Budleigh Past and Present

This is the dedication printed in a re-edition of King Willow which appeared in the late 1950s - early 1960s. It seems odd that the first virtual tour of our town that I've seen should have been made by someone from Florida rather than from Cape Cod, given Budleigh Salterton's link with Brewster. But there you are: one of the joys of travelling in cyberspace is the unexpected, where you discover undreamt-of destinations. A bit like hitch-hiking, of which I did a lot during my student days: Athens, the Orkneys Islands, Stonehenge, Teheran... Such wonderful memories. Sometimes I'm tempted to throw away the bus pass, ditch the car and just stick my thumb out to see what would happen. Anyway, back to reality - well, the parallel universe anyway - and the search by my literary detective friend Sam Williams from Ocala, Florida, who is still tracing the footsteps of Budleigh Salterton children's author George Mills. As readers will know, I first became fascinated by Sam's ...