Budleigh Past and Present

VisitBritain is the national tourism agency, responsible for marketing Britain worldwide and developing Britain ’s visitor economy, I read on its website at http://www.visitbritain.org/      A non-departmental public body, funded by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, it works with partners in the UK and overseas to ensure that Britain is marketed in an inspirational and relevant way around the world. So I was naturally curious about a glaring omission on VisitBritain’s Jurassic coast itinerary at http://www.visitbritain.com/en/Jurassic-Coast-walking-itinerary/ Exmouth and Sidmouth Museums are mentioned, but no Fairlynch Museum ! Actually, the website as it stands seems likely to encourage visitors to give Budleigh Salterton a miss altogether. The two attractions listed for our town are the World of Country Life and Bicton Park Botanical Gardens , neither of which are exactly in Budleigh Salterton itself. That got me thinking abou...

Regrettably it's not so often nowadays that I write about affairs on the other side of the pond. But an email from my Massachusetts correspondent the Rev Sarah Clark reminded me that while we were celebrating 60 years of a British triumph in 2012 with our Diamond Jubilee merrymaking, over in the USA they've been commemorating the bicentenary of a messy episode in Anglo-American relations.   There was even a Battle of the Thames which took place in present-day Chatham , Ontario , Upper Canada , in 1813, contrasting with our joyful nautical pageant of a few days ago on London 's great river to honour Queen Elizabeth II.   The above hand coloured lithograph depicts the death of the Native American Tecumseh at the hands of the Kentucky mounted volunteers led by Colonel Richard M. Johnson on 5 October 1813. A leader of the Shawnees, Tecumseh had allied his tribal confederacy with the British. The War of 1812-14, as I lear...