Budleigh Past and Present

      Annie Whittaker More than sixty years after she was evacuated to Budleigh Salterton during WW2,  Marilyn Reynolds had vivid  childhood memories of that  most traditional East Devon  home industry: lace.  As a six-year-old wartime  evacuee in Budleigh Salterton, she recalled how, ‘o nce a week, the Honiton lace-making ladies would climb aboard a bus and, sitting with  t heir huge pillows propped on their knees, set off for the charming village of Otterton to pursue their craft.’ The chances are that Budleigh’s wartime lacemakers so vividly remembered by Marilyn Reynolds were on their way by bus to be supervised by one of East Devon’s truly legendary lace teachers, still spoken of with awe by today’s lace experts.   Fairlynch Museum volunteer Sue Morgan explains the finer points of lacemaking to members of a Probus group in October 2017 Fairlynch’s resident lace curator Sue Morgan writes: ‘Mrs Annie Whittaker, n ...