Happy Days!

A Memory of Bideford.

I was at school in Essex in the early 50's but my parents lived in Bideford at ! Cottingham Crescent behind the old Grammar school. My stepfather Ernest Jewell worked for Beers , which I think was a builders, and my mother Edith Jewell was manageress of Bromleys, a bakery and restaurant about halfway up the High street on the right hand side , a couple of doors up from MacFisheries.. I would travel down for the summer holidays and earn my pocket money by helping in the shop or in the kitchen,then off down to the quay to fish for school bass with all the local kids. I remember the Lerina was often tied up alongside,the boat which did a regular run to Lundy Island.
I remember the church with the pulpit of many colours of marble and the museum with glass cases containing white blackbirds. Only many years later did I realise that these mutations could have been caused by the radiation from low grade uranium deposits later found in the area.
I loved my summers in Bideford!
Went back in 1970 while I was with the RAF at Chivenor, It had changed a little but not as much as it has now.