a time when broadcasting was in its infancy, buoyed up with enthusiasm for a new art. Stuart Hibberd recalled the mood in his memoirs: "The three things that impressed me most, as a newcomer, were the general atmosphere of friendliness, the way I was at once made to feel at home - one of a family as it were - and the all pervading pioneering spirit, which seemed to proclaim from the house-tops, 'Here's a wonderful worthwhile job. Nothing matters more than broadcasting, unless it is still better and more extensive broadcasting.'"

He became one of the BBC's first professional announcers: reading the news, as well as presenting talks and concerts and talks. Along with other broadcasting pioneers he was responsible for laying down ground rules to develop the special technique of preparing scripts written for the ear rather than for the eye. Shorter, less complicated sentences and the use of colloquial English became prerequisites.

Other rules were introduced which have been long since abandoned. From 1926 until September 1939, dinner-jackets were prescribed as standard for radio announcers when on duty in the evenings even though the audience could not see them. Stuart Hibberd recalled in his memoirs how he accepted such rulings.

"Personally, I have always thought it only right and proper that announcers should wear evening dress on duty. After all, announcing is a serious, if new, profession, and the wearing of evening dress is an act of courtesy to the artists, many of whom will almost certainly be similarly dressed if they are taking part in a programme from 8 p.m. onwards." He did admit: "It is not ideal kit in which to read the News... and I remember that more than once the engineers said that my shirt-front creaked during the reading of the bulletin."

Above: Stuart Hibberd's fame as a radio announcer secured him a place in the gallery of celebrities published on cigarette cards by W.D. & H.O. Wills

He became the BBC’s Chief Announcer, a post that he held for 25 years. During that time his voice became familiar to millions as he announced events of national importance. He was famous for the pause which marked the opening words of his news bulletins: "This - is London."

The ten-day General Strike of 1926 was one of the first of such critical events that confronted broadcasters, not least because the public relied solely on the BBC for news of the events, newspaper production having stopped. On Government orders the Corporation's Savoy Hill headquarters was placed under police guard to ensure that broadcasting continued.

In 1932 the BBC moved to Broadcasting House in London's Portland Place. It was Stuart Hibberd who read the first news bulletin to be transmitted from the building. Three years later he was appointed MBE for his services to radio.

One of his most memorable bulletins was when he announced the impending death of King George V on 20 January 1936 with the words "The King's life is moving peacefully towards its close."
The events of World War Two were to make the voices of wartime broadcasters like Alvar Liddell, Frank Phillips and John Snagge even more familiar. This was especially so as the peacetime practice of guarding newsreaders' anonymity had suddenly been abandoned. The BBC Handbook of 1941 stated: "The reason for this is not a hankering after self-advertisment - although at first some listeners unfairly took it to be so; in wartime listeners must be able to recognise instantly the authentic voice of British broadcasting and then, in any possible emergency, they will be on their guard against some lying imitation by the voice of the enemy."

Another change came about when in 1940 the BBC transferred to Bristol but this was a temporary measure and the Corporation staff returned to London in July 1942. Stuart Hibberd's bulletin of 1 May 1945 announcing Hitler's death was a much remembered moment of this period.

From 1949 he presented The Silver Lining, a Thursday afternoon programme aimed at disabled and housebound people. He also produced talking books for the National Institute for the Blind. After his retirement as chief announcer in 1951 he continued to present The Silver Lining until the programme ended its run in 1964.

Stuart Hibberd's retirement from radio was marked by his closedown "Good night everybody... goodnight." The characteristic pause, which also marked the start of his bulletins, was designed to give listeners the chance to say "Good night" in reply.

He and his wife Alice moved to Westfield House in Budleigh Salterton where he continued to be well known, popular and respected. " People raised their hats to him as he passed in the street when I went to see him in Devon in the 1970s," recalled the broadcaster and journalist Roger George Clark. Alice died in 1977. They had no children.

In retirement his voice continued to be recognised during his readings of the Lesson in St Peter's Church. The local Baptist Church was also in his debt thanks to the proceeds from a lecture series which he donated to help with the purchase of a new Manse in Elmside. Westfield House, his former home in Budleigh, was replaced by flats. The building is now called Hibberd House.

An excellent biographical sketch of Stuart Hibberd by Dr Roger Lendon has been published by the Otter Valley Association's Ovapedia at http://www.ovapedia.org.uk/index.php?page=hibberd-andrew-stuart-1893-1983-budleigh-salterton-c20

Sources:
Stuart Hibberd - This - is London...London, 1950
Tom Hickman - What did you do in the War, Auntie? The BBC at war 1939-45London, BBC Books, 1995
http://dorset-ancestors.com/
http://thepeerage.com/
http://www.budleighbaptistchurch.org.uk/
http://rogergeorgeclark.com/

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Robert Proctor

2011-11-20T09:39:00.001-08:00

Robert George Collier Proctor (1868-1903), bibliographer, was born in Budleigh Salterton. He is chiefly remembered for Proctor order, the method of organising incunabula - books printed before 1500 - first by country, then by town, and then by printer and edition. It was this method, used in his Index to the British Museum and Bodleian collections which earned for him the title of 'the great bibliographer.' In his short life he managed to revolutionise the study of 15th century printing.

He was born on 13 May 1868, the only child of Robert Proctor and Anne Tate. A Robert Proctor is recorded as living at 2 Lawn Villas in Morris and Co.'s Commercial Directory and Gazetteer of 1870. Although his father had poor health the family had private means and the young Robert Proctor grew up in a bookish environment. His father, educated at Eton and Charterhouse, had "imbibed a strong love of the classics" according to his British Museum colleague and biographer Alfred Pollard, and it seems that within the family "a book rather than a toy was always chosen when a present was offered."

His grandfather, also called Robert (1798-1875) had written a Narrative of a Journey across the Cordillera of the Andes, and of a Residence in Lima and other parts of Peru in the years 1823 and 1824, published in 1825. The author, while described in a review as providing "minute and interesting sketches, without affecting to color them by any beauty of language" was praised for the "clearness, simplicity and animation" which he brought to the work. The family had other interesting connections, the grandfather having married a sister of the Shakespearean scholar John Payne Collier (1789-1883) who in 1860 was exposed as a literary forger. An uncle by marriage was George Edmund Street (1824-81), an architect who designed the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Robert George Proctor was educated at Daymond's, a preparatory school in Reading before going to Marlborough College, pictured above, at the age of 10. He stayed there for less than a year, partly owing to trouble with his eyes.

Above: The former Bath College. The building is now a hotel

Following his father's death in 1880, Mrs Proctor and her son moved from Budleigh in 1881 to settle at Bath. Here Proctor joined Bath College, a small public boys' school founded in 1879 by the Reverend Thomas William Dunn (1837-1930) who had previously been second master at Boston Grammar School and assistant master at Clifton College, Bristol. He had also been a Fellow and Dean of Peterhouse College, Cambridge in the mid-1860s.

The above photograph of Thomas Dunn seems to have been taken during his three years as a teacher at Boston Grammar School.

The new headmaster was obviously someone to whom Proctor owed a great debt. Long after his days at Bath College he kept in touch with 'The Old Man' as he refers to him in his diary, calling on him in Cambridge in November 1899, and in the following year dedicating to him a monograph on Greek Printing in the Fifteenth Century.

A scholarly man, Dunn's writings included translating part of the late 15th century edition of De beatitudine claustrali (On the benefits of the monastic life) by the Dominican monk Engelbertus Cultrifex (1430-92). The work is prefaced by a short passage purporting to be by the theologian Peter of Blois (c.1130-1211) who became Archdeacon of Bath in 1176. Dunn is also recorded as having undertaken a translation of the Premediarum peccatorum, attributed to Peter of Blois, for the Rev. J.A. Giles (1808-84), a scholar of Anglo-Saxon history who was a Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Could it have been through Giles that Dunn obtained a place at the same College for his obviously brilliant pupil Proctor?

As a teacher Dunn seems to have been idolised by his charges judging by this Memorial Address given at Bath Abbey in 1932 by John Alfred Spender (1862-1942), journalist, author and uncle of the poet Stephen Spender. "He had none of the recognized marks of the trade - the starched dignity, the aloofness, the order-must-be-kept attitude which was thought proper in a headmaster in those days," wrote this former Bath College pupil. "Every hour spent in class with him was an adventure. No one knew, least of all he, where it might lead; he followed his thought with the flattering assumption that his boys could keep pace, though it took them from Greek grammar to the philosophy of Plato, and ended in a disquisition on the origin of species."

For Proctor, the future disciple of William Morris and yearner for a more egalitarian society, this teacher who treated his charges as equals must have made a deep impression. "He encouraged you to come out with your crudest thoughts, and suffered argument and even contradiction with a patience that bridged the gulf between boy and man, and made him the friend even more than the schoolmaster."

Above: Corpus Christi College, Oxford

As for the headmaster's recollections of his former pupil, Dunn remembered him clearly as "born for out-of-the-way scholarly pursuits" and recalled the unusually large library of books which Proctor took with him when in October 1886 he entered Corpus Christi College, where he had gained an open scholarship to study the classics course, also known as 'Greats.'

His bookish inclinations became even more evident at University. Soon after arriving at Oxford he printed his own translation of Captivi, a comedy by Plautus, which was that year acted in Latin at Bath College. A fellow-undergraduate at Corpus, the historian J.G. Milne, also remembered Proctor's library, recalling how he soon got a footing in the literary group of the period, joining College societies like the Pelican Essay Club and co-founding an even more select group known as the Owlets, composed in equal proportions of dons and undergraduates, which met to read English plays or selections from English literature on alternate weeks.

He was remembered during his time at Oxford as following every type of antiquarian pursuit, from brass rubbing to war-gaming, and, while not physically gifted as a sportsman followed College rowing with enthusiasm.

His mother had moved from Bath to Oxford, where she took rooms in Walton Street, and during University holidays Proctor spent much time on walking tours with her, including trips to Scotland, Belgium and Norway. But bibliography soon became his main chosen pursuit. In his second year he was elected Junior Librarian and set about producing a catalogue of the College Library. Before he left Oxford he had made for his College a complete list of its incunabula and also of its English books printed before the close of the sixteenth century.

It was following a suggestion by Edward Gordon Duff (1863-1924), notable for producing from 1893-99 the first catalogue of the John Rylands Library in Manchester that Proctor wrote his first paper on a bibliographical topic, choosing as his subject Jan van Doesborgh (c.1508-30), the printer remarkable for the numerous books in English which were issued from the various presses of Antwerp. The paper appeared in the 1892 issue of The Library and subsequently in the second of the illustrated monographs of the Bibliographical Society.

Above: The Radcliffe Camera, part of Oxford University's Bodleian Library

Duff had been engaged in cataloguing incunabula at the Bodleian Library, but had only got to the end of letter J when he left Oxford. He was succeeded by Proctor who on a paid basis between February 1891 and September 1893 catalogued over 3,000 incunabula at the Bodleian, as well exploring New College Library where he made the discovery of some fragments on vellum of a previously unknown Caxton.

During his time at the Bodleian Proctor lived with his mother at a house at 10, St Margaret's Road, in Oxford. But 1893 saw him move to London, where on 16 October he took up the post of assistant in the printed books department at the British Museum. For five years Proctor and his mother rented a house in Pelham Road, Wimbledon.

Above: The Reading Room at the British Museum

By 1898 he had at last, by the use of nearly all his leisure for more than four years, completed his great work An Index to the Early Printed Books in the British Museum: from the invention of printing to the year MD, with notes of those in the Bodleian Library. It was published in four parts in an edition of 350 copies.

It was the bibliographer Henry Bradshaw (1831-86) who had pioneered the method of cataloguing books according to the printers, the centres in which they worked, and the centres and countries into which printing was gradually introduced.

Proctor's genius was in using his extraordinary eye and memory for typefaces to apply this approach to the incunabula of the British Museum. By listing and describing every known type used by each printer, he showed how printing technology had developed throughout Europe. His efforts allowed the many books printed with no named place or printer in the period up to 1500 to be ranged with those books whose origin is explicitly stated. Thanks to his efforts the British Museum came to be seen as a world leader in bibliography since his help was sought, almost daily, by students in every part of Europe and also in the United States.

Indeed the Bradshaw-Proctor approach was soon applied to collections anywhere in the world. It lay behind the 1908 publication by the British Museum of its official Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century Now in the British Museum which listed more than 10,400 separate editions.
In 1898 Proctor and his mother moved to Oxshott, Surrey, where they had built themselves a house. By subsequent purchases nearly two acres of land were added to this. Proctor seems to have enjoyed the life of physical exertion which the cultivation of his domain involved, including growing large numbers of fruit trees. The garden features prominently in his diaries. Sometimes he would walk to work at the British Museum through the Surrey countryside, arriving as late as 11.00 am but putting in a full day's labour.

His diaries, started in 1899, are in the British Library. There were originally four volumes but volume 3 has been lost. The diaries discuss his work as a bibliographer but also give an insight into his home life with his mother. They reveal him through his views on current affairs to be something of a radical.

Above: William Morris in 1890

While at Oxford Proctor had become acquainted with the writings of William Morris (1834-96) and John Ruskin (1819-1900), and he soon came to take an interest in their political and economic ideas. He first met Morris in 1894, becoming a fanatical admirer and collecting books and ephemera from the Kelmscott Press, the private press that Morris had established at Hammersmith in 1891 with the aim of proving that the high standards of book production the past could be repeated - even surpassed - in the present. Medieval in design, the books produced by the Kelmscott Press were modelled on the incunabula of the 15th century. It was this admiration for Morris that in 1900 led Proctor to publish The printing of Greek in the fifteenth century.

This was followed by the experiments in Greek printing. In 1903 Proctor was involved in the development of a new type face for printing Greek, based on that used by the Spanish printer Arnaldo Guilen de Brocar in 1514 at Alcalá, near Madrid. The new font was known as Otter, based on Proctor's own family crest, and resulted in the fine edition of Aeschylus' Oresteia printed at the Chiswick Press in 1904.

Shown above is William Morris' design 'Brother Rabbit.' This particular design is used to decorate the cover of Dr John Bowman's edition of Proctor's diaries

An enthusiast for using Morris fabrics in his own home, Proctor was also inspired to support his aesthetic ideas. His name appears in an 1897 list of members of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, a group founded by Morris twenty years earlier in 1877. Known in Proctor's time as 'Anti-Scrape' the group had been founded to oppose the practice adopted by many Victorian architects of scraping off the old plaster of medieval buildings. The group was joined in 1889 by the architect Ernest Gimson (1864-1919), another admirer of William Morris who has an interesting connection with Budleigh. For it was Gimson who designed the house known as Coxen, off Dalditch Lane in Knowle, pictured below and mentioned elsewhere in these pages at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2009/06/over-pebbles-and-far-away-knowle-east.html

Gimson had attended a lecture on 'Art and Socialism' at the Leicester Secular Society given by Morris. In 1893 he moved to the rural region of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire “to live near to nature.” The use of Devon cob, an eco-friendly material, in Coxen’s construction is characteristic of his work.

From May 1900 Proctor began to attend the weekly committees of the 'Anti-Scrape,' occasions which were made all the more enjoyable by suppers which followed at Gatti's, an Italian eating house in the Strand. http://gimson.leicester.gov.uk/gimsonpage/gimson-and-the-arts-crafts-movement/spab-or-anti-scrape/ It is highly likely that Proctor would have met Gimson, who would go on to design in 1911 this Arts and Crafts Movement-inspired house now listed as Grade II* only a few miles from the former's birthplace. For more information about Gimson click on http://www.owlpen.com/gimson.shtml

The Lawn, next to St Peter's Church, Budleigh Salterton

It is curious to note that by a strange quirk of fate, the house in which Proctor was born would eventually be transformed by the same Arts and Crafts movement into the brick and tiled Lawn Terrace that we see today. But that aping of medieval architecture would not take place until 1935.
It was also in the early 1900s that Proctor began studying in the original the Icelandic Sagas, many of which Morris had helped to translate. This new interest resulted shortly before his death in the publication through the Chiswick Press in 1903 of a version of Laxdæla saga, translated as The Story of the Laxdalers.

The socialist ideas expounded by Morris found a willing disciple in Proctor. According to his friend the historian J.G. Milne already quoted by Alfred Pollard in the collection of Bibliographical Essays printed for the Proctor Memorial Fund in 1905, he "was constantly thinking out schemes for the improvement of life and its conditions; he was always ready to hear and inquire about the circumstances of the 'East-Enders' amongst whom I work, and to suggest solutions for the problems arising there. The enthusiasm of humanity was the real ruling force of his character."

No doubt he continued to discuss these radical ideas with Emery Walker (1851-1933) and Sydney Cockerell (1867-1962), friends who had worked with Morris in the book publishing business and who visited Proctor frequently at Oxshott. In 1901 he was honoured by the request to become one of the trustees of the Morris estate.

Above: Queen Victoria, a symbol of much that Proctor disliked about the society of his time

Throughout his diaries he is fiercely opposed to the Boer war, celebrating Boer rather than British victories. A fervent anti-monarchist he rejoices at the death of any member of a royal family. On 19 January 1901, a few days before the death of Queen Victoria on the 22nd, he notes "The old Washerwoman of Windsor reported to be kicking the bucket - à la bonne heure!"

Proctor's diaries refer constantly to the long walking tours, generally with his mother which he had enjoyed since his student days. Though in her seventies she continued to accompany him.

This water colour painting by Arthur Wyatt Edgell shows Budleigh Salterton's Steamer Steps and the coast path from Exmouth in 1868, the year of Proctor's birth

In October 1902 the pair took the train to Exmouth and then took to the coast path to Budleigh. "A warm hazy calm morning, the sea like glass," he notes. "It was a very pleasant walk along the cliffs. At Straight Point I turned aside & had a dip off the rocks; the water was as warm as in summer. Then we went on by the Beacon to B-S, came in down along the cliff to the Parade, & then up the street to 'Station Road' once Moor Lane.

Revisiting his childhood haunts he commented: "Less change than we expected, but a smartening up generally, & a disappearance of many old names. The house in Lawn Villas is now a milliner's shop." Various old acquaintances and neighbours remembered them: Mrs Webber, of Prospect House off Chapel Hill; the Mercers, of Lydney House, East Terrace, who gave them tea; and the Bakers, of The Lawn, whom he describes as "dull."

After a twilight walk to Sherbrooke Hill the pair returned to the Rolle Arms, the hotel in the centre of Budleigh where they had taken rooms, now sadly demolished. "There being no Sunday trains I had to carry the bag all day," notes Proctor. He mentions their "most delightful walk" to Sidmouth via the Otter bridge and Ladram. Understandably, after a further tramp as far as Branscombe, and then on to Beer, he described his mother as "completely done."

In the early summer of 1903 the two went together to Corsica and Florence. For the later walking tour in the Austrian Alps, Proctor started by himself on the evening of 29 August. His whole trip was planned to last only just three weeks, and he was due back at the British Museum on 22 September. His mother, concerned that she had not heard from him, prompted a search of the region by the Austrian police, but no body was ever recovered and it was presumed that he had died in the mountains after losing his footing.

He was 35 years old, but it was said of him that in that short time he had achieved a lifetime's work.

"He was perhaps one of those lucky people for whom his work was his life," writes his editor John Bowman. And yet the question of how long Proctor could have maintained such a work rate inevitably arises. Alfred Pollard had doubts, as he writes in the memorial volume. "His eager, untiring energies could not long have survived the rate at which they were burning away, and he himself had calmly faced the certainty that he could only hope for a few more years of effective eyesight."

Sources:
Bath Central Library Catalogue
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/onlinelists/GB0256%20MSS.pdf
Bowman, J.H. (ed.) - A Critical Edition of the Private Diaries of Robert Proctor The Life of a Librarian at the British Museum
The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston Queenston Lampeter 2010
Morris and Co.'s Commercial Directory and Gazetteer. 1870
Spender, John Alfred - Men and Things, 1937 (Cassell and Company)
Pollard, Alfred W. (ed.) - Proctor, Robert: Bibliographical Essays
For the Donors and Subscribers to the Proctor Memorial Fund. MDCCCV Printed at the Chiswick Press, London, 1905

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An absorbing read

2011-11-14T14:03:00.001-08:00

There's always something going on in Budleigh Salterton inspite of what some meanies say. 'Sponge throwing'? Why not? We'd heard it was acharity event involving local dignitaries, and there was even a rumour that oneof them would be getting a soaking, standing in the stocks and wearing his regalia.

It was all happening in a local resident's garden with anexhibition set up in a marquee, and bizarrely the day's theme was sponges.Anyway off we went and sure enough there was the dignitary looking pretty wetand bedraggled but smiling away, calling out between sponges "It's all ina good cause! Come on, sponge my face!" Very sporting of him we thought.

The good cause was the Marine Conservation Society, and thesponge theme was all to do with the bicentenary of the man who used to live inthis charming little cottage on Fore Street Hill. It's called Umbrella Cottage,apparently because the porch, now thatched, was originally in the shape of anumbrella.

Henry John Carter was his name as you can see from the blueplaque on the cottage wall, and he turned out to be Budleigh's only home-grownFellow of the Royal Society, having been born in the town on this very day, 18August, two hundred years ago and coming back to settle down here when heretired.

Being an FRS is something quite special and exclusive -reserved for top scientists - I've been told. Well, the Royal Society has apretty smart address at No 7, Carlton House Terrace in London, with a history going back to 1660.

In fact Henry Carter had gained the letters FRS after hisname for the work that he'd done in geology during his time as a doctor withthe Army in India.In total he'd written 238 papers ondiverse subjects - medicine, geology, ethnology, micropaleontology, zoology andbotany. But it was for his research into sponges that he's mostly remembered,and that came about after his fellow-FRS friend John Edward Gray, Keeper at theNatural History section of the British Museum had asked him to undertake alittle classification project shortly after he retired in 1862 to live inBudleigh.

Henry ended upwriting 1,894 pages in 127 publications on sponges, so certainly deserves hisdescription as a spongiologist as well as his FRS, which he gained on 9 June1859. The Royal Society awarded him its Royal Medal in 1872 for what they described as "...his longcontinued and valuable researches in zoology, and more especially for hisinquiries into the natural history of the Spongiadae."

Living on the coast in retirement allowed him to carry onspongiologising even on Budleigh beach: in an article published in 1874 henoted a variety of Esperia aegagropila "growing in smallpatches scantily on the rocks (at Budleigh-Salterton) towards low-watermark."

Now I'd alwaysthought that sponges are rather uninteresting things, just sitting there on thesea bed like seaweed or any other type of marine plant but not doing very muchapart from swallowing and regurgitating sea water. But it turns out thatthey're animals, and there are between 5,000 and 10,000 different species.There are even 150 freshwater species. They also have a quite special sex life,being hermaphrodites, and they come in different shapes and sizes with thetallest reaching two metres in height.

And they're by no means totally useless. This species Rhabdastrella globostellata,also known as yellow pot sponge, is a marine sponge of the order Astrophorida.It is native to many regions of the Indian Ocean including the shores of Madagascar, the Seychelles,and Australia as well as theMalayan Peninsulaand Singapore.It was first described by Henry Carter as Stelleta globostellata in 1883, namedafter its shape - from the Latin globus meaning 'sphere' and stellātus meaning 'star-shaped.'

It may look likesomething the dog sicked up, but it's has been shown to produce a wide varietyof isomalabaricanes, a type of triterpene molecules with notable cytotoxicactivity towards certain cancer cell lines.

Sorry, I'm justshowing off. I haven't a clue what allthose words mean, but they looked pretty impressive in the marquee display.

But it's truethat that sponges collected from rock pools by a team from the WelshSchool of Pharmacy in south Walesa few years ago were shown to be a source of new drugs to combat breast andlung cancer.

Wediscovered all this when we went into the marquee and saw what they'd done toremember Henry Carter. There areeven sponges named after him, like this beautiful stylissa carteri orange sponge from Randayan Island, Indonesia.A lot of the above fascinating information had been provided by a Dutchacademic who'd written about Carter andhis work. The exhibition organisers had also had a lot of help from a Britishprofessor who is a Royal Society Research Fellow.Although he's currently abroad he'd given lots of advice about how to plan theexhibition and had apparently suggested that the sponge theme be just one inthe general topic of marine conservation.

That was when the event organisers had approached Peter MacDonald, Head of Sustainability at the NationalFish Board. As he's the son of a muchrespected Budleigh resident it seemedquite appropriate and apparently he gave them some useful advice. They'd also had help from a big marinelaboratory based in Devon and from a ratherwell-known oyster farm whose owner feels strongly about marine conservationissues.

There were a lot of interesting exhibits to do with thehistory of fishing in Budleigh and Lyme Bay provided by another localresident who'd spent his life in the fishing industry and often gives talks onthe subject. And there was plenty of stuff about the Jurassic Coast.I loved the amazing photos of the starfish invasion on Budleigh beach a fewyears ago.

There was aninteresting timeline chart showing Henry Carter's achievements throughout hislife. Two years after retiring to Budleigh he married Anne Doyle from Sligo, Ireland.She was about 21 years younger than him and they had a daughter Annie in 1866. On4 October 1888 he had a paralytic attack which left him with impaired powers ofspeech and vision. There was some improvement with time but he never completelyrecovered and died on 4 May 1895 in his 82nd year. He's buried in thechurchyard at All Saints, East Budleigh.

But it wasn't just posters and pictures inside the marquee.One wall of the main exhibition was taken up by a gigantic aquarium-full ofsponges and other odd-looking marine creatures. Alocal museum's Natural History section had also helped out by providing marinespecimens.

Local art club members had collaborated with the organisersby staging a display of marine art. The pictures had been selected by a local marinebiologist who's also had some success as an artist. We loved the saucy JoyceDennys pictures of mermaids which were apparently done for a mural in thebathroom of Lion House on Fore Street Hill. A Budleigh art gallery had agreedto stage an exhibition of prints on a maritime theme and some of those were ondisplay. A local primary school had organised an art competition to see whichpupils could paint the most amazing sea monsters, and they'd produced some veryimaginative work.

Outside on the lawn a celebrity cook whose name I can'tremember was preparing tempting dishes using some very odd-looking fish thatyou don't normally see in fishmongers. There was a display of his books and Ibought one of them which he was kind enough to sign with an inscription to the'Budleigh Blogger.' I think he was quite intrigued when I told him about myblog and how it had started, but on reflection he may have just been beingpolite. I do tend to rabbit on a bit about my personal obsessions. He seemedlike quite a well-educated and civilised sort of chap so I don't think he'dhave told me to clear off and make way for the next person in the queue.

As it was tea-time we stayed on to watch the sponge cakecompetition. Not a judging of the best sponge cake but a contest to guess theweight of the biggest sponge-cake I've ever seen. This was a greatcrowd-puller, almost more popular than the sponge-throwing and people werebuying tickets at £1 a go. The top prize for the nearest guess to the correctweight was a day with the celebrity cook working with him in his famous WestCountry restaurant. I bought a fiver's worth, guessing that the cake was about30 kilos. I was also hoping that I might get the chance to really explain aboutthe blog and how absolutely everyone should read it.

Clearly I'd under-estimated because the day ended with aspeech from the nice celebrity cook asking us to eat more fish with strangenames and giving the news that the gigantic sponge-cake had weighed in at 54kilos.

The event could have ended with a sponge-cake fight, whichmy grandchildren would have enjoyed. And the newspaper and TV people who werethere would have loved it. But it wouldhave been rather wasteful and messy. And of course the seagulls, like this hungry-looking one in the photo, would havejoined in, making things even messier. No, much more sensible was what they didwith the cake, which was to cut it up and send it to local care homes.

The organisers had managed to get the day sponsored by arather well-known supermarket chain which had opened a branch in the area. Withits help and with a lot of hard work on the part of everyone involved a largecheque was sent off to the Marine Conservation Society. I hope it's been usedto save a few more whales and coral reefs.

If Henry Carter's spirit is up there swimming around in aheavenly waterworld being sponged gently by Joyce Dennys-type mermaids I'm surehe'd have been tickled and touched by the way that Budleigh Salterton hadremembered his life and achievements.

I'm sure also that he'd have approved this gesture on thepart of a small coastal town to acknowledge the debt that it's owed to the seafor its livelihood over so many centuries.

This post is a link from http://www.devonmuseums.net/A-wholly-absorbing-daydream/Latest-News/Fairlynch-Museum/Museum-News/

Blues for the Blues

2011-10-22T03:19:00.000-07:00

This spectacular photo of a male specimen of the silver-studded blue butterfly (Plebeius argus) was taken by Olaf Leillinger

An area of the East Budleigh Common which shows good habitat for the butterfly

A mating pair

A female (brown)

All the above photos relate to an article by Jean Turner at

http://www.devonmuseums.net/Blues-for-the-Blues/Latest-News/Fairlynch-Museum/Museum-News/

Turning back to the blog for a moment or two

2011-10-18T10:04:00.000-07:00

Well, the work on my logpile - or rather logpiles, because as I said at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.co m/2011/08/my-blog-gets-chop.html I think it's going to be another Arctic or Antarctic winter - is almost done. And as the logging drew to a close I felt the blogger mysteriously stirring within me, especially after Tobias Kaye's talk to the Friends of Fairlynch in Budleigh Salterton's Peter Hall last night.

So it was once again to the keyboard with thoughts inspired by the sight and sound of those curious-looking wooden sounding bowls, an array of which Tobias had brought with him to illustrate his talk.

I'd been asked to give the vote of thanks, perhaps because the talks organiser had been so impressed by the thought of my splitting all those logs and the sight of my beautifully stacked timber that she thought I must have an affinity with wood.

It's true that there's an art to building a decent logpile, and the act is a sensuous experience as you feel for the right place where each piece of wood should go and as you breathe in the different scents left by each kind of timber: mainly oak, but also birch, ash, apple and the occasional piece of cedar.

But hearing Tobias left me feeling like a shallow-minded vandal rather than an artist. And sensing that Tobias himself had something of the scientist, the poet, the philosopher and the healer about him, as well as the woodsman and the musician. For there was a bit of everything in his talk. Some physics, some forestry. Music, medicine and art of course. But also some Greek mythology. And mixed with the familiar types of timbers that I'd so brutally split - ash, oak, holly - the names of more exotic trees like strawberry, walnut, cherry and rowan.

Turning wood is a fascinating hobby for many people, and here in the sylvan county of Devon it's no surprise that it should be so popular. The Woodbury Woodturners Club, based in a small village only a few miles from Budleigh has no less than 130 fully paid-up members http://www.woodburywoodturners.org.uk/

I'd come to Tobias' talk with memories from my days as a French teacher at "that great school, Oundle", to quote its former pupil Arthur Marshall. That was because of Monsieur Binet, the retired tax collector in Gustave Flaubert's great novel Madame Bovary. First presented to us by the author as a rather boring little man, pompously proud of his role as Captain of the local Fire Brigade, the character of Binet soars to unexpected heights as he devotes himself to his favourite pastime. For Binet is a woodturner who finds a joy beyond all others in turning out mundane objects like napkin rings.

It's the character of Emma Bovary which dominates the novel of course. Much of her life is built on fantasising. A farmer’s daughter whose convent education and reading of trashy romances fill her head with fanciful notions, she dreams of marriage to a glamorous aristocrat. She finds herself wedded instead to a conscientious but dull country doctor, Charles Bovary whose conversation is as "flat as a pavement." Bored out of her mind, flattered by the attentions of the dashing but selfish local squire Rodolphe Boulanger, she allows herself to be seduced during a horse ride in the woods.

Months of ecstasy follow, heightened for Emma by the excitement of having a secret lover. But abandoned by Rodolphe when things get serious after she threatens to run away with him, her consequent nervous breakdown leading to crazy spending sprees which bankrupt her husband, Emma rapidly descends into a spiral of self-destruction. A second adulterous liaison, this time with Leon, a younger toyboy lover, seems momentarily to satisfy her dreams, but again her demands prove too much. Abandoned by both Leon and Rodolphe, she commits the ultimate romantic gesture and dies in agony, poisoned by self-administered arsenic.

There's a moment in the novel when the author allows us to draw a curious parallel between his heroine and the boring Binet. In one of Emma's dreams she imagines herself transported by horse-drawn carriage with her lover over the mountains to an exotic land of fine cities of domes and spires surrounded by groves of lemon trees.

And here, later in the novel, is Binet engaged in a similar fantasy journey where the image of the wheel plays a key role. "In the chiaroscuro of the workshop, the golden dust was streaming off the lathe, like the plume of sparks at the hoof of a galloping horse; the two wheels were turning, buzzing; Binet was smiling, chin down, nostrils dilated, apparently lost in that state of complete happiness which belongs no doubt only to mediocre pursuits, those that amuse the intelligence with facile difficulties, and appease it with an achievement that quite dulls the imagination (Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, trans. Geoffrey Wall, New York: Penguin Books, 1992, p.249).

Poor Emma’s journey through life, with its frantic contrasts between joy and despair, echoes the work of another great work of French literature dating from the same period, the poet Charles Baudelaire’s collection entitled Les Fleurs du Mal. Baudelaire, like Flaubert, shows us a world where humans try to find meaning and satisfaction in a harsh universe from which God is absent: drink, drugs, sex, and artistic activity are among the ways that we explore to help us find meaning in life, and in every case the taste of pleasure in such activities turns to ashes as we discover how they fail to provide the permanent joy, the ‘ideal’ for which we strive.

Both Baudelaire’s and Flaubert’s works were condemned by the French government of the time. As recently as 1954 in the USA, Madame Bovary was on the blacklist of the National Organization of Decent Literature. And yet both Madame Bovary and Les Fleurs du Mal can be interpreted as works of spiritual exploration.

But back to Tobias and his sounding bowls! Could they have provided an end to Emma Bovary's angst and helped her find the nirvana for which she so vainly searches? For their maker has made some interesting claims.

The bowl, says Tobias, is an allegory of the soul. "It has an inner space, a facing edge or rim, and a partially seen, partially unseen outer form, including the base that rests on the ground. Correspondingly, the soul has its inner space, a face it projects to society, and a partly seen and known, partly unknown relationship with the natural world by which it is supported. Thus seeking harmony of form is, for me allegorical for seeking inner creative harmony and development."

His sounding bowls have an inner shape based on the Golden Section from the Fibonacci series, the mathematics named after the early medieval Leonardo of Pisa that underlies and gives harmony to all life forms. Going back even further in time, Tobias quotes the figures of Apollo and Hermes from Greek mythology and early theories about the origins of music. "It has always seemed to me that the strings of the Greek Lyre, radiating out, point to the planets as they circle above," he says. "Our modern scales were born in Ancient Greece; the space between notes is related to the distances between the planets as measured from the Earth."

Just as interesting as these theories and their application to the construction of his sounding bowls were the sounds that they made at last night's event. Unlike most musical instruments that I've heard, and clearly reflecting as Tobias showed, the character of the wood from which they'd been crafted.

The idea of putting musical strings across a bowl came to Tobias in October 1986 while as he put it he was "meditating on other things." He believes that they are unique in the history of world instruments partly because their strings run within the resonant space, where previous instruments have them running above it.

For centuries, music therapy has been recognised as a means of improving health, and Tobias's sounding bowls are widely used across the world. "I can't imagine music therapy in palliative care without one," wrote one of the many therapists whom he quotes on his website. These beautiful objects are also used simply for relaxation as well as for treating conditions ranging from autism to depression.

Yes, Emma Bovary does for one split-second toy with the idea of music as a possible answer for her problems. She imagines her light fingers striking the ivory keys of an Erard piano at a concert and the murmurs of an adoring audience. Then depression takes a hold and she dismisses the thought as an impossibility.

But with those sounding bowls.... Who knows?

For more information click on http://www.soundingbowls.com/

There is a link to this post from http://www.devonmuseums.net/Some-fascinating-sounds/Latest-News/Fairlynch-Museum/Museum-News/

Afternoon Cream Tea at Fairlynch Museum, Saturday 24 September 2011

2011-09-26T03:52:00.000-07:00

My blog gets the chop

2011-08-29T03:44:00.000-07:00

Logging rather than blogging: a healthier alternative?

Well, it's been fun finding out about Budleigh Salterton, Brewster and lots of other things but I've decided that I spend too much time on the computer. In these harsh economic times where time is a precious as money it seems that cuts are the way forward.

Two things happened recently to help me decide.

First, logs have taken over from blogs in recent days. With the approach of autumn it's time to sniff the air and guess what kind of winter we're going to have. I did read a year or so ago that early berries on the holly are a sign that Nature is providing extra food for the birds when the temperature will be dropping more than usual. And this autumn, I'm afraid to say, the holly seems to have even more berries than this time last year.

So extra logs are needed. And stacking a load of logs, I found, is a creative task which I realised was appealing to many more of my senses than my computer screen could ever do. The smell of the different woods, the feel of how seasoned a particular log is and which stack it should be added to... I recommend making a logstore as useful physical exercise with all that bending and stretching, and a way of keeping close to Nature.

It seems a shame that it'll end up as ash. But the ash makes good compost.

Meanwhile, back on the computer, FileMaker - which I'd always trusted as one of my best friends - seems to have let me down.

FileMaker, for those who don't know about such things, is a kind of gigantic address book on which my failing brain relies for vital information such as where on my computer I store a particular photo. And lots of other things.

Like a supernatural portent telling me how fragile our technological world really is, a message from cyberspace now tells me every time I try to use FileMaker that "An unsupported operation was attempted."

I have to confess I feel a bit lost without it. And that can't be right.

Some gremlin is at work and no doubt I'll be told that FileMaker - which I'd always trusted as one of my best friends - can be reinstalled and has simply had something like a dose of flu.

But I'm now feeling that I can rely on my logstore in a way that I could never could on computers. So blogging is going to be replaced by logging for the time being.

I'm not giving up on Budleigh Salterton news but my efforts in that area will be restricted to the Fairlynch Museum website at http://www.devonmuseums.net/fairlynch Do check it out from time to time.

Changing Times at Salem Chapel

2011-08-29T03:25:00.000-07:00

As always I'm interested in the variety of events staged at East Budleigh's attractive Salem Chapel.

The Salem Players pictured above are a group of writer performers who have made the Chapel an ideal home for their productions. For the last two years they have met regularly in the Salem Chapel schoolroom and regularly perform their work.

"Our next show, 'Changing Times' is in Salem Chapel on Saturday 24 September, bringing together the Players with the singing group Nota Rioty," says Player Hilary Ackland.

"With humour, drama and rhyme through poetry, song and story we explore changes in our environment, relationships and in our society."

The show is at Salem Chapel, East Budleigh, on Saturday 24 September at 7.00pm. For tickets contact Hilary Ackland 01395 444406 or e-mail hilaryackland@btinternet.com

Heritage Open Days in Budleigh

2011-08-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

Fairlynch Museum is one of two unusual buildings in the Budleigh area which will be opening their doors to visitors in September to coincide with the English Heritage Open Days scheme.

The Museum will be open on Sunday 11 September from 2.00 - 4.30 pm, with free entry to the public.

Heritage Open Days celebrate England’s fantastic architecture and culture by offering free access to properties that are usually closed to the public or normally charge for admission.

Every year on four days in September, buildings of every age, style and function throw open their doors, ranging from castles to factories, town halls to tithe barns, parish churches to Buddhist temples. It is a once-a-year chance to discover hidden architectural treasures and enjoy a wide range of tours, events and activities which bring to life local history and culture.

Also open as part of the English Heritage Open Days scheme will be the Salem Chapel and Schoolroom in East Budleigh, welcoming visitors on Saturday 10 and Sunday 11 September from 1.00 - 4.00 pm.

For more information about English Heritage click on http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/

Open Studios artists make a trio for Colaton Raleigh

2011-08-18T02:57:00.000-07:00

'Towards Colaton Raleigh', by Laura Boyd

Since I mentioned sculptor Christine Lee's participation in the Devon Open Studios September event at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2011/07/sculptor-christine-lees-work-on-view.html it's been pointed out that she's not the only artist in the village just a few miles north-east of Budleigh Salterton whose work will be on show.

Two further Colaton Raleigh artists will be opening their doors to the public this September.

Laura Boyd’s work was chosen for the leading page of the Devon Open Studios guide, as the organisers thought her work most represented the spirit of the organisation and Devon.

Trained at Harrow School of Art Laura became known originally for her etchings which sold all over the world. She specialises in landscapes, mainly local and flower paintings and taught a painting group at Age Concern in Exmouth for three years. Her work be on show at Oakdown, Shepherds Lane, in Colaton Raleigh. Follow the signs. Her studio will be open over the first three weekends in September, also on Thursday 8 and 15 September from 11.00 am to 6.00 pm. Click on http://www.laura-boyd.com/ for more details.

'Sand' by Cynthia Boult

Cynthia Boult specialises in mainly landscapes in different media inspired by our natural surroundings. She is also a teacher. Her studio is at Sunnydale, Exmouth Road in Colaton Raleigh, and will also be open for the first three weekends in September as well as 6-8, and 14-15 September, from 11.00 am to 6.00 pm.

Free copies of the Devon Open Studios guide are available from Tourist Information Offices, libraries, galleries and hotels. For online information about Devon Open Studios click on http://www.devonartistnetwork.co.uk/aboutdos

All change at Broadway. Next stop, Auschwitz

2011-08-12T04:25:00.000-07:00

The main gate at the former Nazi death camp of Birkenau. Note that this is inside the camp looking back from the loading ramp to the 'Gate of Death.' Photo by Angelo Celedon

Versatile, to say the least, is what I felt about those Imperial Productions people when I read of their latest stage plans. They've been coming to Budleigh Salterton for many years to entertain us with their wonderful shows, but of course we're not their only audience.

Only a few days ago at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2011/08/guys-and-dolls-in-budleigh-salterton.html I posted news of 'Guys and Dolls', their 2011 Budleigh summer musical.

The last call is now going out for enthusiastic amateurs to help put together a rather different production. The director is the energetic David Phipps-Davis, responsible for last October's staging of 'Gigi', about which I wrote at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2010/10/stars-to-add-sparkle-to-budleigh.html

I suppose there's a connection between that and Mr Phipps-Davis' latest venture, since it's about another Frenchwoman, but there the comparison ends.

Based upon the true story of Charlotte Delbo, a member of the French resistance who spent nearly three years in concentration camps, the play 'Who Will Carry the Word?' depicts the lives of twenty-three women while they share a barracks in Auschwitz. It is, as the director put it, "their story of hope, friendship and sacrifice to journey back and tell the truth to the world."

I think it's unlikely to come to Budleigh, but you never know.

Meanwhile, if you feel you'd like to see a darker side of Imperial Productions' theatrical ventures and happen to be in the London area in October you might like to make a note in your diary.

The show runs for two weeks from Tuesday 18 - Saturday 29 October 2011 at The Brockley Jack Studio Theatre, 410 Brockley Road, Brockley, SE4 2DH. There are only ten performances, Tuesday – Saturday nightly at 7.45pm. There will also be two preview performances (one in the afternoon and one in the evening – times to be confirmed) on Thursday 13 October 2011 at All Saints Arts Centre, 122 Oakleigh Road North, N20 9EZ.

For more information about Imperial Productions, click on http://www.imperialproductions.org/

Another link across the pond

2011-08-12T02:49:00.000-07:00

A transatlantic partner for Budleigh Salterton's Fairlynch Museum

Most Devon people know about Sir Walter Raleigh as a pioneer of transatlantic links between their county and the US.

Fewer know about the 18th century army officer brought up in Exeter, owning a holiday home in Budleigh Salterton, who spent only a few years of his life in Canada but became one of the country's national heroes. There's even a Canadian town named after him.

A portrait of Simcoe by the French Candian painter George Theodore Berthon

Such is the veneration in which John Graves Simcoe (1752-1806) is held across the Atlantic that Wolford Chapel, his last resting place on the family estate outside Honiton is now officially part of Canadian territory, having been donated to the people of Ontario in 1966.

As Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada for five years from 1791 Simcoe, founded what is now the city of Toronto and was instrumental in ending slavery. He also introduced institutions such as the courts, trial by jury, English common law and freehold land tenure.

The Eva Brook Museum in Simcoe. Photo by Robert Whitside

A recent visit to Budleigh by some Canadian visitors has resulted in the creation of a friendship link between Fairlynch Museum and the Eva Brook Donly Museum in Simcoe.

Simcoe, the principal town of the County of Norfolk in Ontario, with a population of about 15,000 is in the middle of a large agricultural area just a few kilometres from the north shore of Lake Erie and about 120 kilometres west of Niagara Falls.

Ruth and Arthur Loughton who live in Vittoria just outside Simcoe have family connections in Budleigh and know the town well. "We have often visited the Fairlynch Museum and are impressed by its contents and also its volunteers," they explained. "On our recent trips we have delved into the Budleigh connections to the Simcoe name."

The pair felt that the Eva Brook Donly Museum in Simcoe, with its real interest in things associated with the Simcoe family, would be an ideal partner for Fairlynch. The Canadian museum is operated by the Norfolk Historical Society of which Ruth Loughton was President a few years ago.

The historic interest of Simcoe House was recently recognised with this blue plaque erected by the Royal Over-Seas League

Along with Ruth Loughton's sister Joyce and her husband Norman Rhodes the foursome visited Wolford Chapel and during their recent trip in June were fortunate enough to get a special guided tour with Jane Crosse, owner of Simcoe House in Budleigh. The building on the town's Fore Street Hill was the summer residence of the Simcoe family in the early 1800s when the former Lieutenant Governor returned from Canada to take part in the Napoleonic wars.

"It is truly a beautiful house and we are so pleased that Jane and her family appreciate the historical significance of it," said Ruth Loughton. "She was delighted to learn of our connections to Simcoe."

Scott Gillies, curator and manager of the Eva Brook Donly Museum, is looking forward to developing the relationship not just with Fairlynch but with the town of Budleigh Salterton and believes that this new transatlantic link can offer mutual interest to both sides.

"I look forward to discussing how we can work together to the benefit of Budleigh people, our historical society members, and the local residents of Simcoe and surrounding Norfolk County," he said.

Click on http://www.norfolklore.com/ for information about Fairlynch Museum's new partner.

Online news from Budleigh's own cinema

2011-08-11T05:23:00.000-07:00

A still from 'The Ghost', the political thriller directed by Roman Polanski. The film is one of nine films being shown by Budleigh Film Society between this September and April 2012

Budleigh Salterton Film Society tell me that they have a new website. And indeed they have. A smart affair designed by local firm Otter.IT to match the very smart choice of films that they're offering for the 2011-12 season.

Since it started three years ago Budleigh's own home-grown cinema has proved a massive hit, with membership soaring to nearly 400 within 18 months of the venture being discussed by a small group of film enthusiasts.

The Town Council's purchase earlier this year of new more comfortable seats for the Public Hall will have helped to make it a more attractive venue for the Society but it's what the Society screens that is the real draw.

"Choosing our programme is an annual and ongoing challenge," the Society's chairman Stuart Yerrell told me.

"Our guiding principle is that our films must be 'quality world cinema', and not the sort of thing you can see at the local commercial cinemas - the Picturehouse at Exeter being an honourable exception.

Committee members keep a watchful eye on new releases, and we go to regional and national screenings organised by the SW region of the British Federation of Film Societies. And of course there are always the cinema classics, although these have proved less popular than we initially thought."

Click on http://www.budleighfilm.org.uk to see the 2011-12 programme of films and a description of each one, along with details about how to join the Film Society.

Smuggler's Gold at Fairlynch

2011-08-04T02:02:00.000-07:00

Budleigh Salterton's Fairlynch is one of six East Devon Museums taking part in a Treasure Trail linked to 'Smuggler's Gold' a play for people of all ages being performed at the Museum on Saturday 27 August 2011. The performance times are 11.00 am and 2.30 pm on the lawn at Fairlynch; if wet indoors.

Admission is free, and there's the chance of winning an i-Pod for young people who attend the performance.

The show with live music, and performed by the Common Players, is a Jurassic Coast Heritage Touring Project. It's centred around the character of Bill Widger who is refusing to leave his East Devon cliff-top cottage, which is falling into the sea because of erosion.

In a style similar to Dickens’ 'A Christmas Carol', night-time visitors take Bill on a farewell trip through time to explore the ancient Jurassic Coast landscape, stories of historic fishing fleets, and the Great Landslip of 1839.

But, the cliff could collapse at any minute.

Will Bill find the smuggler's gold hidden in his garden before it is too late.......?

Apart from enjoying a show, which promises a lively mixture of music and drama, each member of the audience will be given a Smuggler’s Gold passport! This will contain details of a competition with prizes and will outline a treasure trail to the museums of East Devon where answers to the questions in the passport will be found.

Accompanied children visit the museums free and their adult companions benefit from a special rate of only £1 per adult.

Visit all six museums, complete your passport and receive your free Treasure.

For details of the competition being run by the Common Players see http://www.common-players.org.uk/ipod.html

Turbines back on track in Brewster

2011-08-04T00:06:00.001-07:00

With more and more homeowners in supposedly rather conservative Budleigh Salterton taking advantage of green energy by installing solar panels and the like it's no surprise to see that wind turbines like these are back on the agenda in Brewster.

My last post on this issue at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2011/04/not-just-storms-in-tea-cups.html drew attention to the storm of protest that erupted in our Cape Cod sister-town when some Brewster residents decided that wind power was not for them. The initial planning board decision seemed to go in their favour.

But many of Brewster's selectmen - the equivalent of our town councillors but with somewhat more power - have no intention of giving up on the issue.

A deal has been worked out with the Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative and according to a local press report at http://www.wickedlocal.com/capecod/features/x2014919790/Brewsters-wind-deal-in-a-nutshell#axzz1U2S6dp3y the town could have its two 410 ft turbines in operation by September 2012.

Guys and Dolls in Budleigh Salterton

2011-08-02T04:09:00.000-07:00

The nice young people from London's Imperial College Operatic Society are back in town to entertain us with another sparkling production. They actually call themselves Musical Theatre Tour and have an excellent new website at http://mtsoc.co.uk/tour/ They've been faithful to Budleigh for over 40 years.

This time, as they say, "Gangsters, gambling and glamour are coming to Budleigh Salterton with their production of 'Guys and Dolls'."

This celebrated Broadway musical set in the prohibition era is based on a story and characters of Damon Runyon, and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrowes, and has music and lyrics by Frank Loesser.

Here's director Seb Junemann's helpful synopsis:

"Nathan Detroit is running out of places to run his secret, underground, floating craps game. Only a crazy bet with a high roller like Sky Masterson will earn him the cash he needs in time to set up the game. But when Nathan bets Sky that he can't woo the pure-hearted, local mission worker Sarah Brown, he finds that he may have underestimated Sky; and Sky may have underestimated love's ability to sneak up on you when you least expect it.

Colourful characters, a fast paced plot, dialogue dripping with wit and show-stopping musical numbers such as 'Luck be a Lady Tonight' and 'Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat' make Guys and Dolls as popular today as it was when it was released over 60 years ago.

Guys and Dolls at work in the Public Hall getting ready for the show. It looked like chaos when I took the photo a few days ago but they told me it was highly organised

Performances in the Public Hall are from 4–6, and 9–13 August, at 7.30pm.
There are no performances on 7 or 8 August and a Matinée on 11 August.
Tickets: £10 (matinée £7.50), available from Budleigh Tourist Information (01395 445275).

Sculptor Christine Lee's work on view

2011-07-31T23:51:00.000-07:00

Just a few miles north from Budleigh Salterton, upstream along the River Otter, is the beautiful and ancient village of Otterton and I've just been sent this news about one of its creative residents by Devon Open Studios.

Otterton sculptor and painter Christine Lee is participating for the first time in the popular county arts event Devon Open Studios.

Christine, an established artist with an international reputation, will be inviting guests to her Barn Studio in Copplestone Lane, Colaton Raleigh, to see her latest work, on selected days between 3 and 18 September, 2011.

Christine is regarded as a leading figurative sculptor. She has been painting and making sculpture most of her life. She did a fine arts degree at St Martins School of Art in London, and then studied painting and drawing with the painter and mystic Cecil Collins.

One of her best loved creations is the fountain in front of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, which was inaugurated by HM The Queen in 1996.

Christine has lived in the county all her life, apart from the years she spent in London during her training. She likes working in sundry materials, especially in stainless steel and copper, and her works are the result of her perceptive imagination. Visiting her studio will be very interesting as people will be able to see how she works and talk to her directly.

Devon Open Studios have produced a guide to help visitors. Free copies are available from Tourist Information Offices, Libraries, Galleries and Hotels, and in Christine’s case, at Otterton Mill in the village where she lives, where some of her sculptures can be seen in her front garden in Fore Street.

September Studio Opening from 10.00 am-5.00 pm: Sat 3, Sun 4, Wed 7, Thurs 8, Sun 11, Wed 14, Thurs 15, Sun 18.

Photo of Christine Lee from her website. Click on http://www.christinelee-sculptor.co.uk/ to visit.

For information about Devon Open Studios see http://www.devonartistnetwork.co.uk/

Two very different ball games

2011-07-28T03:15:00.000-07:00

Budleigh Salterton Cricket Club, scene of a recent heart-stopping drama

I'm sometimes asked why my blog doesn't cover sports news.

I decided fairly early on that I couldn't cover everything, and in any case the local press does a good job in that respect.

But probably the main reason for my omission is simply that I don't get fired up about sports results, and that's probably something to do with my poor head for figures and maybe a lack of spatial awareness. I find it impossible to enthuse about a favourite football team's league position. Off-side rules just leave me confused. As for tennis scoring... well, I do try, every Wimbledon, to work out who's winning, but end up feeling my wife's pitying looks.

Of course interesting sports events do occur here. Just the other day we were all enthralled by the headline-grabbing story of how a cricket player's life was saved on Budleigh Salterton cricket ground by the swift use of a defibrillator. Luckily the player, who had suffered a heart attack, was part of a team of cricket-loving doctors and one of them happened to have one of those useful gadgets in his car.

The doctor's prompt action has made him "a bit of a hero" as the cricket club secretary put it. Maybe the skill and coolness he showed, rather than the number of wickets he'll take or the runs he'll score, will be what's recorded in the club annals as a truly notable event.

I have to admit a personal interest here, having learnt that the hero was my own GP.

The story may not have been read by my friends in our American sister-town of Brewster, even though it hit the world news stage - I read about it again on an Indian news site.

They don't generally play cricket in the US of course, whereas I imagine that any cricketing story is hot news in the sub-continent.

Budleigh Salterton's East Devon Golf Club. I moved to this part of Devon partly because of those rhododendrons

What they do play in America of course, apart from baseball and their own brand of football, is golf. Here again I have to admit to having absolutely no understanding of tees, birdies and handicaps in spite of living only a few minutes' walk from the splendid East Devon Golf Club. But my eye was drawn to a lyrical piece on the web by American sports journalist Scott Coen in praise of the Captains Golf Club in Brewster.

It's all golfish to me of course, but I thought that my Budleigh readers familiar with fairways, greens and the quality of sand traps might appreciate the piece.

They might even be tempted to cross the Atlantic in search of what is clearly another little golfers' heaven. I hope that they'd be given a warm welcome at the Captains.

Click on http://www.masslive.com/mywideworld/index.ssf/2011/07/the_captains_golf_course_setting_the_tone_for_great_golf_on_cape_cod.html to read Mr Coen's article.

Websites for the Captains Golf Club in Brewster and East Devon Golf Club in Budleigh Salterton are at http://www.captainsgolfcourse.com/ and http://www.edgc.co.uk/

Museum's ex-Chairman complimented on polar heroes' show

2011-07-27T06:23:00.001-07:00

Roger Kingwill at work on research into the Scott 1910-13 Antarctic expedition

Experts on Antarctica visiting Fairlynch's 'Survival!' exhibition have rated it first-class and complimented the organisers on a job well done.

Rachel Morgan, Director of the United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust, who called in at Budleigh Salterton while participating in the Scott100 conference in Plymouth, was impressed by the hard work put in by Fairlynch volunteers involved in the project.

Special mention was made by Mrs Morgan of former Fairlynch Museum Chairman Roger Kingwill. As conceiver of the exhibition he created what she has described as a "fantastic" scale model of the snow cave in which Antarctic explorer and former Budleigh resident Murray Levick spent seven uncomfortable months during the winter of 1912.

Inside the ice cave. Local modelmaker Neil Rogers contributed the figure crouched over a model of the stove which was the explorers' vital source of heat

The Trust's website at http://www.ukaht.org/ now features a picture of the model snow cave on display in the Fairlynch exhibition.

The United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust was set up in 1993, inspired by the need to recognise and conserve Britain’s long and distinguished history of exploration and scientific research in Antarctica.

A grant from the Trust has helped to publicise the 'Survival!' exhibition.

This year's Fairlynch project has also been praised by a former member of the British Antarctic Survey. "A first-class exhibition full of interest," is how John Killingbeck described it following his visit to the museum. "It's so good that the life of Murray Levick has been recorded in this way. A remarkable man and part of a remarkable survival party - definitely one of the greatest stories of survival in the Antarctic."

Mr Killingbeck has the distinction of being the last person to drive a team of huskies in Antarctica. He worked for two and a half years as Base Leader in the South Shetlands and was invited by the British Antarctic Survey to undertake a last sledge journey on the continent as the representative of hundreds of past drivers.

Sales of a Fairlynch publication Surviving the Antarctic Winter in a Snow Cave have proved so popular with visitors that a reprint has been ordered. The 22-page booklet is based on Levick's account of his experience and includes illustrations and a biographical sketch.

Fairlynch Museum and the 'Survival!' exhibition will remain open daily from 2.00-4.30 pm except Saturdays until 30 September 2011. For more information about the Museum click on http://devonmuseums.net/fairlynch

Raleigh era comes to life at Fairlynch Museum

2011-07-23T02:21:00.001-07:00

Millais' painting 'The Boyhood of Raleigh': an inspiration for professional storyteller Steve Manning

Lots of stories could be told about Budleigh characters but the best ones are surely about one of Devon's most celebrated heroes, Sir Walter Raleigh.

Laying his cloak over a puddle to keep the royal feet dry. Getting soaked because a servant thought that Sir Walter quietly smoking his pipe was on fire. The colourful myths and legends about Queen Elizabeth I's favourite courtier have lasted through the centuries.

Now a Devon character from Tudor times will come to life on Monday 8 August at Budleigh Salterton's Fairlynch Museum when professional storyteller Steve Manning, pictured here, will take on the role of Matthew Starke, a sailor who might have accompanied the likes of East-Budleigh born Sir Walter and Sir Francis Drake on their amazing journeys.

He will spin yarns of adventures on the high seas in search of new lands to colonise, Spanish gold to plunder and riches to be given to Good Queen Bess!

"Imagine the sessions as an evocation of 'The Boyhood of Raleigh' painting - eager listeners entranced by the tales of an old sea dog," explains Steve.

"I'm looking forward to being at Fairlynch because it will be a great place to fire the imagination with tales of men like Raleigh who once sailed from Devon into the great unknown in search of adventure."

There will be two story-telling sessions, at 11.00 am and 2.00 pm. Admission is free.

Steve Manning is a professional storyteller and live interpreter with over twenty years' experience of telling tales and performing costumed characters in schools and heritage sites. See http://www.stevemanningstorytelling.co.uk/ for more information.

Celebrating our heathland

2011-07-22T02:32:00.001-07:00

A heathland scene near Budleigh Salterton: Squabmoor Reservoir surrounded by slopes of gorse and heather

East Devon Heath Week starts this Sunday 24 July 2011 from 11.00 am with a Family Festival Day at Woodbury Castle, the Iron Age hill fort mid-way between Budleigh Salterton and the village of Woodbury.

A Dartford Warbler. This rare bird is one of the special sights of East Devon's heathland.

Photo credit: Peter Beesley

The Heath Week is an annual series of events that aim to celebrate the fantastic landscape of the region. Each year it takes place at the end of July, a good time to see heathland and its wildlife at its best.

This legless lizard known as a slow worm is a protected species found on the commons near Budleigh. They are described as elusive, but I generally find them hiding in my compost heap.

Photo credit: Devon Clinton Estates

There are specific events which will concentrate on different species that make lowland heath their home. Particular favourites are bat walks, pond dipping days and reptile hunts.

Internationally renowned Bronze Age expert Professor Chris Tilley will also be explaining the meaning of the tumuli and the recently excavated pebble pavements that make this area of East Devon archaeologically significant.

In addition to Woodbury Castle, locations close to Budleigh where events are taking place include Bystock Pools, Wheathill Plantation, Colaton Raleigh, Blackhill Quarry and Otterton Mill.

For more information click on http://pebblebedheaths.org.uk/content/news-events/heath-week-festival-2011.ashx to download a leaflet.

A third edition of 'Words by the Sea'

2011-07-21T11:33:00.001-07:00

It's festival time in East Devon. On the approach road to Budleigh Salterton, signs advertising Sidmouth Folk Week are jostling for attention with Budleigh's Music Festival.

And now the organisers of the third Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival have announced that tickets are on sale and that it's going to be the best festival yet.

There are so many 'highlights' in this year's event that it's difficult to know which one to pick out. But having just welcomed Australian author Meredith Hooper to Fairlynch Museum my eye was drawn to the item entitled 'The King's Speech: How One Man Saved The British Monarchy' scheduled for Saturday 17 September.

It was Mrs Hooper's son Tom who directed the academy award-winning film which along with the Royal Wedding earlier this year has focused attention on the House of Windsor. And with Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee being celebrated in 2012 there will no doubt be much interest in anything with royal connections.

So the making of the book The King's Speech and a presentation by its authors is certain to be popular. Mark Logue, who co-wrote the book with journalist Peter Conradi, is the grandson of the Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue who succeeded in coaching the future King George VI in public speaking at a time when it was vital for an English leader to match the powers of oratory being shown by Adolf Hitler in 1930s Germany.

There are truly masses of distinguished and interesting writers who will be talking about their craft at the weekend event from 16-18 September. Click on http://www.budlitfest.org.uk/ to find out more and how to book tickets.

News from Budleigh Music Festival 2011

2011-07-13T07:31:00.000-07:00

Spanish mezzo-soprano Carla Mouriz performs at the Temple Church on 22 July

Budleigh Salterton music lovers are about to enjoy the town's biggest Festival and here's the latest news:

"Tickets are selling well though some seats are still available for most performances," say the organisers.

"On 16 July at St. Peter's two choirs entertain with an evening of old favourites including barbershop numbers and songs from the shows from Budleigh's Male Voice Choir and the ladies of 'Renaissance.' Seats are available for this show.

The Dufay Collective is a group devoted to medieval pop music played on period instruments. They perform regularly on radio and this year they are on their way to Dartington to teach and perform at the Summer School. We are indeed fortunate to welcome them to Budleigh on 21 July at the Temple Methodist Church for what promises to be a fascinating glimpse into the music heard in the taverns and even at the Court of King Henry VIII! A few seats are still available.

Hugely successful Carla Mouriz, mezzo soprano, is accompanied by Joseph Middleton, piano, in a lovely programme of Spanish and South American songs. They play at the Temple on Friday 22 July. Seats available for this performance.

As we expected, there are only limited unreserved seats and maybe returns for the Rachmaninov Vespers on Saturday 23 July. Please act quickly to secure one of these.

Just a few seats are on offer for the Honeymead concert on 25 July also at the Temple Church. The ensemble is led by the celebrated violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen, pictured above.

At St. Peter's on Tuesday 26 July the orchestral concert has a strong Tchaikovsky content and also includes a new work by famous pianist Stephen Hough and two new arrangements by Nicholas Marshall and Peter Hope. The soloist is John Turner, the recently appointed President of the Festival Trust. Reserved seats are bookable for this concert.

Die Fledermaus and Carmen (28 July and 30 July) have been justly popular though if you act quickly you may secure one or two of the last remaining tickets though there may also be a few returns. Worth enquiry to the TIC box office 01395 442360.

Finally, two concerts at the Temple deserve special attention. Hugo Ticciati, seen above, is a violinist who with pianist Henrik Måwe plays a wide-ranging programme on Thursday 28 July. Gottlieb Wallisch, piano, with the Piatti Quartet performs on Friday 29 July. Tickets are limited though still available for both evenings.

Click on http://www.budleigh-festival.org.uk/ for more information.

Praise for 'Survival!' exhibition at Fairlynch

2011-07-13T04:10:00.001-07:00

Budleigh Salterton's Fairlynch Museum, supporting Help for Heroes

Half-way through Fairlynch Museum's summer season the special exhibition about former Budleigh resident Murray Levick has won nothing but praise from experts and the public alike.

A survivor of Captain Scott's ill-fated second Antarctic expedition, the naval doctor and founder of the British Schools Exploring Society has impressed visitors to the museum with the number of his achievements in an incident-packed life.

"Each episode in Levick's life - polar exploration, medicine, commando training - is quite remarkable in its own right," commented one in the visitors' book. "To have achieved all these things in a single lifetime is simply incredible. A leader and hero that deserves to be remembered as an equal to Scott and Shackleton. A remarkable man," wrote Major Nicholas Jeffery, who described himself as "doctor, commando and Arctic-trained, but humbled by this man!"

The Museum's 2011 exhibition 'Survival!' illustrating the life of former Budleigh resident Surgeon Commander Murray Levick has been praised by enthusiastic visitors and benefited from coverage in national media

Fairlynch Museum's support for the Armed Forces charity Help for Heroes has also been seen as particularly fitting for this exhibition about a naval officer who did much to help rehabilitate injured ex-servicemen in the aftermath of the Great War.

Colonel Bill McDermott OBE, a former Royal Marine now retired in Budleigh Salterton, believes that any efforts to raise money for a worthy charity, which supports the best interests of our service personnel and capital programmes that improve their quality of life following the demands of operational experience, is to be applauded.

"H4H is a fantastic charity that underwrites some big scale charitable programmes that could not normally be afforded in these austere times," he said. "It is commendable that the Fairlynch Museum has taken this opportunity to be involved in a cause that Murray Levick would have been proud to align himself with."

For information about the work of Help for Heroes click on http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/

Budleigh's Venture Artists in Sidmouth

2011-07-05T05:05:00.000-07:00

I spent an enjoyable afternoon in Sidmouth last Saturday admiring work by the newly formed Venture Artists from Budleigh Salterton.

The group are holding their first summer exhibition at the East Devon Art Academy in Old Fore Street, Sidmouth from 2-8 July.

Exhibition organiser Teresa Creton explained that they were mostly members of Budleigh Salterton Art Club who had come together with the aim of developing their technique through painting sessions.

There are works in oils, acrylics, pastels and watercolour, all for sale at affordable prices.

Artists exhibiting include Iris Ansell, Julie Bingham, Sue Chapman, Steve Hagger, Pam Harber, Wendy Markham, Nick Speare, Chris Stacey, Sheila Stacey and Jenny Young.

For more information about the exhibition, contact Teresa at teresa.creton@tesco.net

Happy Independence Day 2011!

2011-07-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

Sir Walter Raleigh wishes all our US readers

a Happy Independence Day

from his birthplace in East Budleigh, Devon.

It's not the first time I've posted this photo of the statue of Sir Walter Raleigh, which looks down the main street of the village where he was born.

This year is a bit special as it's the tenth anniversary of the curious relationship between Budleigh Salterton and the American town of Brewster, Massachusetts.

When I have a spare moment I will gather some photos and other archive material showing how it all started.

A Black and White Memories Show

2011-07-03T02:36:00.000-07:00

Screening cranberries at Isaac Cahoon’s bog in Brewster, Cape Cod, in 1892.
Photographer Cornelius Chenery

I've been meaning for some time to mention in these pages an inspiring project launched back in April by our friends in Brewster, MA.

'Brewster in Black and White' is an online digital archive of 45 remarkable photos which give an insight into life in our sister-town at the turn of the 20th century. I am grateful to the Brewster Historical Society for permission to reproduce these three images.

This photo, taken around 1900, shows how works for extracting salt from seawater lined Brewster’s shore in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Here in East Devon also, our town's original name of Salterne testified to the importance of the local salt industry. Salt was once manufactured in large salt pans at the mouth of the River Otter. The salt works were owned in medieval times by the monks of the priory at the nearby village of Otterton, the salt was transported by packhorses to the towns and villages situated along the river.

Another aspect of the Brewster coastline, seen c. 1900. The photographer is unknown. Traditionally, sea bathers arrived at the beach fully clothed and changed into swimwear in bathhouses like these. For me it's another reminder of the similarity of our two coastal towns, with Budleigh's beach huts now seen as an attractive feature of the town.

The archive forms part of a much bigger collection of over 400 photographic glass plate negatives bequeathed to The Brewster Historical Society in 1970. Only now with modern technology has it been possible to make digital images and these are now viewable via the Society's website at http://www.brewsterhistoricalsociety.org/

There is an excellent introduction on the site giving more details about the collection.

Here in Budleigh Salterton we have Otter Valley Association's excellent Ovapedia at http://www.ovapedia.org.uk/index.php?page=Lpocal-history which is all text. Then there is Fairlynch Museum's collection of images, currently being digitised, about which I hope to write one day.

Wouldn't it make sense to combine such projects?

For the time being you'll have to make do with my blog.

I'm feeling well and truly netted

2011-06-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

The old Fairlynch site hosted by Devon Museums has vanished, just as I was getting the hang of it

I last mentioned my involvement with Budleigh Salterton's Fairlynch Museum at
http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2011/06/another-brochure-for-budleigh-salterton.html referring to the work I'd done on the website at http://www.devonmuseums.net/fairlynch

Well, the website is back online after what was for me a mysterious blip. But it took me some time to recognise it.

The helpful explanation from Devon Museums, which runs the site, was that the changes had proved necessary because there were a number of problems with the old site that they just could not rectify in the Joomla system that underpinned it.

"In addition," I was told, "we now have no funding for Devon Museums Group or for the website, hosting or technical support, so we needed to make it more sustainable and also generate income if possible."

It seemed to me initially that much of my work to add extra images and text for the various collections at Fairlynch Museum had simply disappeared into cyberspace, including a page of links to other museums, sponsors and similar institutions.

But I may be wrong. There's a training session next month and I've clearly got a lot to learn about the website's sustainability and income generation facilities, and maybe even something about Joomla.

"All this has been built into the new site, and so much more - with an iPhone app to follow," I've been promised.

An exciting new era? Or a rather confusing development which is proving just too much for a simple blogger like me.

Two major collections at The Brook

2011-06-24T09:39:00.000-07:00

Chris Orr RA, 'Black Dog looking West'

Budleigh Salterton's Brook Gallery is delighted to announce its new summer launches - The Permanent Collection and The Contemporary Collection, from 19 June to 2 September 2011.

"These collections promise to fill the Gallery with colour, interest, history and delight in every sense over the summer months, and will celebrate the enduring relationships that it enjoys with its artists," says The Brook's owner Angela Yarwood.

"A ‘cause célèbre’ of influential artists and print makers, the extraordinary Summer show combines the Permanent and the Contemporary Collections with a list of artists that runs like a roll call of the nation’s most acclaimed. The Permanent Collection includes artists such as those from the RA stable: Chris Orr, Eileen Cooper, Tom Phillips, Norman Ackroyd, and Bill Jacklin, and Brad Faine whose work was amongst those that lifted the lid on a new school of vibrant art in the 1960s and 1970s. The Contemporary Collection compounds the ethos behind the innovative work of these highly acclaimed artists and print makers, the glorious ‘observers of life and form’ including Trevor Price, Mychael Barratt, Martin Langford, Kathleen Caddick, Sonia Rollo and Susie Perring to name but a few. These are the creators who combine their superb compositions with the complexities of original print making techniques.

Tom Phillips RA 'Paper Moon' from 'We are the People'

The summer months show a celebration of what The Brook strives to achieve; a heady mix of good art by acclaimed artists – a consistent theme that makes the Brook one of the UK’s most enlightened regional galleries."

Angela adds: "The Summer 2011 launch of our Collections provides an opportunity for The Brook to showcase all that makes us what we are today. We’re proud to provide a unique service; we work with the best, who produce the best and we take great pleasure bringing these ground breaking names and impressive works to our gallery here in Budleigh and our nationwide customer base."

The Brook Gallery, Fore Street, Budleigh Salterton, Devon, EX9 6NE

Tel: 01395 443 003

Email: info@brookgallery.co.uk www.brookgallery.co.uk

Open 10.30 am to 5.00 pm, closed Sunday mornings and Mondays

A secret Budstock

2011-06-24T05:10:00.000-07:00

The spirit of Budstock is alive and well

Someone emailed me the other day to ask "How come you didn't know about Budfest last Saturday??"

Well, I can't be expected to cover all the Budleigh news. The local press do a great job anyway, and my efforts are getting more and more spasmodic, especially during the summer months.

I think what my friend was enquiring about was a one-off event on 19 June which I'll mention now just because it's one of those quirky Budleigh things that deserves a place in the cyberarchives.

This was the event's intriguing description according to organiser Joe Holroyd: "A rainbow, a kingfisher, three great bands, 120 people, and a good deal of cider and ale convene to celebrate a secret outlaw Budstock on the 40th birthday of its founder Toby Holroyd."

I won't say any more than that, except to refer people who don't know anything about Budstock to my post at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2009/08/afternoon-at-budstock-saturday-1-august.html

It's just good to know that events like this can be organised successfully in Budleigh Salterton with no fuss, lots of goodwill and a refreshing absence of red tape.

Budleigh Gala Week 2011: a few photos

2011-06-23T03:00:00.001-07:00

I mentioned at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2011/05/budleighs-2011-gala-week-28-may-5-june.html that I'd be posting photos of Budleigh Salterton's Gala Week 2011 and here they are. Well, some from the opening day's celebrations anyway. Here's the coach taking the Gala royal family to The Green.

Local journalist Becca Gliddon presents a floral tribute to the Gala Queen .

Becca Gliddon's speech praised Budleigh Salterton Lions for their role in organising this big community event.

As usual the twirlers and cheerleaders put on a polished performance.

Budleigh Salterton charity Inaheartbeat were raising money for their Goody Boxes.

The local Inner Wheel team ran a popular plant stall.

Budleigh Salterton Lions run the Gala Week. The event raised £15,000 for charity.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) has a Gala Week Stall, as you'd expect in a coastal town like Budleigh Salterton.

St Peter's C of E primary school fund-raising team of parents were there.

Fairlynch volunteer helpers Margaret Williams, left, and Ann Hack were raising funds for the town's museum.

Three-year-old Alex Mitchell went fishing at the Messy Church fete stall. I've been a bit slow in getting round to posting these photos, but maybe that's just me settling into the rhythm of West Country life. Also the weeds have been more active than usual now that our English summer has re-established itself after that Mediterranean hot spell.

Another brochure for Budleigh Salterton

2011-06-12T07:44:00.001-07:00

I'm pleased with this photo of Fairlynch Museum, if only because that Mediterranean-blue sky offers a more cheerful alternative to the rained-soaked view that I currently have from my window. Well, it was a publicity shot after all. It now appears on the latest material that I found myself producing in my role as publicity officer for the Museum.

This is a smart little folded leaflet which will do a good job of promoting our current exhibition based on the life and achievements of former Budleigh resident George Murray Levick, one of the group of six survivors of the Northern Party which made up Scott of the Antarctic's ill-fated polar expedition of 1910-13.

It will shortly be finding its way to hundreds of outlets in Devon and beyond.

Many thanks to the United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust http://www.ukaht.org/ for their sponsorship of the leaflet.

And thanks to Dave at Copyrite in Exmouth for his efficiency and helpfulness in tying up a few loose ends on the technical side. Do click on http://www.copyrite-print.co.uk/ to see how he could help you with your own projects.

All this is a kind of explanation and excuse for the recent lack of blogging. Being retired doesn't seem to mean being less busy.

I was going to boast about my work on the vastly expanded Fairlynch Museum website at http://www.devonmuseums.net/fairlynch as a further excuse. But it seems to be out of action at this moment for some reason. A mystery until I discovered that other museum websites on the same service seem to be dead as well, so hopefully it's only a temporary blip.

A muse about music at the museum

2011-06-12T05:52:00.001-07:00

I was gently chided recently by Budleigh Festival supremo Roger Bowen for failing to mention on my blog the Reception for Friends of the Festival which took place in the town's Public Hall on 28 April.

So to make amends here's a photo of the Tourist Information Centre banner showing the splendid line-up of performers for the 2011 Festival. And here's the Festival website link at http://www.budleigh-festival.org.uk/

One of the beauties of blogging is that it can be a spasmodic business, ideal for amateurs and eccentrics, with no obligation to meet the deadlines that rule the world of the professional media.

I do try to keep this little Budleigh archive in cyberspace up to date, and I'm usually keen to promote music events in the area and I see that I totally failed to mention last Wednesday's Emma Johnson concert, part of the St Peter's Music concert series.

Talking of archives, I've been very busy with work for Fairlynch Museum - more about that in my next post. That's my excuse for my failure anyway.

Emma Johnson is a world-class clarinettist who was one of the stars of the 2008 Budleigh Festival so I'm sure that the St Peter's event would have been well attended.

But thinking about music and museums, while researching the history of Fairlynch I was intrigued to learn that the Ukrainian-born pianist, Benno Moseiwitsch, pictured here, had performed in Budleigh Salterton.

It seems that before it became a museum, the house was owned by a Mr Bull, a keen musician. Benno Moseiwitsch was one of the promising young musicians whom he used to invite to stay and to play at Fairlynch. Budleigh residents would apparently gather in the street outside to hear him perform.

One of them, Joyce Evans, otherwise known as the artist and author Joyce Dennys, remembers him as he sat on the beach throwing pebbles but being afraid that one of them might ricochet and hurt his hands.

Could Fairlynch one day become a concert venue as it used to be? The Museum staged a 2007 exhibition showing ladies in 19th century costume listening to what was described in Fairlynch publicity as "their new (and very fashionable) Broadwood square piano."

A nice idea, but I'm told that the piano, made by what's claimed to be one of the oldest and most prestigious companies in the world, is in need of some attention.

Scarecrows and much more at East Budleigh

2011-06-12T03:57:00.000-07:00

Potato head: one of last year's scarecrows greeting visitors to the village of East Budleigh

I see that one of Devon's best known historians is giving a talk next week at East Budleigh's All Saints Church.

Dr Todd Gray's subject will be the county's old customs and traditions.

I always feel that his researches into Devon history might be of interest to my American readers because he was brought up in Massachusetts, as I've mentioned at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-englanders-view-of-old-england.html

It's so appropriate that his talk should be in the church where the young Walter Raleigh worshipped with his family almost 500 years ago.

This is the opening event in East Budleigh's Scarecrow Festival next weekend and I wonder whether Dr Gray will be telling us about the age-old origins of scarecrows, a countryside tradition which of course goes back way beyond Raleigh's time.

Lots more activities will be taking place over the weekend including duck races on the brook, Devon cream teas, and tours of All Saints Church. All monies raised will go towards the upkeep of the Church and the surrounding Churchyard.

The full programme is below:

East Budleigh Scarecrow Festival Friday 17- Sunday 19 June 2011

Programme of Events:

Friday 17 June:- A Talk by Dr Todd Gray (Exeter University) on ‘The Calendar Year in Devon: Customs and Traditions over the Past 500 Years’ in All Saints Church commencing at 7.30 pm. Tickets £5.00 from East Budleigh Garage, the East Budleigh Shop or at the door.

Saturday 18 June:- 12.00 Midday at the Village Hall... Opening of the Scarecrow Festival by Revd. Anne Charlton.

Saturday 18 June and Sunday 19 June:-
Village Hall: 12.00 midday – 4.30 pm on both days
Cake Stall, Book Stall, Plant Stall, Sale of Memorabilia including mini-scarecrows
The famous East Budleigh Cream Teas will be available as well as a Bar for the sale of Pimm’s
Duck Race in the brook by the Village Hall (start-time 3.00 pm on both days)

All Saints Church:
Exhibition of Colourful Knitting Produced in the Village for the Children of Moldova as well as some interesting and rare Books: 12.00 midday - 4.30 pm on both days
Tours of the 12th Century Church: starting at 2.15 pm from the Church Porch on both days
Tours to the top of the Church Bell Tower: 1.30 - 6.00 pm on Saturday and 2.00 - 4.00 pm on Sunday

Drake's School
School Open Day on the Saturday [10.00 am to 3.00 pm] including tours of pupils’ work and an exhibition of old photographs entitled ‘Dipping into the Past’
Children’s Treasure Hunt through the Village

Other Activities in East Budleigh Village:
Plenty of Scarecrows to see! Vote for your favourite scarecrow.
Information Panels on history of scarecrows etc.
Re-instatement of the Toll Bridge: 12.00 midday to 4.30 pm on both days.
Tours of the Village: starting at 2.00 pm from outside the Village Hall on both days.

Sunday 19 June:- Songs of Praise in All Saints Church commencing at 6.30 pm.

New York artist Bill Jacklin at Budleigh's Brook Gallery

2011-05-28T00:21:00.000-07:00

Bill Jacklin's Man with dog, NYC

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the strange link between Budleigh Salterton and the American town of Brewster, Massachusetts. So it somehow seems appropriate that the Brook Gallery should be featuring the work of an artist who's at home on both sides of the Atlantic.

This is what the Brook Gallery tells us about their latest exhibition:

Bill Jacklin RA, distinguished British artist and New York resident, will be showcasing his work at The Brook Gallery in Budleigh Salterton, from 22 May to 14 June 2011, in an evocative and moving exhibition, entitled ‘The Lightness of Being’.

Aptly named, the exhibition showcases Bill Jacklin’s etchings and monotypes redolent of urban life, coupled with a magical quality, both in form and production. His work appears to provide a history behind the images, which fuel the imagination and cleverly allow you to develop a story that appeals -a snapshot on urban life and an insight into another’s life. Bill Jacklin’s work appears preoccupied with the effects of light and movement and this dream-like quality has led to the worldwide celebration of his work.

Initially concerned with abstraction, his work evolved to figuration in the mid 1970s when he became absorbed with light on surfaces, moving and still. Since moving to New York in 1985, Bill Jacklin has concentrated on painting 'Urban Portraits' of 'the city' in all its guises, a city that could be in any country, at any time, but the quality of his pieces and the skill used to perfect his art is undeniable. The Brook is delighted to be hosting such an exciting exhibition and to welcome him back from such a city to the epitome of the English seaside.

The Brook continues to impress with a schedule to include a major restrospective celebrating the Brook’s permanent exhibition of Royal Academician’s work including Chris Orr, Eileen Cooper, Norman Ackroyd with the new Contemporary Collection showing works by Trevor Price, Mychael Barrett, Martin Langford, Kathleen Caddick, Sonja Rollo and Susie Perring.

Bill Jacklin RA joined the team at the Brook Gallery for the preview of his show on Saturday 21 May, which features new monotypes being exclusively shown at the Brook and at the RA Summer Exhibition 2011.

The Brook Gallery is at Fore Street, Budleigh Salterton, Devon, EX9 6NE
Tel: 01395 443 003 Email: info@brookgallery.co.uk www.brookgallery.co.uk

Open 10.30am to 5pm, closed Sunday mornings and Mondays

Budleigh's 2011 Gala Week: 28 May - 5 June

2011-05-27T23:20:00.000-07:00

Today it's the start of Gala Week in Budleigh Salterton. I have to admit that my mind has been on other things - not just gardening - so I'd almost forgotten it. Then yesterday I get a call from East Budleigh's Kathy Moyle, always keen to promote events at the Salem Chapel, just a few miles north of Budleigh Salterton.

Pictured left, the coronation ceremony of Budleigh's 2010 Gala Week, organised by the town's Lions Club

Of course the whole range of Gala Week events is described at http://www.budleighlions.org/Gala%20week%201.html as well as in our local paper the Budleigh Journal at http://www.exmouthjournal.co.uk/news/budleigh_gears_up_for_gala_week_1_884013 so I don't need to say much about them except that a lot of hard work has gone into providing a week of entertaining activities where everyone should find at least one event to interest them. I hope to be there with my camera tempting Budleigh people to find world wide fame by appearing on these blog pages.

The Salem Chapel's contribution to Gala Week is an exhibition on Sir Walter Raleigh, the village of old East Budleigh and smuggling. Kathy tells me that admission is free but they ask for donations on entry please. Refreshments including tea and coffee are available and the exhibition is open from 2.00-5.00 pm every day during the Week, from today until Sunday 5 June.

Looking ahead to more events at the Salem Chapel there's a table sale on Saturday 11 June from 10 am - 4.00 pm and then the next day they have their annual pet service in the Chapel at 4.00 pm.

There's plenty of information about the Salem Chapel at http://www.hct.org.uk/chapels/south-west/salem-chapel/18 It's well worth a visit as one of the village of East Budleigh's ancient heritage sites, which of course include the beautiful farmhouse of Hayes Barton. The house isn't open to the public, but I see that there's now a helpful sign telling you that one of Devon's great heroes was born here.

A* for Museum's adventure day

2011-05-15T03:15:00.000-07:00

Inspired as I am by tales of such East Devon-born adventurers as Sir Walter Raleigh I went along to the Budleigh Budding Explorers Day at Fairlynch Museum that I've already mentioned at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2011/05/family-fun-day-for-young-explorers.html

Entry to the Museum was free, which might have had something to do with the crowds of families who'd turned up on Saturday 7 May. But the Bicton College students had put a lot of effort into some innovative thinking to make the event attractive and interesting, from the bunting decoration to the various activities on offer.

I spoke to Jo Woods, pictured above, a mature student from West Hatch, near Taunton, who was in charge of the potato printing stall. I'd wondered a bit about the relevance of this activity to explorers, but Jo explained the link with Sir Walter Raleigh and the potatoes he's supposed to have brought back from America.

It's a small step from potato-printing to vegetable planting and Jo was also promoting 'green' thinking in food production. She is studying Environmental Education at Bicton and feels strongly about carbon footprints and the costs of food transport.

"The weather was a bit iffy, but it's gone really well," she told me. "We've been busy all day."

Tom Weare, 22, from Feniton, was in charge of the boatbuilding stall. Model boats made of cardboard of course, but there were plenty of enthusiastic kids designing various craft. He was equally pleased with the success of the day. "Loads of people have come along. It's been manic at times."

Hannah Flett, from Exeter, (on the left in the photo) and Jackie Kidd, from Woodbury Salterton, explained that sustainability had been one of the themes of the day. Navigation was their special area of interest.

Like her fellow-students Hannah was pleased with the way things had gone. "It's been a fabulous event, a really good experience with excellent feedback," she said. "We've been encouraged to come up with our own ideas."

So, a valuable experience in educational terms for the student organisers as well as lots of fun for the kids. It was the first time that Bicton College had used the Museum in this way and I'm sure it won't be the last.

For more information about Bicton College and Fairlynch Museum click on http://www.bicton.ac.uk/ and http://www.devonmuseums.net/fairlynch

More discomania

2011-05-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

Blogs are like flotsam, drifting in cyberspace until they're caught by someone's Google net.

That piece I wrote about the strange discs being washed up on Atlantic beaches in America at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2011/04/discomania-on-brewster-beach.html was found by Harry, aka Harold Johnson, from Saco in Maine.

"Hi there," he writes. "Found your blog on a search of the Hooksett disks. Trying to see from week to week how far they've traveled. (I live in Maine, just north of New Hampshire, and often comb the local beach looking for flotsam.)"

So, a true discomaniac. But Harry's interest is seriously environmental. Like me he's a blogger, publishing at http://theflotsamdiaries.blogspot.com/ but on a specific theme. His blog is "A chronicle of human debris. Washed up, blown in, left behind."

And based on his observations, those discs may not be just an American phenomenon. "Actually, by summer, some of them that got caught in the Gulf Stream might be washing up along shores in Devon & Cornwall," he warns.

So look out for those discs on East Devon beaches. If you find just one, I'm sure Harry would love to know about it.

From badgers to Baudelaire

2011-05-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

Nineteenth century poet Charles Baudelaire, author of a collection of poems entitled 'Les Fleurs du Mal' which scandalised many contemporary readers. As the subject of my French literature classes many years ago he inspired some of my students to start a Baudelaire Society at university. But I think they just wanted an excuse for debauchery

I was going to start this post by quoting from the French poet some lines that I remembered from 40 years ago, then decided that such an opening might be thought a little pretentious and perplexing. Especially when I checked out the English version offered by Google's translation service.

However it's not every day that you meet a retired West Country farmer-poet who engages you in a conversation about the simple pleasures of a Buddhist lifestyle. Then reveals that he's been touched by lines from 'Les Fleurs de Mal.' And all that in Budleigh Salterton Library on a morning when I'd simply popped in to look at some noticeboards.

Maybe 'poetic farmer' might be more appropriate as I imagine his gloomy elegies about the dairy industry at early morning milking time "quand le ciel pèse bas et lourd comme un couvercle."

Try Google's translation if you don't understand the French, and be perplexed.

John Payne is the retired farmer I met by chance as he stood in the Library telling us about the event at Salem Chapel in East Budleigh this weekend. As I've mentioned previously, I'm happy to promote anything that goes on in that beautiful old building.

'Painting, Poetry and Prose' is what the organisers say is a "shoestring" cultural event that is above all "local" according to John. They've got a couple of regional literary celebrities from outside the Budleigh area in David Prowse - the Western Morning News Poet-in-residence - and John Greenslade - Radio Devon's contributor on agricultural affairs known as Farmer John.

But all the other artists and writers participating in the event are based only a few miles from Budleigh Salterton. They include Rosemary Smith from East Budleigh, who started writing Victorian Romantic suspense novels seven years ago and never dreamt that her work would be so popular, with seven titles in libraries worldwide.

A familiar face I spotted on the display board was watercolour artist Ken Walker who retired to live in Budleigh Salterton in 1988 and whom I'd often seen staring hard at a shopfront or house. Now I know why. Exmouth-based Arthur Cook is fascinated by World War Two as you can see from his website at http://www.blitzandpeaces.co.uk/ and has written books with titles like Exmouth at War and The Home Guard.

Then there's Gerald Millington, the Clinton Devon Estates Archivist who has written many articles about the Lower Otter Valley.

John Payne himself retired as a dairy farmer from Exmoor and has been writing poetry for 40 years about "the sea, countryside and human relationships." He is pictured here with a copy of his verse collection Waves of Life.

So, plenty of varied local talent on display.

'Painting, Poetry and Prose' takes place on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 May at the Salem Chapel in East Budleigh from 10.00 am to 4.30 pm. Entry is free, but as always donations are welcome. Refreshments will be available.

Annoying garden parties

2011-05-01T03:47:00.000-07:00

Well, with the smooth comes the rough. As our wonderful deciduous azaleas burst into a fiery mass, making the garden a real showpiece, along they come, keen to get a piece of the action. Blasted badgers.

It's been the same for the last two years. Strangely there was no sign of them during our first spring in Budleigh. The only damage to the lawn was caused by moles. But I'm sure they must have been around. Maybe in the neighbour's garden.

Now the moles seem to have vanished and the mysterious black and white creatures from the wood have taken their place, leaving their random traces of destruction in unexpected places. Just when you think that your beautiful lawn has been left undisturbed while you were asleep you turn the corner during your morning inspection of the garden and see the evidence of their all-night partying.

I'm told it's worms they're after, or invertebrates, of which I'm sure we've got lots.
The deer fence doesn't seem to be keeping them out. I've tried the usual old tricks - splashes of urine, even raided the spices cupboard to find some out of date paprika and cayenne pepper. It didn't seem to work.

I did read somewhere that spreading peanuts on the grass might be a substitute for the invertebrates so that's something to try.

Meanwhile all one can do is try to repair the damage while the soil is still damp by replacing and stamping down the bits of turf. And of course checking to see what pebbles have come out as a result of the creatures' burrowing, to save on lawn mower repair bills.

While I sympathise with the farmers who want to cull them, and while it's often quite shocking to see what they've been up to during the night, I have to confess that it was a thrilling moment when I saw one of the creatures at dusk one evening only 20 yards away from where I was enjoying a quiet moment in the garden. It raced down from the wood, suddenly saw me and raced back. It looked athletic, strong and healthy.

One has to admit that the creatures were there first, long before we came along with our lawnmowers, scarifiers and nasty weed and feed chemicals. It's a pity they don't seem to be able to content themselves in just the mossy areas, of which we've got lots.

Maybe one night I'll lie in wait in a secluded corner of the garden and try to get a shot of them. With my camera of course.

Family fun day for young explorers

2011-05-01T02:26:00.000-07:00

Budding explorers will be given a great opportunity to enjoy a day of adventure, excitement and travellers’ tales as Environmental Education students from Bicton College hold a free family event on Saturday 7 May at Budleigh Salterton's Fairlynch Museum, Budleigh Salterton from 11.00 am to 3.00 pm.

The event coincides with the theme of the museum’s 2011 exhibition about Budleigh’s own intrepid polar explorer George Murray Levick, and follows earlier exhibitions at Fairlynch based on the life of East Budleigh-born Elizabethan adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh.

Fairlynch Museum's Education Officer Amanda Murrell, who is collaborating with Bicton College on the venture says that activities will include a fact-finding trail, potato planting and printing, boat making, crafts and much more.

Bicton Course Tutor Alex Turner told me that this is the first time that students from the College have been involved with Fairlynch. "The students involved are studying for a foundation degree in Environmental Education, which is like an HND, consisting of the first two years of a degree course. It which covers a lot of theory and practice of educating society - schools, young people, campaigns, interpretation - about environmental issues."

Gaining an insight into event management and learning about the importance of teamwork is a vital part of the Bicton experience.

"Every year, as part of their programme of studies, the first year students have to organise an environmental community event as part of a communities unit," explains Alex.

"For the last few years the students have done events in Otterton, and this is the first time they’ve done the project in Budleigh so it is quite good for them to be working here and making the links into this local community.

"The students are learning about how to put an event, publicity, planning, running activities, reviewing it and so on, and it forms part of an assessment. They are doing all of this themselves and and a colleague Catherine Gough and I are facilitating the process.

It's a fantastic opportunity for students to work with local people and to use their knowledge and enthusiasm to bring stories of explorers to life.”

Bicton College Environmental Education student Hannah Flett said, “We are really looking forward to working with the museum and the local community to provide a fun filled day for all ages where people can find out more about local explorers and the environment.”

For information about Bicton College click on http://www.bicton.ac.uk/

Fairlynch Museum has dresses to thrill

2011-05-01T01:19:00.000-07:00

I've been so preoccupied by the life and career of Surgeon Commander Murray Levick, the subject of Fairlynch's current main exhibition, that I was in danger of neglecting other areas where volunteers at Budleigh Salterton's Museum had been hard at work with their own display areas.

That was until I suddenly dreamt up that silly headline for my post at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2011/04/museum-shows-off-full-monty-and-much.html

And then I began to think about how Fairlynch Museum began, and how one of its chief glories is its costume collection.

The Museum holds approximately 4,000 items of men's, women's and children's clothing as a result of donations made over the years. Some are rare pieces dating as far back as the early 1700s.

The collection originated as an assortment of period costumes and 'fripperies' gathered by Budleigh Salterton residents, the sisters Joy, Elizabeth and Aalish Gawne in the pre-World War Two period. It was for many years privately housed but displayed on special occasions during the 1960s.

With the development into flats of many of the town's larger houses at that time, trunks full of costumes were being unearthed in attics and making their way into jumble sales. The collection grew. Finally, with the acquisition of Fairlynch and its opening as a museum on 27 July 1967, a permanent exhibition based on this fascinating parade of centuries-old clothing and accessories could be admired by the public.

Further growth came at this time with the donation by a local resident of items which came to be known as the Pile Costume Collection, originally made and worn by members of the Pile family from Otterton. They included creations in lace as well as a chestnut corded silk jacket and skirt from the 1860s, and a wedding dress of brown silk with blue stripes. The most unusual piece in this collection is the hood of a red cloak, supposedly worn by local women who paraded on the cliffs at Ladram Bay at the time when an invasion by Napoleon was threatened. The idea was to convince any approaching French ships that redcoated soldiers were on the lookout.

Other items at Fairlynch came from Mrs Lennox, a royal nanny who disposed of various garments which would have been worn by princes and princesses of Queen Victoria's day.

The oldest piece at Fairlynch is a handmade dress from the 1740s, possibly made from Spitalfields silk.

Only a small proportion of the Fairlynch costume collection can be seen on display at any one time, but the regular exhibitions arranged by our volunteer helpers allow for a rotation of interesting items. Expert advice was sought at an early stage on caring for the collection, and costumes not on display are stored in conditions where light and humidity are strictly controlled.

Early volunteer helpers with the costume collection included experts like Freda Wills, a costume curator at the Royal Victoria and Albert Museum in Exeter, and support from RAMM has been maintained with the most recent advice being given by conservation development officer Helena Jaeschke.

So if you're into vintage fashion and are looking for ideas pop into the Museum next time you're passing, or better still, click on http://www.devonmuseums.net/fairlynch find out how to join the Friends of Fairlynch and spend happy hours studying this year's impressive displays.

Not just storms in tea-cups

2011-04-16T11:06:00.001-07:00

Mayflower II at State Pier in Plymouth. The Mayflower II is a replica of the 17th century ship Mayflower, celebrated for transporting the Pilgrims to the New World. The replica was built in Devon, England, during 1955–1956. Photo credit: Wikipedia

I've always had an idealised view of our sister-town of Brewster on Cape Cod.

Perhaps the Irish immigrant element in my own family background moved me when I thought of those early New Englanders bravely setting out across the Atlantic, leaving behind all the intolerance and prejudice of Europe to seek freedom and a fresh start in their New World communities.

So I had a cosy picture of proudly independent Brewster, a mini-state within the state of Massachusetts, with its own respected Chief of Police, its highly qualified Fire Chief, its idealistic and hardworking Town Manager, its iconic Ladies' Library with all those free concerts and exhibitions, and of course its own budget.

A community with shared common values of decency, tolerance and enlightened respect for its beautiful environment. And that included some admirably progressive views on the need for the town to be self-sufficient in energy needs.

In 2003 an Alternative Energy Committee was created in the belief that the answer to the worldwide energy crisis lay in wind. Four years later a wind energy bylaw was passed and Brewster's selectmen - the equivalent of our town councillors - were authorised to negotiate with the Cape & Vineyard Electric Cooperative (CVEC). This group had been created in 2008 "to provide the municipalities of Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard a way to work together to integrate clean, renewable energy as part of a more sustainable Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard" as stated on its website at http://www.cvecinc.org/

To be sure there were protesters but they were condemned by some fairly eminent voices from the moral high ground. Here's Brewster resident Joe Klein, celebrated journalist and author of the book Primary Colors, attacking one particular group of dissenters.

"Can I just say that the opposition to Cape Cod Wind Farm, in Nantucket Sound, is one of the most blatant cases of NIMBYism I've ever seen" he wrote just over a year ago in Time Magazine. "I'm terribly sorry that the wind farm will spoil their sunrises and turn their sailing into slalom, but this is alternative energy we're talking about here. It's a no brainer and I hope Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will put an end to the slow-walk forthwith. (And I'd be happy to welcome a second wind farm over on my side of the Cape, in Cape Cod Bay.)"

Well, fortified by support from Mr Klein and others who shared his vision, the Brewster town authorities powered ahead. “The president of the United States has made it part of his program to have renewable energy projects. The governor of the state has made it part of his program,” noted Ed Lewis, selectmen chairman, so why not Brewster, he wondered.

The two, 410-foot-tall turbines would be built on leased town land, next to the Captains Course driving range, in Commerce Park, off Freeman’s Way, within view of Route 6. They were, or are, expected to generate $3.6 million in electrical energy cost savings and lease payments for Brewster over the first 15 years of operation.

It was, so the experts said, a "slam-dunk" as I noted at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2009/06/brewster-contemplating-wind-turbines-on.html

I hadn't come across that expression before but I could guess what it means.

Yes, wind turbines can catch fire

But with the New Year and stormy weather came, ironically, the surge of protest from many Brewster residents that I described at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2011/01/storm-brews-over-wind-turbines-plan.html

By 11 February 329 protesters had signed a petition. People began talking about property values, fire and ice hazards, blade throw, and even, apparently "static electricity emanating from the towers." They felt themselves to be, as the Cape Codder newspaper so picturesquely put it, "sacrificed on the altar of green energy."

Above all, there was the argument, so familiar in small, peacefully contented communities which include both the Cape Cod town and its East Devon sister Budleigh Salterton, that the turbines "didn’t fit Brewster’s rural character."

A week later came the news that a majority of selectmen on the planning board had voted against wind turbines. And Brewster is not alone. Apparently it's the fourth local project of its kind to be voted down, with similar protests winning the day in the Cape Cod towns of Wellfleet, Harwich and Orleans. The neighbouring community of Dennis is the latest to see antis in the majority at a public meeting last Monday 11 April.

But the battle is not yet over. I've now read that the town authorities have been accused of seeking to circumvent the planning board's decision by "cutting red tape." The Cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative has told Brewster selectmen that the group will seek an exemption under state law allowing them to build two municipal wind turbines in the industrial park without a special permit from the town.

Turbine foe Mitch Relin is not surprised. "It seems like the board of selectmen, in concert with CVEC, is going outside the town process that is in place and that seems appropriate, and that is disheartening,” he says. Others, like Brewster resident Joyce McConnell, are more forthright. "The town selectmen now appear prepared to propose elimination of the democratic process governing our local elected officials," she wrote in a letter to the Cape Cod Times.

Equally there are those who still believe that Brewster should take the lead in developing wind energy. "It is a good thing, right now and for the future, for our town and for Cape Cod," was the view of local resident Paul Hush in his letter to the same newspaper.

Proposals for the demolition of the the Longboat Café on Budleigh Salterton's sea front have shocked many local residents. The café's replacement by a modern building would, so the Town Council suggested, be like a "carbuncle perpetrated upon the face of an old friend." Very few planning applications "have given rise to such strong and diametrically opposed feelings about the proposal" noted East Devon District Council

All that talk of ignoring democracy and public opinion, and the notion that some communities are simply "not the place" for certain developments, have inevitably put me in mind of our own agonisings about a certain café on our sea-front.

The issue is sufficiently divisive within East Devon for Budleigh Salterton Town Council, in an Open Letter dated 1 November 2009, to have accused the more powerful East Devon District Council of being seen as "having little regard for the democratic process" and riding "roughshod over moderate opinion."

Many Budleigh people would agree that the Longboat Café would be improved with a certain amount of updating, but equally a large number feel that the design approved by the District Council is not appropriate for a location which has been officially classed as a World Heritage Site.

Some would say that by comparison with most important issues in today's world the arguments over wind turbines and beachside cafés are no more than storms in Brewster and Budleigh tea-cups. Others would say that it's heartening to read of communities composed of people passionate about their local environment, prepared to stick their neck out and protest rather than toe the party line just because it's politically correct.

Weekend wedding fever

2011-04-16T01:36:00.000-07:00

St Peter's Church, venue for one of the weekend events

I know that some of my closet-royalist American readers are closely following news of the wedding on Friday 29 April between Prince William and Kate Middleton. Many Budleigh Salterton people are equally enthusiastic about the prospect of all that rejoicing at the happy event, including the extra bank holiday that the UK will enjoy. The misery guts at the Department of Business have estimated that the cost of this in loss of working days will come to around £2.9 billion, and it's true, we are in a recession. But royal weddings don't happen all that often, and some British businesses are actually hoping to do rather well out of the event. Just click on http://www.theroyalweddingwilliamkate.com/ to see what I mean.

Anyway some good causes will certainly benefit. At St Peter's Church in Budleigh they've been planning a display of over 40 wedding dresses for some time to coincide with the national weekend festivities. 'Wedding Belles' is what they're calling the exhibition at St Peter's Church, which runs from Saturday 30 April until Monday 2 May. Hours are from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm on Saturday and Monday, and12.00 pm to 5.00 pm on Sunday. Entrance is £3.00 with under-12 years going free. Refreshments will be available in The Peter Hall. All proceeds will go to the Church Maintenance Fund.

Later on, the same day, there's a Family Fun Night at Budleigh's Public Hall from 7.00 to 11.00 pm, with Disco, Karaoke, Sausage & Mash Supper, Children's Games, and a Raffle, all on a 'Red, White & Blue' Fancy Dress Theme with a prize for the best dressed. Tickets are £2.50, which includes supper, and are available from the Town Council Offices and The Card Shop Too. Guests are invited to bring their own drinks. On Sunday 1 May the feasting continues with a Community Picnic on The Green, from 12.30 pm to 4.00 pm. Entry is free and people are invited to bring a picnic to share with their family and friends. A Bouncy Castle, Face Painting, Magician, and Games are among the attractions. Soft drinks and of course cream teas will be available. If the weather refuses to join in with the festivities the event will be in the Public Hall.

Museum shows off 'the Full Monty' and much more

2011-04-14T11:28:00.000-07:00

A century of costumes. Go and find out what they're staring at in the sky!

Budleigh Salterton's Fairlynch Museum is celebrating a pair of centenaries in 2011 with two contrasting exhibitions. To mark the occasion there is a new exhibition of costumes on the theme of '200 years of ladies living at Fairlynch.' The display shown above portrays clothes which might have been worn during the first hundred years of the house. When I took the photo questions were being asked about what the ladies were staring at. Since then the answer has been found, but I'll leave you readers to go and find out what the exhibition organisers finally decided.

The show includes the 1920s 'flapper' dress and evening wear from the 1930s seen above.

Also on display and pictured above is a 1940s 'demob' suit, one of the thousands issued to British servicemen after World War Two. Made by the Leeds-based tailors Montague Burton the complete suit, including jacket, trousers, waistcoat, shirt and underwear quickly became known as 'The Full Monty'. The suit on display in Fairlynch was donated by William Rose, of Exmouth, who wore it only once on his wedding day.

There's a nice contrast between the suit and this polar outfit modelled by 'George' in the Museum's main exhibition on the ground floor. Linked to the Scott of the Antarctic centenary celebrations the exhibition entitled 'Survival' pays tribute to the life and achievements of former Budleigh Salterton resident Surgeon Commander Murray Levick.

Originally called Primrose Cottage, Fairlynch was built in 1811 as a thatched marine cottage orné. It houses many items of interest, ranging from one of the finest collections of costumes dating from Georgian times to East Devon Pebblebeds geological specimens. The Museum is open until October, from 2.00-4.30 pm except Saturdays. http://www.devonmuseums.net/fairlynch

"A woman who knew her own mind": interview with actress Jenny Coverack on her portrayal of Kathleen Scott

2011-04-14T01:19:00.000-07:00

With the centenary of Scott of the Antarctic's ill-fated polar expedition very much in mind, a play with close links to Fairlynch Museum's 2011 exhibition 'Survival!' is coming to Budleigh Salterton's Public Hall on Wednesday 25 May.

I spoke to Jenny Coverack, the actress who will be performing it.

If you're a BBC Radio 4 listener you may well have heard her reading the Book at Bedtime 'Flush' by Virginia Woolf in February this year. More recently she was the midwife in 'The Archers.' Other BBC productions including 'Poetry Please' and 'The Afternoon Play' have also employed her acting talents.

Actress Jenny Coverack: "passionate" about playing the character of Kathleen Scott. She is pictured here performing part of her play 'A Father for my Son' in Scott's hut at Cape Evans, on Ross Island, Antarctica

Trained at the Bristol Old Vic, Jenny Coverack has a voice familiar to millions of radio listeners. She grew up in Cornwall, now lives in Devon, and is often to be seen performing on West Country stages. But her career as an actress has taken her to theatres all over Britain as well as overseas.

Kathleen Scott with her husband Robert, the Antarctic explorer.
Picture credit: Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge

That's been particularly the case with the play 'A Father for my Son', her one-woman show based on the life of Kathleen Scott (1878-1947), widow of Captain Robert Scott of Antarctic fame.
Scott died on 29 March 1912 with five companions on his way back from the South Pole, where he discovered that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten him to it.

Where has the play been performed?

JC: The première was at Cotehele in the Tamar Valley, ten years ago in 2001. I've performed it in all kinds of venues from the Isles of Scilly to London, including The Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford, the Everyman in Cheltenham, the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick and the Royal Geographical Society in London.

One of the most memorable venues was on a cruise ship called the Kapitan Khlebnikov in the Antarctic. We were at 78 degrees 41'S, the furthest South that any professional play has ever been performed, as close as possible to Scott's hut. When I performed on the ship there was a standing ovation afterwards and the New Zealanders, the Australians and the Americans wanted me to take it to their countries!

How did you come to write the play?

JC: I saw a production of a play called 'Terra Nova' by the American playwright Ted Tally at the Theatre Royal Plymouth. It's based on the tragedy of Scott's expedition to the South Pole and I was so struck by the epic nature of the whole episode and the suffering of everyone involved, including Scott's wife Kathleen that I set about collaborating with Robert Edwards, a teacher in our local area. We based much of the play on Kathleen's diaries.

What's the play about?

JC: It lasts for 1 hour 30 minutes plus an interval. The first half tells Kathleen's story leading up to her meeting Scott, the birth of Peter Scott and the drama of Scott's fatal voyage to the South Pole, which is juxtaposed with what's happening to Kathleen. She eventually hears about Scott's death at sea in the Pacific, months later. The second act is about her life after Scott. The first act will stand on its own, although it's fascinating to see what happens to Kathleen after Scott's death.

Is it true that Kathleen had an affair with the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen while her husband was away?

JC: I think not. They were very good friends and there was mutual admiration but when Kathleen writes in her diary about possible future husbands, she dismisses Nansen as, "too old."

A talented sculptor, Kathleen had studied in Paris and been befriended by Rodin. This statue with its title 'Here I am. Send me!' taken from the Book of Isaiah is outside the chapel at Oundle School in Northamptonshire. As a pupil at the school in the 1920s, the future naturalist Sir Peter Scott had to endure the comments of those who assumed, wrongly, that Kathleen had used her son as a model

So what was her relationship with Scott? What kind of marriage was it?

JC: Kathleen is quite an amazing character. She wanted a son but not a husband and so was looking for the right man. All this was in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

George Bernard Shaw told her "No woman ever born had a narrower escape from being a man. My affection for you is the nearest I ever came to homosexuality." Yet she is supposed to have had plenty of male admirers. What made her so attractive to them do you think?

JC: A man ought to answer that question! But possibly because she was so unorthodox, she was a tom-boy, a free spirit and full of fun, always finding the positive in situations. Physically she was striking – Charles Shannon painted her many times.

This statue entitled 'Ad Astra' is located in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire and was executed by Kathleen Scott in 1938

She was a friend of the dancer Isadora Duncan. Were they similar?

JC: They both loved dancing. Kathleen exulted in Isadora as an artist. Their friendship was probably based on idealism, that inherited money was limiting, adventure was true wealth and art and babies were the greatest achievements.

Do you admire her as one might admire the suffragettes?

JC: I am passionate about portraying a woman from that 'heroic era'. There is little or nothing mentioned about them at all and Kathleen is some woman! She was a free spirit and certainly knew her own mind.

The marble statue of Captain Scott in New Zealand, sculpted by Kathleen, was commissioned by Christchurch City Council following news of the explorer's death in March 1912

How involved have you felt with the character?

JC: Whenever I play any character I become involved with them. Kathleen has cast a bit of a spell over me – brought home recently when I was upset to hear that her statue of Scott in Christchurch, NZ was toppled in the recent earthquake. I was filmed, dressed as Kathleen, performing a snippet from the play, in the actual hut that Scott left from on his fatal journey. His bunk was close by. The bit I chose to do was actually talking to Scott - or Con as she called him. It was very moving. I felt I'd taken Kathleen back to Scott! Wayland Kennet - her son by her second marriage - came to see the inaugural performance and he said "Don't change it." He was 79 at the time.

So you've found it emotionally draining to perform. How have audiences responded?

JC: Well, I'm not related but I keep being told that I must be a reincarnation of her!

Tickets for 'A Father for my Son', being performed in the Public Hall on Wednesday 25 May at 7.30 pm are now available from Budleigh Salterton Tourist Information Centre (Tel: 01395 445275) Also from The Lawn Bakery, Budleigh Salterton and Lesleys, Stationers, Budleigh Salterton. Price £10. Concessions £8 The play lasts about 90 minutes, excluding an interval.

Easter at Salem

2011-04-13T12:00:00.001-07:00

I always like mentioning events at East Budleigh's Salem Chapel. It's such a beautifully restored building with a wonderful atmosphere. And although the building is not named after the American city it always moves me to think of this tiny East Devon village associated so closely with the history of the United States. Sir Walter Raleigh, born just outside the village at Hayes Barton, is well known of course. But born not so long after him in East Budleigh was Roger Conant, the English dissenter and leader of a group of fisherman, who sought refuge across the Atlantic to practise his religious beliefs and founded Salem, Massachusetts.