Budleigh Past and Present

I learnt recently that a visit to Fairlynch is being planned for local schoolchildren. They’re keen to find out about World War Two, so naturally I investigated what our museum might have in the way of things to look at and study. Various items are listed in the records, including a gas mask, a helmet, a stirrup pump, a ration book, and loads of photos, all stored away and waiting to be shown off to visitors. One rather fine item which is not listed – I found it on the internet – is a copy of this ship’s crest, currently for sale on Ebay but at a specially discounted price for Fairlynch after an approach was made to the owner.  The image is of a parrot or popinjay perc hed on a trident. The ship in question was HMS Polruan, a Bangor-class minesweeper launched on 18 July 1940. Bangor-class warships were named after HMS Bangor, and all Royal Navy ships of that class were named after British coastal towns. During WW2 many...

    The Temple Church in Redcliffe, Bristol, founded in the mid-12th century, was bombed in November 1940 during the Bristol Blitz. More than 80 years later it still stands as a ruin  When I was born, in 1946, the Second World War had only just finished but my childish memories of its impact are still vivid. Rationing wasn’t completely abolished for another eight years. I think I remember car parks in Bristol which seemed to have been made out of enormous bomb craters.   And some parents had vivid stories to tell: my mother seemed to have enjoyed her times in the WRNS, in safety in Scotland, while, disturbingly my father told atrocious stories of how he and his tank crew had dealt with the Japanese in Burma.   Other parents, of course, never spoke of those days.     I never tired of endless WW2 films and devoured books of PoW escape stories. Though that may have been my own escapism from a succession o...

A Christmas party for evacuee children during World War II. In the first four days of September 1939, approximately 3,000,000 people - mostly children - were moved from the cities to places of safety in small towns and villages in what was known officially as Operation Pied Piper No, not World War I for once, though maybe all this talk of the Great War centenary has stirred up childhood memories of the disturbance to family life that conflict can cause, wherever and whenever it occurs. Beverly, from Paphos in Cyprus, has emailed me on behalf of her father who will be 80 in February 2014. With his home threatened by enemy bombing raids during World War II six-year-old Royston Harry Williams was evacuated in 1940 together with his brother to Budleigh Salterton and remained there for four years. Many former evacuees still have bad memories of that time. Enforced family separations took place in an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty with most children unaware of their destination and n...