Budleigh Past and Present

Oysters! Wonderful to see them in their cages, fresh and full of deep sea taste that hits you as you gurgle down that mixture of brine and soft fish flesh which many people find disgusting. I love oysters but, as with all shellfish, a dead or contaminated one can put you off eating crustaceans for life. I first got a taste for them when staying in the Vendée on the west coast of France, where you could and I hope still can buy them direct from the producers' shacks. But a 60th birthday dinner years later at one of London's most reputable restaurants turned a celebration into a digestive catastrophe when I chose oysters for the first course. So seeing them fresh and cared for in these pictures illustrating the work done by Americorps volunteers makes me keener than ever to cross the Atlantic to Cape Cod and taste this aspect of life in Budleigh Salterton's sister-town of Brewster. The volunteers were working for the town's Department of Natural Resources and I'm grat...