Starducks

Blimey with this run of posts on the natural world and all creatures great and small you could be mistaken for thinking that I've turned into James Herriot or at least Trevor Beer! I fear I must make one more observation on the natural world in North Devon, I'll think I'll leave the Yeo Vale ostrich for another day, and this concerns Star the duck.

Star - a dapper little fella

To the people of Barum I'm sure *Star* needs no introduction but for my wider readership, "Hello Slovenia!" he is an Indian Running Duck, a breed of duck which actually comes from Asia not India and does not waddle it jogs, who has made quite a name for himself by pattering about the High Street while his handler collects money in a bucket ostensibly for the North Devon Children's Hospice. Of course, Star doesn't make his own way into town, he is driven in by his owner who takes him out of the boot of his car and lets him patter up Holland Walk to Red Lion cross as I call it or outside Etams as the spot is more commonly known, where he is usually to be found. And I can tell you on any given day he can draw quite a crowd sometimes even bigger than the awe-struck one that the bloke in the market who demonstrates the flying toy helicopters pulls in and that's saying something.  I have to admit Star, with his little bow-tie, does look like a rather dapper little fellow and the kids love him. The adults, local and visitor alike, will stop and have a chat with his handler, Barrie a rheumy eyed, florid faced chummy sort of chap He isn't a local and has one of those odd sort of Northern accents which I find hard to place. Stoke it could be.
Over the past few years he has achieved celebrity status and has appeared several times across the local media. Recently,  I see that he has become a regular at the Old Courthouse Inn over at Chulmleigh. Now, I haven't been out there for a few years. Previously, you could come across the pair of them out at the Westleigh Inn.  It turns out Star, and I suspect Barrie, likes a drop or two of ale. They don't seem to mind this sort of thing out Chulmleigh way as I caught the landlord was on BBC Spotlight and seemed very pleased to have his custom.  However, I must say,  I don't think that I'd be too happy if I was sitting in there quietly reading Devon Life and a duck came waddling or running along the bar and stuck his bill in my pint, not at over £3.00 a pop. Takes all sorts I suppose. Star's media presence hasn't all been fun and games as he first came to prominence over the small matter of whether or not he required a license for street trading. The Council said he did and Barrie was adamant that he did not and was beyond the reach of such law as he was collecting for a children's charity. I'm not sure what the upshot of all this was but I did here that he may have to use a different sort of bucket. Anyway, whatever 'twas I'm glad to report that Star is still out and about. If you were being picky he could be viewed as a health hazard as just the other day I saw him projectile vomiting a sticky soup of partly digested meal worms and duck bile right outside the entrance to WH Smith which anyone could have slipped up upon. Obviously he'd had one drop of ale too many the night before.

Enjoying a pint of St Austell Doom Bar

All of this has put my mind to thinking about the presence of animals in town centres in days gone by.  Suffice it to say it would not have been unusual to see flocks of ducks and geese being led through Barum on their way to market especially at this time of year fattened up for the seasonal feasting. I remember as a bey seeing ducks in pens down the cattle market and doubtless the poor little buggers fate wasn't to grace an ornamental pond in someones garden. Also seeing as we are surrounded by rivers and wetlands and are on the migratory routes for geese such birds are a very common sight in the area. Infact, recently I saw a family of mallards happily waddling up the High Street between Warrens and Iceland no doubt they were enticed by the pasty crumbs falling off peoples coats.
Of course in the Middle Ages dancing bears were a common sight on our streets and in some places they can still be seen. I just read that one was reportedly seen in Spain quite recently. Well it's similar, an animal in an unusual setting, out of water so to speak, doing activities while money was collected. I don't think people would have a problem with that if the bear trainer had a license and it was all in aid of a good cause.Thinking about it I suppose this could be the origin of Pudsey the Children In Need mascot just back then it was a real bear thrilling the kids rather than a deputy shop manager in a manky yellow fur fabric onesie. A few years back in Spain, again, I was tickled by the organ grinders and their monkeys' with their fezs and little cups turning tricks strung out along Las Ramblas in Barcelona. Itinerant dog entertainment acts have also been popular in the past I was watching a Mexican film I got from the library a BFI classic and it had two little chihuahua dogs dressed in mini sombreros and ponchos dancing on their hind legs to a blind bloke playing the trumpet they seemed to draw quite quite a crowd and I'll vouch for the fact that it was lot more entertaining than the Big Issue seller's two great hounds lying comatose outside M&S. (I never can quite fathom what the bloke hopes to gain from this as they really are a couple of mangey beasts and the generally held suspicion although to my mind unfounded that he dopes them up probably does his trade more harm than good). Mind you in the film there was a dwarf going around cutting open peoples bags. A word of caution these animals can also be used as decoys. So the next time you are drawn towards such a spectacle, bears, ducks or monkeys or even dogs hold on to your shopping to make sure no one has it away with your beans!

A dancing chihuahua souvenir from Mexico

 Blimey, I remember being harassed by a capuchin monkey over at Barnstaple Fair. It just jumped out and me and started clambering up me leg, his fingers and toes were like little needles and he had them all over the place in me pockets he went all up over me back and me head. He was a lively little fella to say the least with his stripey jumper and little bowler hat but he stunk to high heaven and when a bloke with a camera suddenly appeared I gave him short shrift as buggered if I was going to pay for the privilege of being photographed with the malodorous tyke.
So although in this day and age Star the duck is considered something of a charming curiosity he is infact part of a tradition of the commercial exploitation of animals in our towns and cities which goes back into the realms of history and maybe should be consigned to that place. I think I'll raise this as a topic for debate down at The Reform Thursday lunch club. I reckon I know what Annie Cawood will say on the matter as Star had a go at her dog as they walked by a few weeks back and she wasn't happy.

Gulls Gone Wild

Herring Gull (Larus argentatus). I feel duly obliged to report the strange behaviour of seagulls this summer. The Royal Mail down in Cornwall have suspended a round due to persistent seagull attack and the other week I noticed a story on the BBC about a woman in Kent who has taken to wearing a collander on her head in order to prevent injury from large dive bombing flocks . Now, I  have always been led to believe gulls will flock come into land when conditions on the coast are stormy but this year they don't seem to be anywhere close to the sea. Here at Ashford Strand you'd be hard pressed to see a gull but the other night I was up at Sticklepath and there were a giant flock in the sky circling and diving screeching soon to be joined by many others. I was thinking that this must be a portent for something as such unusual behaviour amoungst species has always over milennia been taken as a sign of foreboding. I must say the other other evening their dark shapes and infernal squawking framed against the back drop of  heavy thunderous skies, humidity and the clouds enveloping Codden Hill in a languoruous grey mist while a low setting sun in the clear skies out to sea gave Western fringe a haunting pink hue, put me in mind that the end days are upon us. At last! I wasn't a great mood due to having lost my library card. This rather apocalyptic outlook was compounded by an article in NDJ that claimed 150 dead gulls have been found floating on Whislandpound Reservoir. South West Water assured the public that this number of corpses would not be a sufficient amount to taint the drinking water supply. A load of feathers coming through the tap. Mind you knowing SWW they'd try and stick a surcharge on it if they could, an extra £10 a month to cover getting feathers out of the filters. If you are down that way you can't fail but notice that the pitched roofs of Pottington Industrial Estate are also flecked with the bodies of dead birds. Outside Co-Op the road is littered with the squashed carcasses of birds that have been run over.  Strangely, there seemed to be a marked increase in the distribution of feathers in and around the Chelsea Quilt Factory. The grass verge outside looked like the old crows who congregate out there during fag breaks had had a ginormous pillow fight. I hope they haven't been scooping them up and slipping them into in their 10 tog duvets. The end days are upon us. Of course, if you were marooned out at sea in a leaky old boat you'd be glad to see gulls as they are a sign of land ahoy plus you could trap them with your last morsel of dry bread and eat them just as they did in the book Survive the Savage Sea. So it's not all bad.

Sam the seagull pilfering Doritos

Sam knows what he likes and how to get it!

Fortunately, before I headed for the hills and made for the bolt hole, Science has lent some clarification to the phenomena. Apparently, it's all to do with a change of diet. The gulls have been tempted inland by flying ants which are evidently more appetising than Ilfracombe Pier fish and chips. Although I did see one gull outside the library attempting to snaffel a small girl's KFC and I don't know what was worse the girl screaming at the seagull or the seagull screeching or the mother mother squawking "Oh I swear to god your doing my head it it's only a bloody seagull"!
I do recall in the dredging days not being best pleased when heading out over the bar with a nice leeky pie that mother made me hungrily sitting down on deck to eat it and no sooner than I had got it out of me bag a bleddy great gull swooped down and took the lot, grease proof paper and all.
However, these responses to a pesky gull could be considered measured compared to the one instigated by a small boy on Woolacombe beach who responded to one unfortunate bird's greedy intentions upon his lunch by beating it to death with a stick. What a lovely little chap he must be. Potential serial killer some might say! Apparently, before horrified onlookers his family hastily gathered up the juvenile aviancidal maniac and slunk off in a Ford Focus. Anyway, these flying ants contain formic acid which makes the seagull drunkenly dozy hence their flopping about in the road and drowning in reservoirs and despite the fact that they are very intelligent creatures they can't get enough of them. Sounds familiar.

Seagulls! Seagulls!

I've always thought the seagull an odd sort of bird and tend to think of it as a relatively new species. You don't see seagulls on ancient coins, neither in frescos nor in heraldry. Infact, Brighton and Hove Albion FC, 'The Seagulls' are the only institution, municipality etc. I know that holds them in high regard and considers them emblematic. Also despite their ubiquity  throughout the world they don't have a great profile in arts and culture. I suppose there is The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, but that was an albatross; technically not a gull and of course The Seagull by Chekov. If I remember rightly,  after helping out with lights in a production of the play at the New Theatre up at the Tech directed by Chester Lovering a few years ago now, the titular bird is shot dead by a moody suicidal playwright and offered up as some sort of love token. It then gets stuffed. Russian symbolism I was told by one of the cast. Discussing the matter down at The Reform Annie Cawood fell into an eighties reverie after adding the band A Flock of Seagulls to the mix and Wes Twardo put forward the book Jonathan Livingstone Seagull of which he is a great fan. Eagerly telling us that this piece of literature has given the world the maxim "If you love someone set them free". Now, I've heard that one a few times over the years not least that bloody Sting song.

A Flock of Seagulls

To my mind, feral ones flapping in wheelie bins apart, you only have a look closely at the herring gull and watch it's movements for a while to realise that they really are quite beautiful creatures, just as cute as a duck and as smart as a Collie.. The fledglings are a bit gawky but an adult perched upon a post, standing sentinel, say on Appledore Quay is a beautiful thing to behold and truly emblematic of our part of the world.

There's more to the mole than meets the eye

A few weeks back an unusual discovery was made at an undisclosed location in North Devon an albino mole! Dave Archer, a fella I don't really know but I've heard of him, he's from out over Winkleigh way made his discovery while carrying out his work as a mole catcher on some grassy sward in Barum. I was taken with this story because as a youngster I embarked on my very own mole catching enterprise and have always maintained a keen interest in the creatures  although I must admit I don't ever recall seeing an albino one.

Dave Archer shows off his albino mole

 It all started  out at Granfer's farm out West Down when I was just starting secondary school Mr Spurry the local rat and mole catcher out that way was hanging up his traps and had decided to take his dogs and ferrets over to Morthoe and take up the parish rabitting license evidently believing that that netting, ferreting and lamping would prove to be a more lucrative activity than poking about for moles. However, inspired by the Old Boy's tales of his own mole catching endeavours and the small fortune he claimed to have made I had a word with Granfer  and told him that in my free time I would only be too happy to extricate the little creatures from his silage grass fields for the princely sum of a half a crown a mole. Molehills are not a great addition to the silage mix as they makes it too earthy and gives the cows belly ache.
Initially, I attempted to poke them out using long bendy hazel poles as to be honest Spurry's traps looked a little too lethal and also it took me a while to fathom out how to use them eventually as the stick poking exercise was little more than a mole prodding exercise in harassment and literally a stab in the dark I  applied myself to getting the hang of the traps basically a sort of tubular framed mouse trap which was inserted into the ground along one of their runs and covered in earth and then flagged up with a bit of twine on a stick. I won't go into how we retrieved the unfortunate little buggers as I reckon it may upset contemporary sensibilities but I have to say that after a time I soon developed quite a nose for catching them.

A mendicant mole catcher of old

Of course back then I wasn't the only lad pursuing such a lucrative sideline and at school after the weekends we would always be exchanging mole trappers tales. The ones that got away, the biggest. fattest velvetiest or deepest. That sort of thing I remember one of the older lads in particular Claude Passmore his name was who lived out Landkey way gained a great deal of our respect and gained bragging rights by his trapping feats. He also gave me an idea as to how I could garner a little profit from our activities as he told us all how he kept back his most prized skins and was making himself a mole skin waistcoat. I found this amazing and by chance I came across a notice in Farmer's Weekly advertising moleskin breeches, infact there was more than one loads of them. So, maybe Claude was onto something here. So I thought I'd follow his lead and make myself a pair of them however, I soon discovered my stitching wasn't up to it after laboriously making a half a leg and not being too impressed by the results. I decided to ask mother if she could run me up a pair on her Singer peddle sewing machine contraption. When I plonked me bag full of prime skins on the kitchen table I soon found out to the cost of my hearing that mother wasn't having any of it  and she heaved the heaving bag out of the back door and halfway down the lane. Unbowed by this setback I had another brainwave I decided to take the by now rather smelly and ripening pelts into the furriers in Boutport Street as I was sure they'd know what to do with them and were bound to have some processes for cleaning them up and I was also certain that  they'd be glad of the business as I had noted in passing that they never seemed to do much trade. As I seem to recall their window display consisted of a single rather musty looking fur hat on a stick. So I turned up down there and they were obviously so stunned by the potential increase in their revenues that they eagerly stuffed a five pound in my pocket and marched me out the door.  I was under the impression that they were keen for me to go and trap some more and keep the pelts coming. With the benefit of hindsight and in the light of further events I guess this wasn't necessarily the case! I think I'd started to try my luck a little when I decided to diversify my range, I had become aware of the craze for Davy Crocket style hats, and managed to procure a dead mink, several squirrels, an unfortunate fox and what I thought was a beaver but turned out to be a a large brown water rat. I think this may have been the last straw and my relationship with that particular business seemed to sour as I'd turn up and they always seemed to be closed. Although I was left with the distinct impression that they were in there. Evidently, they had found a new supplier but were too kind to heart my feelings in the end I got the message. Funny thing was I never saw any sign of the end result of our arrangement I thought at least a pair of gloves or a chic moleskin purse might make it onto the shelf but till the time the shop shut a few years later all they seemed to sell was the musty looking old hat on the stick.
I am glad to say that like most of my ventures the mole skin thing was only a passing phase and the novelty of traipsing through dung filled fields and carting about bags of putrefying pelts wore off and although the money was good, it failed to impress the maids no matter how you spun it. These days I have a great affection for the creatures so much so that I am advocate of leaving the little blighters alone. If I had a lawn I think I'd fail to see the point it in maintaining it at such a pristine level at the cost of murdering a few moles. The thing is the mole isn't actually where the mound is he is long gone and if you consider these piles unsightly you only have to remove them with a spade. There is actually evidence to suggest that moles are good for the lawn. I have put this to the Mole Abatement Society and they got back to me stressing how keen they were to promote the humane trapping of these enterprising little creatures and they sent me a fascinating booklet on the history of this ocularly challenged mammal.
One indispensable fact I learned was to do with their contribution to the course of English history and how they came to be venerated by the Jacobins after William of Orange fell from his horse and died after it stumbled upon a mole hill. These Catholic opponents of the Protestant Dutch king were so delighted by this turn of events and the unfortunate demise of the upholder of the faith that at their clandestine meetings they would raise a toast to "the little gentleman in black velvet waistcoat".

William III of Orange before his mole related mishap

These days, although not adverse to a spot of roadkill and I'll take a rabbit, pigeon or pheasant for the pot if offered and incidentally as I found out to me own cost moles are not very tasty, I've stopped shooting meself except at targets and only do a spot of seasonal fishing off of the rocks or setting me night-lines. These days and probably in some sort of repentance for my bloody past I am of the opinion that to be a countryman you don't have to feel the need to see any non productive creature in the countryside as being a pest. I can see the need for culling in some instances and people do tend to have  a rather persuasive argument for it but the idea of killing creatures for sport or even worse in my book to keep your bleddy lawn or golf course clean and tidy does not sit well with me.

Cheers to the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat

A Rare Old Skirmish

Eddie, second from the right,and Beryl taking up a pike stance

Last weekend I was very fortunate to meet up with an old mate from years back who had returned to returned to Barum after having spent many years exiled in Gloucestershire.
Eddie Fisher and his wife Beryl had come down from Stroud for the weekend in order to take part in the Sealed Knot re-enactment of Barum's final surrender to the Parliamentary forces of General Fairfax in 1646. At the close of the English Civil War the illustrious Parliamentarian commander and his men had swooped into the town from their redoubt up at Five Barrows above the Poltimore Arms As every Barnstaple schoolchild knows the town had declared for Parliamet at the start of the war but may of the local gentry weren't having it and subsequently took over the town to impose Royalist rule. However, as soon as their backs were turned and they'd gone off to fight bigger battles up country the townsfolk, refusing to subjugated under the King's rump went and declared for Parliament again before once more being forced out after another internecine ding dong. This happened three times when all's said and done and the scars of these skirmishes can still be seen today in the musket ball holes in the door of the Penrose Almshouses in Litchdon Street. Of course, like us all,  Eddy had grown up with these stories from an early age and had in due course developed a keen interest in all things Civil War and I do remember at school in history class he always came top when this was the topic. As I recall he was also pretty good on the Wars of the Roses and the who's who of the Hundred Years War. He could tell his Black Prince from his Princes in the Tower something which I have never been quite able to fathom. Over the years, unlike many of us whose interest in the subject was only passing, Eddy, as he delved further and further into this period of British History, began to internalise all this information. So much so that when he was in his late teens he developed an alter-ego and began rather oddly to look at the world from the point of view of a seventeenth century Roundhead seargent pikeman called Zachary Dimmock. In any conversation on the topic of the day whether it be Ted Heath joining the European Union,  Lesley Judd, Prince Charles' girlfriends or power cuts and the three day week we'd always have to hear what Zachary's opinion on the matter would have been. Fortunately, Eddy's sanity was saved or rather became less questionable by a modish cultural development of the 1970's that was linked with a contemporary rustic ruralist revival which created an environment where many people, specially in this part of the world, didn't give a second look to blokes dressed up in historic garb festooned in belts and buckles with dodgy headgear wielding big sticks. For some it was morris men or mummer performers for others it was historical re-enactment. Eddy, inspite of it's Royalist connotations became a leading light in the local Sealed Knot, membership of which had flourished during this time. However, old Eddy had to take it all just that one step further. I recall him dressing up in full pike man garb and standing outside a gentleman's boutique in Holland Walk called The Baron berating the owner who liked to dress rather flouncilly with cuffs and frills, bright waistcoat and velvet breeches topped off rather unfortunately in this instance with a goatee beard and a lustrous mane of long curly dark hair about his commercial pact with Satan and his lascivious relationship with the' "Jezabels" down at the Mayfair Uni-sex hair salon. This however wasn't the course of action which would seal his legendary status in the wider re-enactment fraternity especially amoung those of the Roundhead persuasion. Nope, this came with his more audatious escapade in 1976 when as a Roundhead Captain, turns out Zachary had been promoted, he would lead a march up from his muster station at Torrington Station now the Puffing Billy, to take on the Torrington Cavaliers during their nationally celebrated bonfire re-enactment of the burning of Torrington church. He marched up to Torrington Common and on through the crowd at the head of his band and brandishing his pike he threw down the gauntlet to all around, offering to take em all on in the name of God and Parliament. Of course this was viewed by the massed spectators as all part of the entertainments and when no one seemed that keen to take him up on his request and with the flames of the bonfire singeing his tabard he had to beat a hasty retreat to the car park. The following year he attempted the same thing however there must have been a spy in his camp as the Torrington Cavaliers got wind of his plans and were laying in wait and as Eddy sallied forth into enemy territory the Royalst forces at Torrington ambushed him, disarmed him, debagged him and then by sheer force of numbers carried him aloft into Torrington Square where they read out a decree banishing him from the town for life. They then led him through the crowds down to Taddiport where they threw him in the river. Of course this was all done with typical cavalieresque theatrics, just a bit of fun and they did have someone at the ready in a boat beneath the bridge to fish him out, but Eddy was not amused and even an interview on Westward TV, that I recall was done with a young Judy Spiers, failed to placate his anger over the Torrington mob's rewriting of history. Unbowed, he wrote and printed his own pamphlet outlining his grievances over what he called a "perversion of historical fact" which he would try and hand out to people outside the Barnstaple Guildhall of a Saturday afternoon in an attempt to recruit the townsfolk to his cause and hoping to assemble a sizable force to take Torrington once and for all on the occassion of the next Royalist commemoration. However, as he was stood right outside The Tuns many people gave him a wide berth as they mostly thought he was a deranged. Infact, Eddie was moving further to the fringes of dissent and had become a Ranter. This only led to more upset and in the end he forced himself into self imposed exile and moved to his mother in law's place up in Bradford upon Avon and latterly Stroud at the very heart of re-enactment community. Here he thought his endeavours to establish historical accuracy would be more appreciated. As he pointed out to me a few years later if you fancy turning your hand to the Monmouth Rebellion just turn left and you can be at Sedgemoor in a matter of minutes, take a right turn and sticking with the Civil War, a few miles up the road you've got Tewkesbury and Worcester only a few miles on after that.

The firing of a fusillade at the statue of the Stuart Queen Anne

I am glad to say that these days Eddy's zeal has somewhat diminished although he still takes an active part in proceedings  he has dropped the more puritan aspects of his lifestyle and only has recourse to adopt the persona of Zachary Dimmock when they go into schools and give talks to the kids. However he has felt partially vindicated over the last few years with Barum's recent commemorations of the towns surrender and also one the re-enactment they do out at Arlington Court where the people of Barum seized the Royalist armoury that was stashed there.  These days and with a lot of water under the bridge and bygones being bygones he's happy to show his face in the town albeit half covered in a hefty looking Roundhead helmet. Last weekend in recognition of his contribution to the cause it was touching to witness his greeting with a triumphant drum roll beat out by his  fellow re-eneactors as he took up his signature pike stance on the steps of Queen Anne's Chambers. A volley of shots was then fired at the statue of the former Stuart Queen and Granddaughter of the unfortunate Charles I. This was not the first time the statue had received Eddies attentions as I do recall coming out of Chequers one evening back in the day and witnessing him being bundled into the back of a black maria after he'd clambered up their with an axe and had attempted to decapitate it.
It was nice to see Beverly, Eddie's wife,  who was there dressed in full Puritan garb and had set up a little exhibition detailing the role of women as part of the camp train during the Civil War. She seemed particularly up on Sixteenth Century surgical techniques which, from what I can gather, involved a lot of prayer and a big saw. I reckon the Royalist camp train would have been a lot more interesting, plenty of jolly roister doistering, huzzahing and the like.
I explained this to Eddy, as we sat outside the Old Bus Staion over a pint after the smoke had cleared but with the acrid tang of cordite still hanging in the air, how I would have undoubtedly been some sort of republican on a political level but theologically I didn't quite see meself fitting in with the Roundheads being as I am of the old religion. Eddie pointed out excitedly that he had infact always seen me as belonging more to the non-conformist, libertarian wing, the freeborn men who wanted a more equitable society and took to occupying land like the Diggers and the Levelers.Very interesting.
Later on after several pints in the Rolle Quay, a curry and chips from the Indian takeaway in Pilton washed down with a couple of pints of Barum in the Reform and with Eddie and his band still in full costume we all trooped to the Corner House, where I have eventually been re-admitted after me expulsion five years ago due to an exchange of a few ill considered words which served to reignite an old family feud, and I must say we had a cracking evening in there, I've really missed the place.  There were loads of old faces, real Town people, Eddie was surrounded by folk he hadn't seen in years. One of his ex-sister in laws turned up on a hen night and she had a sign round her neck saying "granny of the bride," We were all introduced to his great niece and neice. Of course we all knew Ada! My abiding memory of the evening is Ada dressed up as sixty year old sexy secretaty and Eddy in his full get up dancing on the seats singing along to 'Wonderwall" at the top of their voices. Happy days.

Happy Glampers.....

Old Annie Cawood has just come back from a weekend away with her brother and extended family. Every year the whole lot of them pack up their bags and head off for an annual family reunion somewhere in the British countryside. Over the years they've been all over the place. One year they went as far a field as Buxton in Derbyshire and last year they took over a guest house in Cromer, Norfolk. Miles away that is and very difficult to get to from North Devon. They always like to stay somewhere interesting I hear the guest house was haunted and in Buxton they stayed in a converted cave up on the peaks. This year they decided to stay closer to home, price of fuel and all that and went down to a farm just outside Holsworthy where they hunkered down in some bespoke pods situated in an old quarry. They had a marvelous time inspite of the weather and she assures me that it was all very warm and cosy in the pods. Apparently, so Annie was told by her fellow campers, a couple from Coventry,  this particular farm campsite had previously had a reputation as something of a naturist resort. The couple were obviously disappointed, as they were travelling suspiciously lightly for a weekend away, to find that the farm was under new management and was now orientating itself towards the family market. Fortunately, Annie was able to placate their balked expectations by pointing them in the direction of Bude and the secluded car parks alongside Tamar Lakes where they may have been able to find others seeking robust outdoor activities of a nudish variety. All good clean fun.
Due to the often cited pitiful state of British the farmer has had to diversify and has turned to glamping. Now, I've heard of this activity before, basically it's camping with a duvet thrown in instead of taking along your own damp smelly sleeping bags and I think they are hooked up to the mains. All for 60 pound a night which to my calculating is about ten times what you pay if you bring your own tent up to West Down and forgo a string of fancy fairy lights. I remember Wes Twardo getting very excited a couple of years back when he came across a couple of old military tents at  Pilton Auction Rooms which he snapped up. He popped round to the Reform afterwards and told us about his idea for glamping on his bit of land out at Monkleigh. He was very excited at the prospect of cornering the market for this fad in the North Devon area. After a couple of pints we all went out to the car park where Wes spread out the tents. To me they looked like something Lord Baden Powell might have spent the night in under the stars at some Scout Jamboree in 1911. Wes didn't seem to fussed by this adding that he could spin it as Vintage Glamping. Still they did look quite hardy and Wes was convinced they were just the job.

Wes hoped to spin it as "vintage glamping."

From all accounts the venture was not a startling success Wes has declined to comment on the matter and has obviously filed it away under the heading, "bad job not worth the bother." Word has it he only got one booking from his advert in London Loot and the talk in the Bell Inn was that these London folk weren't too happy with the toilet block which consisted a couple old commodes, picked up from Colin's in Barum Arcade,  set upon a hole in the ground covered in an old bead curtain and a bucket of ajax powder .Although I reckon the final straw came the evening they were all sat round the fireside playing ukuleles and the farmer who Wes rents his field to goes and let loose a load of bullocks in the field  as he was getting fed up with the racket these then duly made a bee line for the encampment. Chaos ensued. So having had enough of these rudimentary facilities and bovine intervention they upped sticks and headed for the relative comforts of the Roundswell Travelodge.
To me this all sounds like another one of these self indulgent lifestyle fads which come and go year in year out and are picked up and bleated about by witless city folk as some kind of life affirming endeavour. They achieve a prominence for a few months in the Sunday supplements before quickly disappearing and a few fortunate people, wily Devonians amoung them, are able to cash in the whims of these pitiful and most fatuous of types. I have observed that this year glamping has come back again and so appears to be quite an enduring activity.

I fail to see the fun in this sort of thing

I can't quite fathom it myself surely the whole point of camping is not having the home comforts you are supposed to sleep on the ground, cook on a calor gas stove or preferably open fire. Put up your tent, gather your wood, set up your camp kitchen, pt the sausages on the griddle and crack open the cider and spend an enjoyable evening gawping at your fellow campers or lying on your back looking up at he stars. Smashing. From time to time I like to take me tent out to Brownsham and camp up on the cliffs. As youngsters Welcome Mouth was a favorite destination where we would have to do a bit of fishing for our supper. I suppose this would be called Wild Camping these days. This year I have a mind to go to North Morte.  To my mind that's the great benefit of living in a holiday area you don't have to go too far to have a break away. Of course that's always been the case, even as kids on our annual family holiday we went from Barnstaple to Croyde a journey of at least ten miles where we would spend a couple of weeks in a large tent, much modified over the years by Mother so it looked like it had been made by a bunch of Bedouins who had found themselves round the back of the Chelsea Quilt factory or Braunds Sailmakers. This was back in the sixties when you were allowed to stick your tent right behind the dunes. Granny and Granfer would pop down with supplies and we'd spend the whole time bellyboarding, hardly ever out of the water we were. The Beach Club's pinball machines provided the only distraction and this was partly financed by an evening collection of Corona bottles from off of the beach and returned to the chip shop for the deposit and a bag of scribbles. Now that's what I call life affirming. Happy Days.

Dateline 1979 - Maggie Thatcher Visits Barum

Mrs Thatcher visiting Shappies

Mrs Thatcher visited Shappies in 1979 and it turns out she later put in a large order for 3000 doors. I suppose when compared to the doors she could have had a better finish but on these sort of occasions, meeting the hairy common man, she was just as wooden! I still remember that day well. I'd been playing table tennis in the leisure centre and was having a can of corona dandelion and burdock in the cafeteria when we were all bundled out by way of the back stairs by plain clothes coppers as her entourage swept into the indoor bowling green. Oh it did cause great excitement in the town. I couldn't abide the woman meself.

Facebook crimewave sweeps North Devon

The other morning I was listening to Matt Woodley on Radio Devon and they were discussing recent statistics that point to a fall in juvenile crime and violent crime as a whole across the county. One of the explanations they put forward for this and that was echoed in the national media was the rise of social media, facebook, twitter etc. and peoples growing engagement with it. Basically, they were saying taht maybe youngsters were preferring to stay in and chat on the internet or hang about gawping at smart phones, tweeting each other rather than necking down bottles of Natch before going out and causing merry havoc. Of course mobile phones and the demise of the phone box have probably led to a reduction or more likely dispersion of crime in our towns and villages as it's customary epi-centre in the community loses it's significance in the lives of rural youth. Even the bus stop has become less accommodating in these financially reduced times. Being a relatively early adopter, for someone of my age and background, and keen advocate of social media this line of thinking took my interest. However, over the past few weeks a succession of stories in the crime columns of our local newspapers do little to suggest that this maybe the case in North Devon.
On a Thursday lunchtime at the Lunch Club,(which is now being held at The Reform due to Annie Cawoods ex-son-in-law Baz Bovey being released from prison and with his cronies taking over the Marshals) we enjoy pouring over the pages of The Gazette and The Journal and they never fail to provide us with a couple of hours of communal interest, anecdote and discussion and we have noted over the last couple of weeks a rash of crime stories have appeared which have cited Facebook as being a partial culprit. Amoungst them there was the bloke in Bideford who smashed up his girlfriend's laptop by throwing it at her after seeing a photo of her with an ex-boyfriend on one of his mates Facebook albums. He didn't like this.

Facebook rage- growing problem in North Devon

This was followed, on the same page I seem to recall, by the sad tale of the unfortunate woman who after receiving poisonous comments on Facebook decided to get blathered and was found at 2.30 am on Bideford Quay in her car a gnashing and a wailing and clearly over the limit. Less pathetically, The Gazette reported a few weeks back how the Venue nightclub's Facebook page had come under sustained attack from cyber trolls who were leaving rather unflattering comments underneath the pretend paparazzi/VIP photos of the club's pouting and gurning clientele. Of course, this caused quite a large amount  of distress as these youngsters look like they take themselves very seriously in their attempts to look exactly the same.

The Venue - Sustained troll attack

It seems to me that rather than some people going out and causing trouble they have shifted their focus and now seem content to provide the catalyst for chaos, offence and upset via pages of social media. This is not reflected in the crime statistics, Of course there are many vulnerable disaffected people out there who sadly need little excuse to fall foul of the law but social media seems to have provided their solicitors with further mitigating circumstances for their actions.
This sort of thing is nothing new I remember Granny Furse telling me about the terrible time Granfer had back before he war when poison pen letters went round the village questioning the contents of the feed for his prized poultry. Some malevolent soul would leave little defamatory notelets around the place, in the pub on the shovehappeny board, on the churchyard gates or tacked to the cricket pitch roller claiming that his bantams were cannibals! This drove Granfer absolutely mazed and he sought solace in the cider. He never got to the bottom of it but of course he had his suspicions and our family have never shopped in the Post Office ever since!

Mid Devon Apostrophe Ban

You couldn't make it up. Bleddy barely literate ingrates down there in the depths of the hinterland.

Mid Devon County Council's(*) Apostrophe Ban

Mind you, fair's fair.  I've always been a little confused as to whether it was Squires Fish and Chip's or Squires's Fish and Chip's, Squire's Fish and Chip or Squires' Fish and Chips We need national guidance on this matter not total disregard.