Peaculiar story from Brewster















Pea plants: better grown in the garden than in your lung

Every so often one's quiet little home town becomes for a few days the focus of the world's media. It happened to Budleigh Salterton in March this year with those tragic images flashed around the globe of the poor starfish, washed up in their thousands on our pebble beach for some mysterious reason as I recorded at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2010/03/starring-role-for-budleigh_4295.html

I never did discover the true reason for their demise. Was it really an appetite for Budleigh mussels, as the Environment Agency suggested? Or had the sex-starved little creatures planned a great big orgy on the beach, part of which is set aside as a naturist zone? The headlines got really quite lurid, culminating in a horrid story of how they ended up in a Chinese takeaway. http://services.devon24.co.uk/FORUMS/DEVON24/CS/forums/2059251/ShowPost.aspx

This time, it's the turn of our American sister-town of Brewster to be in the spotlight with the extraordinary story of 75-year-old Ron Sveden's lung "tumor" which turned out to be a pea sprout. Doctors had originally thought that the dark mass revealed by an X-ray after Mr Sveden's symptons of heavy coughing could only be malignant and discovered the truth only after a bronchoscope was used to investigate the lung. After successful surgery to remove the pea sprout the patient has apparently recovered well, which is a happier conclusion than the story of the starfish.

Well, that story appeared not just in Massachusetts media but as a news item published in a newspaper which I learnt appears in 17 languages in 33 countries across five continents. Brewster could well by now be even more famous than Budleigh Salterton. The best part of the story is that it's got me blogging again after a long silence which I have to blame on the fine weather and the call of the garden.














Now that I've finished planting all the rhododendrons that I'd been dreaming about before I relocated to an acidic soil area I'm dabbling with fruit-growing. But of course things like blueberries are bird-magnets. So building my DIY fruit cage, made out of recycled material, has been yet another time-consuming but enjoyable project which has kept me off the keyboard. Our British summer arrived a few days ago, so you should be hearing from me more regularly.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WW2 100 – 3 July 1941 – ‘Our beloved son’: Private Stanley John Holloway (1914-41) 12th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment

Image
Continued from 11 June 1941 ‘A German platoon fired a salute of honour over the grave’ FLYING OFFICER PETER HAROLD HOWARD PRITCHARD (1921-41)   https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/11/ww2-75-11-june-1941-german-platoon.html   Image credit: www.FindaGrave.com Stanley’s sad death at the age of 27 stirred various thoughts in me when I first read about it. He is not listed on Budleigh Salterton’s War Memorial, yet his grave is in St Peter’s Burial Ground on Moor Lane. His family were not local, yet he seems to have been killed while engaged in the highly hazardous work of protecting Budleigh against invasion.   The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records him as a member of the 12 th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment with the Service Number was 5627659. According to the same source, his parents were George and M. Holloway, of Hounslow, Middlesex.   Tackling this WW2 project chronologically as I am, it was clear that Stanley had died on the same day as Private Clifto
Read more

People from the Past: 3. Reg Varney (1916-2008)

Image
Reginald Alfred 'Reg' Varney was an English actor, most notable for his role as a cheerful Cockney bus driver in the 1970s TV sitcom On the Buses . For ten years he lived at Dark Lane House on picturesque Dark Lane in Budleigh Salterton, seen above.  Millions of television viewers remember him with affection. He has been described as belonging to the old school of comedians, with his dislike of much contemporary television and his pride in never using swear words to get a laugh. Varney was born on 11 July 1916 in Canning Town, which was then part of Essex but is now part of East London. His father worked in a rubber factory in Silvertown and he was one of five children who grew up in Addington Road, Canning Town. He was educated at the nearby Star Lane Primary School in West Ham and after leaving school at 14, he worked as a messenger boy at the Regent Palace Hotel, pictured above.  
Read more

A home that Hatchard-Smith built: Lavender House

Image
Lavender House, one of no less than 50 houses in Budleigh Salterton designed by Hatchard-Smith   Instantly recognisable with their red and white decoration and their front doors set within brick arches, the houses built by architect William Hatchard-Smith (1887-1987) are still sought after and appreciated by their owners for their elegance and comfort, their sturdy construction and their attention to practical detail. Plans for one of the houses designed by Hatchard-Smith Lavender House, on Moorlands Road , is a four-bedroomed detached family residence built by Hatchard-Smith in the late 1920s when it was originally named Lavenderhay.   Set within what are described as beautifully landscaped gardens of approximately an acre it has recently undergone an extensive refurbishment programme while retaining much of the original charm and character. The stained glass memorial in Budleigh Sa
Read more