Budleigh Past and Present

  Visitors to Fairlynch may be puzzled on seeing this colourful panel in the Museum’s front garden. All will be revealed if they buy their copy of The Times of their Lives, the second in the Heroes of the Jurassic Coast series of adventure stories set in East Devon. The stories are written by pupils of St Peter’s, Drake’s and Otterton primary schools with the help of their teachers and the support of a guest writer. The first of various murals which illustrate scenes in this latest book was featured in an earlier blog post  here This panel in the Museum garden relates to Chapter One, entitled ‘The Fireship’ and was painted by students from Exmouth Community College. Can’t you can just hear and see the “devastating battle cries with boats bursting into flames, wild flames that were swirling and spinning out of control” and the “constant firing of the hurtling cannon balls”?   Sir Francis Drake makes an appearance...

The second book of the Budding Creativity project managed by Budleigh Salterton Decorative & Fine Arts Society was launched on 1 June at the town’s St Peter’s Church.  It features the same young Budleigh heroes Peter, Caroline, Eddie and Bud the dog, whose adventures were the basis of the first book in the series. The Times of their Lives takes the reader on a trip back to the age of Queen Elizabeth I. Which ties in rather well with the opening earlier this year of the Sir Walter Ralegh Room at Fairlynch Museum. Artist Jed Falby's mural shows the young Budleigh heroes passing through the time portal in All Saints Church where they enter the colourful age of the Tudors  Sir Walter, Sir Francis Drake, Queen Elizabeth herself and even William Shakespeare all make an appearance in this ripping yarn where imagination plays as important a part as historical fact.  We learn for example that Fairlynch Museum’s thatched...

After my survey of Budleigh as used by so many authors as a ‘small town’ setting I’m left wondering   what the future holds. I was going to stop after Part 3, but a friend told me the other evening that he’d enjoyed my rambling in previous instalments so much that I thought I’d now go a bit imaginative in this one. If you haven't seen my previous postings they are  here  for Part 1, here    for Part 2 and  here  for Part 3. The St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, 23-24 August 1572. Painting by François Dubois, a Huguenot painter born circa 1529 in Amiens, who settled in Switzerland. Although Dubois did not witness the massacre, he depicts Admiral Coligny's body hanging out of a window at the rear to the right. To the left rear, Catherine de' Medici is shown emerging from the Château du Louvre to inspect a heap of bodies.  Image credit: Wikipedia For example, will the budding creatives who gave us Summer Storm transport us b...

Click  here   to read my earlier post Budleigh in Books: Part 2 and  here   to read Budleigh in Books: Part 1 The English novelist Clare Morrall, born in Exeter in 1952, has lived mainly in Birmingham but has a strong attachment to East Devon.   Her mother lived in Lympstone, and she has been a frequent visitor to the area over the years.   The Man Who Disappeared , published in 2010, is her fourth novel. It raises the issue of how well one can ever really know another person, using the device of an apparently happy marriage which suddenly falls apart when a secret is revealed.  In the novel, Felix and Kate Kendall buy a house in Budleigh Salterton. He then disappears and is sought by police for money-laundering. The novel explores the impact of these events on his family. It was, Clare Morrall was reported as saying, a real pleasure setting her latest book in the surroundings where she grew up. “...