Georgeham, Village c1955

'Holiday House'.

I was born and lived the early years of my life in South Molton.   My father had his own building firm there.   In 1958 we moved to Croyde Bay my father having bought this large house on the cliffs above the bay for £1800.   This photo shows it before it became a motel.   He put a new roof on the property in tiles rather than the slates which were normally used at that time.   He then converted the top floor into our new home and then still had the two floors below spare.   He had seen films about the American motels and set about converting these floors into one bedroom units with combined living area to let to holidaymakers.   He invented a system where a double bed base and mattress would fold up into a wall cupboard so creating more space for daytime living.   The single beds were the forerunner to bed settees.   The families who rented them were mainly from the Midlands and some from London.   They absolutely loved them.
From this we evolved a shop cafe (the speciality being knickerbocker glories), a fresh produce stall in one of the garages and finally hot dogs for the evening trade.   The height of decadence in the late 1950s!   The shop stocked everything the holidaymaker wanted - from TCP to fishing line baked beans to steak and kidney pie postcards chocolates proper ice cream cones and milk sugar and tea.   I earned quadruple money as the only member of our family prepared to work in the shop when the 1966 football World Cup final was playing.

This farm I worked on as a Student

I worked on this farm as a young lad before going to Agricultural College. I lodged with a family in the cottage in the picture.

The house I lived in

I lived in the white bungalow on the right of the picture with my parents from 1953 until 1959. My father was Secretary of the Saunton Golf Club and the house was owned by the Christie Estates at that time. I have many happy memories of holidays at Saunton during that time.

Saunton Sands Hotel in WW2

The hotel was used by the Duke of York's Military School which had been evacuated from Dover - on the cliff tops. Wooden huts were erected along the cliff in front and alongside the hotel to be used as classrooms - each with coke-operated stoves leading to outside chimneys.
All doors were taken off the hotel rooms [to create space?]. Bunk beds were installed. The sands had been used for Commando training and, since we were allowed down, we were able to acquire large stocks of discarded or lost ammunition from cartridges to grenades and 'gelly'!! A small amount of gelegnite and a hot coke-stove chimney makes a satisfactory bang!! Since we were mostly Army 'brats' whose fathers were serving or had been killed we were 'aux-fait' with the use of such as we found. Grenades were a little too noisy, causing school staff to react so were rarely used! Little booby traps -found on the beach. These could have a rifle round fitted and be delicately placed.
White mice could be purchased locally for 1d to 3d - however when monthly inspections were held they were usually put under the floor boards where they bred and became cannibalistic!
Many years later I met a junior manager of the hotel and he told me of the horrendous cost of defumigating and restoring the hotel after the war.
I do think sometimes that we [the old wrinklies] are a little too hard on the present-day youth and forget that we too were not 'perfect'.  Our marching to/from Braunton to our own band, playing 'Sons of the Brave' was filmed by Pathe.