More on East Budleigh’s ‘smuggling vicar’
Above: East Budleigh ’s All Saints Church where Ambrose Stapleton was the vicar for 58 years until 1852 Mention of Budleigh’s smuggling past in a previous post at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/dreaming-of-smugglers.html reminded one of my readers of further stories about Ambrose Stapleton. Former resident of the town Meg Peacocke wrote to tell me of how East Budleigh ’s celebrated ‘smuggling vicar’ featured in a local amateur dramatics production during World War Two. In around 1940 her father the children’s author Rodney Bennett started or took over a drama society in East Budleigh . Participants were keen, she writes, but he soon discovered that their performances based on a written script were wooden. He therefore experimented with improvisation based on local material, so that actors might speak more freely and in their own idiom - “an early Mike Leigh?” wonders Meg. One story which the group developed concerned Ambrose Stapl...