Barum bids farewell to the Multi-Storey

I have to say it was with mixed emotions that we all, down at the Marshal's lunch club, greeted the news of the demolition of the multi-story carpark. Work started on Monday to tear the ailing structure down and when I passed by on Thursday morning the demolition was well and truly underway. The building is riddled with that concrete cancer and apparently the harsh winters of recent years have made it's condition terminal and so the decision was made to reduce it to a single level car-park and add additional parking at Seven Brethren Bank sooner rather than later. We all agreed that a redundant car park is not what Barum needs at this moment, especially when there are so many audacious plans afoot to have more visitors flocking to the town with the Barum is a must... campaign and the ensuing TV adverts. A reduction in car parking capacity would be potentially disastrous so grudgingly we recognised the Council's plans to maintain adequate parking spaces in the town centre were well thought out . However, for a lot of townsfolk it's passing will be mourned as many people have treasured memories of the place. as it was a spot where us true locals did our first courting back in the day. I remember after many a night out at Tempo Disco, now Club Toko, taking a couple of maids up to the top deck to woo them as we looked out over the Barnstaple skyline, the looming silhouette of Codden hill and the twinkling of the Huntshaw Cross TV aerial in the distance and we'd stay a while to see the dawn rise above the spires of the town.  Of course this was way before they plonked the Hardaway Head tax office in front of it and spoilt the view. Wes Twardo was telling me how as teenagers they'd all be in there prizing anything they could from the parked cars and selling it on to a local garage owner for spares. Cheeky buggers. Anne Carwood remembers the lurid vd posters they used to have in the toilets the memory of which I can can recall vividly to this day. It almost put me off me pint. Charlie Street then went on to tell us that if he couldn't find his eldest boy Wayne of an evening he'd always knew to have a look in the men's down there as odds on he'd be in there along with all the other glue sniffers and pill poppers. Of course let's not forget that this was the first place in the town to install automatic hand blowers, dryers, which as I recall caused quite a stir at the time and provided hours of entertainment. Ah happy days.

I have to say though that once again we bid farewell to another iconic Barum landmark and although the town centre parking situation had to be addressed I think it a shame that more wasn't done to preserve this structure. As to my mind it really was a marvellous example of late sixties British municipal architecture a style which may not be to everyones fancy but still it does hold great social and historical significance. I was convinced of this by Annie's Godson's boyfriend who is an architect and had popped in to the pub to catch up on local gossip. I later read in the Gazette that this initial stage of the demolition is a part of the Queen Street, Boutport Street regeneration plan which is somewhat bleddy ironic given that the multi-storey was actually erected as part of a previous rather ambitious and largely unbuilt exercise in visionary urban planning. Back in the late sixties the town was to be remodelled as a brave new world of ring roads, shopping centres, public piazzas, elevated walkways and verdant gardens, all formed from  highly functional and uniformly visual concrete. A blueprint for the 21st Century. I remember seeing the plans laid out in the Athenaeum and at the time it all looked like a very utopian futuristic marvel,  they had even depicted little hover cars zooming about. In the short term I think it was just a fancy notion to make the town look more like Stevenage or Plymouth. The multi-storey, the civic centre and the leisure centre remain the only testament to that vision. This is probably a good thing because if they'd used the same dodgy concrete and gone any further with the plan, Barum would now be crumbling into the river.

School's out at St Michael's

So with all hopes of a rescue plan dashed it turns out that St Michals will not be opening it's gates up this term and has closed down. Not that I, being a passionate supporter of state education am too upset by this state of affairs.
To tell you the truth I haven't really given the place much thought over the past few years. That is until a few weeks back when Me and Anne Cawood and the dug were coming back from an afternoon hoicking some logs out of young Gunny's woods out over Chittlehamolt way. He had been clearing some ash. Now that is a lovely bit of wood for burning, so it would have been foolish not to take him up on his offer of a few hundred-weight.  I thought we'd make a day of it and take a drive out to Chittlehampton first off as I wanted to take a look at St Uriths church due to the fact I have lately developed a keen interest in North Devon's Celtic Saints and Annie, being a Swimbridge maid, just like the unfortunate Urith, was only too happy to oblige. Of course it was also a good excuse to pop into The Bell have a drop or two and share one of their fine roast dinners. You'd be foolish not to if ever you are out that way. Suitably fed and watered we jaloped on down the Mole Valley to Meethe Barton. A lovely spot.  On the way back with darkness upon us and a mist setting in up there on the ridgeway we could hardly see the road ahead I couldn't quite place exactly where we were. The clouds towered above us like hellish mountains and we seemed to be driving along a precipice delicately balanced above perilous canyons and at every turn in the road I saw grey boney hands looming up out of the verges grasping the night sky. It was quite an experience made even more surreal by Annie playing Lady Gaga on the stereo and the dog barking along. It was all rather thrilling, although I'd rather have been listening to Hawkwind. After another  wrenching twist in the road up ahead I saw some lights in the sky fuzilly through the mist. Initially, I thought it must be a lit up Missisipi steamboat on the river or someone had gone and parked a Bridgewater carnival float in a field, although as we approached  through the gloaming they all came into focus and a large house set in it's own grounds lit from all angles became apparent. It looked quite spectacular. A stately pleasure dome, a golden palace, perhaps the Taw Taj Mahal. I just couldn't fathom it. As we descended out of the mist, alongside Codden Hill I was able to get me bearings especially when we found ourselves on the A377 just outside Bishops Tawton. It then became profanely obvious that this brilliant vision was in fact Tawstock Court home of St Michael's School. I must say that someone has done a proper job of illuminating it at night as it took on truly magnificent aspect.

As I was relating our trip out to the Marshals Lunch Club the news broke that the school was closing down. Now, of course that set us all to thinking about the place. We all agreed that it was a bleddy odd sort of place, isolated and yet only a mile or so from the town. The fact is theses days you rarely saw the pupils in their salmon pink uniforms out and about and not one of us knew of anyone who actually went there. Not surprising in the least, seeing as you have pay for the privilege. Well not exactly true as we all know the Squire and apparently he had been there for a time back in the fifties. However, when I pressed him about it, his recollections were more of the Dotheboys Hall variety rather than the Goodbye Mister Chips. Cold comfort sort of place. Infact,  Ex Minister for Defence Tom King, Baron King of Bridgewater  turns out to be an old boy. Well, fancy that.

Class 3B St Michael's School 1962

I must say as a youngster I do remember getting up to no good in Tawstock Woods and coming across the establishment. I recall peering through the trees at a clearing where stood this large whitewashed mansion with manicured lawns, a mini-golf course and a swimming pool. All bathed in a strange unnatural metallic light. It all looked real enough but fake at the same time. Hyperreal I reckon you could call it. Like a film set. I also took notice of the group of strange looking boys meandering about. To a boy they were all blond, extremely pale skinned almost see through and looked remarkably alike. Their faces shared the same joyless expression and their movements were uniformly mechanical. I was so struck by these creepy looking kids I made sure I kept clear of the place.
However, a few years later I was pulling salmon out of the river under cover of the Lake bank when I realised I was being watched. I turned away from snaffling a fish in a feed sack and looked up from the waters edge. In the pale dawn light I saw three lads of markedly different heights but all with the striking but somewhat haunted nordic look their electric blue eyes pierced the twilight as they stared down at me. I straightened meself up and bade them good morninng they peered at me down in the mud looked at each other gave a few haughty sniffs and trotted off back over the plain to the school.  Bleddy odd.