Dreaming of Budleigh across the Atlantic

 

 

Fairlynch Museum volunteers gave a warm welcome to Canadian Adam Bunch, left, including an evening at East Budleigh’s Sir Walter Raleigh pub

You probably won’t have come across Adam Bunch unless you picked up one of the hundreds of little postcards that he left around the town to make us reflect on events more than 200 years ago – a bit like a Banksy historian.

You see, Adam is a proud and passionate Canadian with a special interest in his home city of Toronto. And, unlikely though it may seem, Budleigh has a link to the city and its province of Ontario through a former resident of our town. General John Graves Simcoe, born in Northamptonshire in 1752, is revered in Canada for many reasons. 

As Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada for five years from 1791, he founded Toronto and was instrumental in ending slavery in North America. He also introduced institutions such as the courts, trial by jury, English common law and freehold land tenure. And to prove what a clever fellow he was, he chose to have a holiday home here while he was Commander-in-Chief of the West of England Army defending our country against invasion during the Napoleonic Wars.

 

One of the many Toronto Dreams postcards left by Adam during his 2014 UK tour in places linked to General Simcoe

So he has a town and a lake named after him in Canada, and a house named after him in Budleigh. It’s on Fore Street Hill, and it was one of the places that Adam visited on his Simcoe pilgrimage some six years ago, leaving those postcards which tell the story of his hero and his home city – all part of the Toronto Dreams Project which Adam founded. You can read about it at http://www.torontodreamsproject.com  

Simcoe is also celebrated for composing the first Valentine card in North America, and Adam will give him a starring role in his next book, due out next year and entitled The Toronto Book of Love. For those of you who don’t know, Toronto’s past is filled with passion and heartache according to the publisher. 

Adam’s book brings the history of the city to life with fascinating true tales of romance, marriage, and lust: from the scandalous love affairs of the city’s early settlers to the prime minister’s wife partying with rock stars on her anniversary; from ancient First Nations wedding ceremonies to a pastor wearing a bulletproof vest to perform Canada’s first same-sex marriage ceremonies. Included in the book will be the story of the youthful days of Simcoe and his wife, falling in love in Devon. 

 

 

Adam Bunch, author, historian and Toronto Dreamer with a purpose, outside Simcoe House in Budleigh Salterton

Adam was so pleased with the warm welcome that he received six years ago from local museum volunteers that he has just taken out a three-year membership of the Friends of Fairlynch. He’s hoping that when the world returns to normal he can pay a return visit to Budleigh Salterton – ‘one of my favourite places on Earth, which holds such fond memories thanks to everyone at Fairlynch Museum.’