On The Move

A Memory of Dartmouth.

In the summer of 1952 I learnt that my parents had decided to move from our home in the Midlands to the West Country as my father wished to return to where his relatives lived. It came as no surprise therefore, when one day they announced they had purchased a shop in a place called Kingswear in South Devon. I was 14 years of age and received this news with mixed emotions as I had lived in my present home since birth. For me, only a few more weeks remained at school before we would be on our way. I think it was the 19 th of August when Mother, Dad, and younger brother Kevin and me, set off in our 1939 Hillman Ten on our 230 mile journey.

It was late in afternoon when my Dad announced that we were entering the village of Kingswear. As the car breasted the rise from the Brixham Road on to the almost deserted level main street, I remember seeing a solitary figure of a young girl playing ball in the street near a tall apartment block. She was the only sign of life to be seen, for the day was hot and sunny, a heat haze shimmering off the metalled road. Later I found out the girl’s name was Maureen Tozer.

Strange as it was, although we had arrived at Kingswear, we had not reached our final destination which was to be Dartmouth. Over the years, apart from the girl in the street, I have no recollection or impression of our arrival, I find it strange, for all after all, it must have been an eventful journey for a not much travelled 14 year old. Number 17, Southford Road, Dartmouth was to be our new home. It was a town house built around the turn of the century and like almost everything else in Dartmouth was set on the side of a hill. The street was narrow and house itself was detached with a stuccoed white exterior and blue slate roof. Steps from the street led into a surprisingly private though small, elevated garden. At the top of the path, imposing Greek-like columns supported an awning on each side of the front door which gave the place a slightly grand but incongruous look. The immediate comparison with the home I had just left was stark; in fact there were no similarities at all. My former home was only a few years old and was built in the style of the then fashionable style of 1930’s ribbon development. The detached house was built on a main road, set back from the road overlooking the pastoral countryside of the Midlands with views for miles around. Here in Devon in my new home the only views were from the attic window where only the rooftops of the houses below could be seen as each house was built a little higher than its neighbour, like spectators at a football match striving to get a better view. I found this very claustrophobic and depressing. There were still two or three weeks remaining of the summer holidays before starting my new school. In a new place and not knowing anyone is a lonely business, soon I was homesick.

From the confines of the attic window, I would spend the day watching a boy of about my age, kicking a tennis ball against, what I took to be the wall of his house. I wondered what school he went to and would it be the same as mine? I toyed with the idea of making myself known to him, but never did. Later, I found out he did go to the same school and his name was Atkins, he was about a year older than me. As far as I can remember, our paths never crossed. I spent the remainder of the holiday moping around, and it soon became time for me to start thinking about my new school. For some reason I’ve always disliked change of routine in my life for it makes me restless and uncertain. I suppose that is why I consider myself to be a conservative type of person.

Dartmouth is a small town, so nowhere is very far away. The route to school was to cycle to the end of my road and cross the main road, continue up a short steep hill and at the top was Dartmouth Grammar School. To my surprise, the school turned out to be a former privately owned large house. I never gave it much thought at the time as to why this school was in a house, and yet over the years I have wondered many times as to why this was so. I never did discover the reason why.

I soon got to know the geography of the area as my fellow pupils were drawn from a large surrounding area. Pupils would travel to school from Brixham, Dittisham, Dartmouth, Kingswear, Slapton and the South Hams. Facilities for youth at the ‘school’ itself were sparse, the only concession to youth being a tennis court below, which served as a general exercise and games area. For organised sports such as football or swimming or physical training, then one had to look elsewhere. The school’s sports field where we played regularly was at the top of a hill above the town itself, it was to this place we would walk for our Wednesday afternoon football or cricket games. During the winter months physical training was held in a ‘hall’ somewhere down in town at a place I can no longer remember, what I do remember however is racing flat out down a flight of unending steps and nearly going base over in the process. During the few brief weeks of summer we would walk to Dartmouth castle for our swimming which we did in a very basic pool built in among the rocks. I enjoyed playing most sports. At my previous school we played rugby which I thought was a good game but in my opinion lacked the skill of the round ball game, so it was a pleasant surprise when I discovered my new school played soccer. I soon found myself playing in the school team, which I thought then, and still do to this day, played a fairly good standard of football. On sports afternoon, we had to find our own way to the sports field, which was at a place called Townstal, for this was the nearest to town where the land was suitable for a sports field. Usually we played between ourselves but sometimes fixtures would be arranged with other schools or maybe a side from the Naval College. Keenly fought games would be contested in these matches; I remember one game in particular. I was looking forward to was a football match against HMS Hawke from the college, not very many minutes into the game I was in a head on collision with one of their players and I sustained a nasty gash below the eye. The teacher ref said it needed attention and ordered me to the local hospital, thereby ending any further part in the game. At the end of a sports afternoon I would enjoy a leisurely walk home down a steep lane with wonderful views of Dartmouth set out below. Eventually the ever steep lane descended into the houses of Crowther’s Hill, where at the bottom, I would turn sharply left past a nearby bombed out house and into Southford Road and home. Sometimes the school arranged an inter school fixtures and a motor coach would be hired from Walls the local garage down on the embankment. The coach would be their 1930’s model which was extremely comfortable. I especially liked the fixture with Kingsbridge Grammar School where the route along the coast took us over some of the most memorable scenery in Devon.

I recently revisited the site of my old school at the top of the hill, only to find the site had long ago changed back to being a privately owned house, even the tennis court where I enjoyed many a game of basket ball had gone, as it now played host to a newly built house. I looked hard and long at this place which moulded bright eyed youth fit to serve the next generation. Laughter, optimism, disappointment, all witnessed in abundance by this ordinary house on the hill. I ask myself the unanswerable question, where had it all gone? People passing looked at me suspiciously as I stared. Try as I might, I could not conjure up the image of a fourteen year old boy, cycling effortlessly up the steep hill to school.

By now, I had overcome my homesickness and had come to love my new surroundings. The comparisons I had been making earlier had been gradually reversed, the more I saw of this place the more I liked it for I had settled into an agreeable way of life, which had always been active and outdoor. For this style of life, the possibilities were endless. Dartmouth and Kingswear lay facing each other across the river Dart, half a mile apart. The river forms a perfect deep water harbour and has been used as such for centuries, there is no bridge to get to the other side, and this could only be done by taking a ferryboat or travel by road, which would involve a journey of over 20 miles. Both sides of the river are dominated by steep hills upon which the town and village are built. The surrounding hills are heavily wooded with trees down to the waterline. When combined with sea and sky, it all provides a perfect picture post card setting. On the Kingswear side a single railway line snakes its way down to the tiny station at the end of the line. It is a tidal river flowing down to the sea some mile distant, with occasional rocky shoreline or shingle beach, trees of all types provide a canopy of colour from the slopes above. Boats of all description ply up and down, leaving sparkling glitter in their wake.

My parent’s shop was described as a tobacconist and fancy goods. The fancy goods bit always made me laugh as the goods in question were in fact seaside gifts and trinkets for the holidaymakers. I wonder if the term 'fancy goods' is still in use today? If it is, I suspect that it will have little to do with trinkets and seaside shops.

Kingswear and Dartmouth are geographically situated in the middle of seaside holiday country where hundreds of thousands visit in the height of summer, and it was my Dad’s idea that he could make a decent living from this holiday trade. It is worth remembering here, although the war had been finished for more than 7 years, sweets and chocolate (and other foodstuffs) were still on ration. I can clearly remember a man from the Ministry, dressed in a sober pin striped suit, sitting counting hundreds, if not thousands of tiny stamp like coupons which my dad’s sausage like fingers had laboriously cut out of people’s ration books. The resultant tally being entered in triplicate and the coupons sealed in a large official buff envelope. My parents hated the moment when it was announced the ‘man’ was coming to count the coupons, to me it seemed that jail was imminent, but it was only my mother worrying over nothing as usual.

My Dad’s shop sold the local evening newspaper and I had the job of delivery boy. Every weekday after school, I would change into my jeans and plimsolls and run down to the river to catch the ferry to Kingswear to deliver my dad’s papers. I found this job a quick way to find my way about the village and learn people’s names and where they lived. One day on my round, I got talking to a slip of a girl (Wendy Thick) who was pulling a home made trolley, upon which was a box of groceries. We knew each other slightly and she was complaining how heavy the trolley was to pull up the steep hill and wished she could swap with me and do my papers. We compared notes, and found that we both got the same amount of money, but she didn’t have as nearly as many deliveries as me but her work was heavier than mine. I said if she would ask her boss (Mrs Hawke), then I would mention it to my dad and if they both agreed, then I would be willing to do her job and she could do mine. By the end of the week, I was delivering groceries on a trolley for a wage of 11 shillings and 6 pence per week. I suppose there is a mathematical equivalent in today’s money but I think it would be meaningless.

After living in Dartmouth for about a year my Dad was offered a cottage in Kingswear. The cottage was close to my Dad’s shop and life would become much easier for us all as we would no longer have to travel back and forth across the river each day. A block of two cottages joined to a large house made up our new address at No. 2 Alma Place. Needless to say, the property was built on a hillside with steps leading both up and down from our front door. Our new landlady was a grand old Victorian lady, Mrs Bully, whose age one could only guess. Mrs Bully told my dad the cottage would soon becoming vacant as the present tenants, a young couple, were emigrating to New Zealand.

Mentioning Mrs Bully reminds of a chap called Harry, who was a familiar sight in Alma Place as he lodged at Mrs Bully’s house. Harry was employed by the railway, his job being that of supervisor of the restaurant car on the Torbay Express, which ran daily between London and Kingswear. When Harry was on the London – Kingswear run he would lodge at Mrs Bully’s overnight and would return to London the following day on the Torbay Express departing at 11.25 am. I first met him when I was on duty in the booking office at the local station, every alternate weekday afternoon at about 5 o’clock he would enter the office carrying a small, stout leather pouch, which was secured at the neck with a clasp and lock. In the pouch was the takings of the restaurant car for that day, it was part of my job to enter the amount (on a busy day about £70.00) into the ledger and then secure the pouch in the safe overnight. We would pass the time of day and I would engage him in conversation just for the pleasure of hearing his accent, for he was a cockney through and through. I would guess Harry was in his 60’s and he gave me the impression he had been doing this job for many years, this meant he must have worked on the crack expresses of the Great Western Railway in their heyday.

As I have said, the following morning Harry would be in charge of the restaurant car of the London bound express. The regular set of eight chocolate and cream coaches had been stabled overnight at a place called Hoodown sidings which was about 100 yards beyond the creek bridge. It was here that Harry and his crew set about performing their magic; by the time the train was backed down into the platform the restaurant car looking like a miniature banquet hall. Harry himself, immaculately dressed in a uniform sporting a fresh carnation would be putting the finishing touches to his creation. Tables laid with spotless linen, bearing polished cutlery and glassware, table napkins set out just so; the whole ambience of the scene enhanced by the work of the unseen cleaners. Meanwhile, 200 miles away in London, exactly the same scene was being prepared by Harry’s colleagues on the opposite down train, which departed Paddington at 12.00 noon. Harry and his team was a breed who took pride in their work and would not have known it any other way. I often thought of Harry’s varied work routine of being in London one evening, maybe tending his allotment, and the following evening he would be strolling down to the pub in the lovely coastal village of Kingswear. When I hark back to those days I often wish I had taken the opportunity to get to know Harry better.

How I took these familiar scenes for granted, I now realise these everyday normal events were the dying embers of fast fading way of life, and that within a very short time would be lost forever.

Sometimes, when the weather was stormy, and the conditions at sea were too rough to fish; the fishermen from France would seek shelter in the calm waters of the river and tie up alongside the railway jetty. At such times it was not an uncommon sight to see French fishermen crowding round my dad’s shop to the point where the queue would stretch out beyond the door and out onto the Square. They would call in to replenish their stocks of tobacco and smoking materials or writing paper whatever. As I had learnt a smattering of French at school, I was sometimes called in to translate their needs, it was nearly always hopeless as they spoke with a rough Brittany accent.
Eventually, they would spill out onto the street, talking animatedly in a slowly moving group, looking at their purchases and examining their money. Slowly they would make their way back way under the railway arch leading to the jetty, where up to a dozen of their boats were tied up.

Taking my dog I would go just watch and listen to this fascinating scene, it always seemed to be late in the winter’s afternoon when they came. The jetty approaches would be pitch-black and if the tide was only halfway the boats would not be noticeably apparent as they were below the line of the quayside. Only the aurora of the boat’s illuminations would be visible. Adjusting the eyes to the searchlight glare, you could see the decks littered with the debris of the sea; nets everywhere, in a heap, hung up or just discarded; shells, seaweed, entangled rope, glass floats, all added up to a scene of chaotic disorder. There was squid, which I wanted for bait, peeling paint, streaks of orange brown rust and splintered wood. Lights all over the boat, spotlights on the bridge, fixed lamps on the masts, lamps dangling from the rigging, dancing in the wind. Shift your gaze left or right and it would be as black as the night, for it was a focussed view, as if staged managed. When I returned the following morning to collect my bait, the boats had gone.

Visiting naval ships was a feature in those days, in addition to the regular college training ships of Destroyers and Frigates other ships would frequently pay a courtesy visit. On one occasion two American warships appeared tied up to the buoys in the middle of the river. Soon American sailors could be seen ashore, sightseeing around the town. At night-time, when they came ashore in large numbers, the girls from miles around would home in as if by radar. The local pubs did a hectic trade; I remember being outside the Dart Hotel where there were dozens of sailors, some with a girl on each arm and a bottle of whisky in each coat pocket. I happened to be on the embankment (quayside) when the Shore Patrol boat came along to pick up drunks and wrongdoers, enormous sailor policemen armed with truncheons, grabbed hold of their quarry and threw them down into the bottom of the boat, landing in a crumpled heap with a thud. I was told this was nothing unusual and no harm was done. They could have fooled me!

In a roundabout way I became friendly with a boy named Mike Gibson. Mike was my age and lived with his mum and dad and sister Dawn in a cottage in an isolated spot called Millbay. His dad was the gardener for the big house nearby called the Grange. The Grange and two cottages and a farm, formed a tiny hamlet in a steep sided valley far from the maddening crowd. From Mike’s home, the valley sides guided your view down to the sea and the pine clad cliffs some half a mile distance. All of which he had access to wander.

In the summer evenings I would cycle out to Millbay and then Mike and me would walk and climb our way through the thickly wooded area to Brownstone Battery or Coleton Fishacre. This area is known as the Warren and is now is open to the public as it forms part of the coastal footpath. Thousands now pass this way which was once secluded and strictly private. I had always been interested in nature. Being next to the sea now presented opportunities previously unthinkable, here were seabirds of all types which nested in conditions that had not changed in a thousand years. One could walk and climb for hours and not see another soul, to be out on the cliffs on a lovely summer’s evening in such an idyllic setting made unforgettable memories. About a mile out to sea was an outcrop of rock rising majestically and timeless out of an azure sea and was known as the Mewstone.

Having read Enid Blyton’s Famous Five stories, I felt certain this was the type of place upon which she based her stories. To sit perched high above the cliff face on a perfect summer’s evening, overlooking the Mewstone was truly a memorable experience.

There was one evening we found ourselves at the bottom of a pillar of rock which rose vertically to a fair height. It was triangular shape with one edge jutting seaward. We both looked at the rock and then to each other, we were both thinking the same, the message was telepathic, a race to the top. We both chose our path and started climbing instantly. We both instantly lost sight of each other as we were on opposite sides; I climbed furiously and soon reached the top, I raised my head above the plateau only to see Mike’s grinning face, laughing at the dead heat situation.

I reached for a rock to heave myself up to the plateau which formed the summit. As I heaved the piece of rock came away in my hand and I slowly rolled backward into free fall. I think I did a somersault on the way down as I hit my back on a rock jutting out, I landed in the same spot from which I had started from, asking myself somewhat stupidly if I was alright. The next thing I knew Mike was by my side asking the same question, I don’t know who looked the worse, him or me? I can only imagine his face when saw me disappear, and what in turn thought he was going to find at the bottom of the stack. Apart from bleeding from a few cuts and bruises I was OK. Mike, in the best tradition lit me a cigarette and propped me up against a rock. All’s well that ends well!

At the end of our evening we would return in the failing light to his home where his mother would invite me in for a bite to eat. There in the cosy kitchen we would tuck in to tomato sandwiches laced with salt, washed down with a cup of hot sweet tea. I have eaten tomatoes in many different guises but I have never tasted anything quite as good as those sandwiches. It was on such a night I was in the kitchen standing at rest, somewhat foolishly I had my hands on the muzzle of my air rifle with the butt resting on my foot. All of sudden there was the sound of a sharp crack, followed by a searing pain in my hand. The gun had slipped off my foot and gone off. I had shot myself!
In no time at all I was passing out, people gathered round not knowing what the heck had happened. Someone, Mr Gibson I think, held out a glass of whisky and urged me to take a swig. I have often seen such a scene in a film at the cinema, but for some reason always doubted the effect of the miraculous revival of the unfortunate person requiring the treatment. I gulped down the contents of the glass, and to my amazement pulled myself round in a trice. No more will I doubt the effectiveness of alcohol on the shocked system. I must have been driven back to my home where, as it happened, my aunt and uncle were staying with us for their holiday. After all the explanations, my uncle took me to the hospital where an X-ray revealed the position of the offending pellet. It was lodged under the skin of my hand, another quarter of an inch would have seen it straight through, as it was, I had to have it cut out and stitched. I think I slept well that night.

The times I spent with Mike in those idyllic surrounds were to be for ever imprinted in my mind; they have remained with me over all these years.