Lovely Stoke Fleming

A Memory of Stoke Fleming.

We stayed at a clifftop house called Mill Meadow. Once we parked the car behind the wooden double gates, there was a pine-tree lined steep hill that led to the house and then to cliffs. I remember that pine smell when we arrived. From the terraced garden lined with abundant red fuschia hedges in front of the house, led a path down many steps, that got steeper, and led to the small beach. The last few steps were mostly worn away by the sea, and it was a bit of a mission getting down. The beach was an amazing place to explore: there was a waterfall, endless bits of washed up flotsam, mostly wood and not the predominant plastic of today. Back then the cliffs were lined with nesting Herring gulls, but these were gone by the 1980's when my brother and I returned - not sure quite why they left. Our dog Sherry had a lovely time on that beach - all her paws were pink at the end of the holiday, worn clean by the shingle. We could buy untreated, accredited herd milk, from Pooks Dairy - milk came in wide neck bottles with green foil caps. It was a magical place to be for two or three weeks. One summer we saw whales way out in Start Bay - but the locals refused to believe us! We had a Gammages telescope that gave us all the evidence we needed. Over the slate fireplace in the house sat a large model of a Brixham trawler which fascinated me and my brother Tim. One year we took the bailing bucket home - a tiny thing, and returned it the next year, feeling a bit naughty about it. I remember drinking tea on the bench in front of the house, from huge Dartmouth Pottery Polka Dot teacups, and thinking how tea always tastes best outside, especially looking over the glowing sea first thing in the morning. I loved going in to Dartmouth to the market and the bustling harbour town. Happy days.

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