Grave reflections
News of the death this week of British World War I veteran Henry Allingham, at the great age of 112, prompted me to visit Budleigh Salterton’s town cemetery on the appropriately named Dark Lane. After all, they do say that people come to Budleigh to die and then rapidly forget why they’ve come: the result is of course that they live longer than the average in this little oasis of stress-free tranquillity. And there are certainly some great ages recorded on the cemetery tombstones. Of course some people view this aspect of Budleigh in a negative light: “Today perhaps with some justification it is derided as a genteel backwater, a haven for the frail and elderly to while away their twilight years,” notes the author of Devon Perspectives http://www.devonperspectives.co.uk/budleigh_salterton.html seeing the town as a ‘Demographic Downer’ where a few years ago half the population was recorded as being over 50, with a third being over 70. I prefer to see it as I’m sure columnist Libby Purve...