Budleigh Past and Present

  Yes, Budleigh welcomes everyone! Well, the nation finally voted for Brexit; for, in the words of a Hungarian academic who had once taught at the University of Exeter, ‘the comforting Englishness and timeless values of Budleigh Salterton’. Stephen Pogány's article, Budleigh Salterton: Brexit And The Quest For A Mythic England , can be read at https://www.socialeurope.eu/author/istvan-pogany/ Professor Stephen Pogány, pictured above, remembered the fine summer weekends that he had spent with his late wife on the pebbly beach of what he described as our ‘wonderfully retro’ town with its splendidly evocative name.   The article that he published on the world wide web back in June, a few days after the Referendum result, was of course seized on by at least one local journalist, keen to show that Budleigh had made its voice heard in this most unexpected upheaval of the B...

     The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, a painting by the French Huguenot François Dubois (1529–1584)  Elsewhere on this blog I posted my editorial 'Remaining Thoughts', published in the Autumn 2016 Fairlynch Museum newsletter The Primrose.  As I wrote it, I had various things in mind, including the little-known story of East Budleigh's Huguenot refugee Daniel Caunières (1661-1739). He was appointed as vicar in 1689, four years after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes during the reign of Louis XIV.  Caunières went on to become Rector of Filleigh, near Barnstaple in 1704. He was appointed on 10 March 1722 as chaplain to 27-year-old Lord Hugh Fortescue (1695-1751), later to become 14th Baron Clinton.  My little piece of bloggerel can be sung to the tune of 'La Marseillaise'.  (My words are much nicer).   We’re going to sing a song of freedom Of bravery and liberty; Of Daniel Caunières, a...

Reg enjoyed painting as a hobby for much of his life  Only a few weeks remain until the end of a sale at Budleigh’s museum which offers the chance of owning an original signed Reg Varney oil painting. The star of ‘The Rag Trade’ and ‘On the Buses’ was a talented actor and a gifted musician, but he was also a skilled artist.   Reg did this sketch of two dogs at the age of 14 Reg Varney wanted to go to art school, but failed the maths exam. He followed a different career path, but always enjoyed painting. A number of his pictures, on loan from his family, are now on display in Fairlynch Museum as part of a free exhibition which runs until October 30.   Seven of the paintings are being auctioned off to raise money for the charity Children’s Hospice South West, which runs hospices in Devon, Cornwall and Bristol, and which is marking its 25 th anniversary in 2016....