Budleigh Past and Present

Continued from 12 February 1942:  A Death on North Barrule:  Leading Aircraftman William Edwin Carter (1919-42) Royal Air Force, No.5 Air Observation School https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/12/ww2-75-12-february-1942-death-on-north.html   Above: Lt Cyril Hamilton Palairet I recently learnt that the Palairet Memorial Trophy is the major knock-out play competition of the year for over 40 Devon clubs. Surely, I thought, Devon golfers would imagine that  the Trophy had been offered by members of his family as a tribute to the young naval officer in the above photo. He died when his ship HMAS Perth went down in the Java Sea in 1942 during WW2.   East Devon Golf Club. Members of the Palairet family would surely have played here His parents and his aunt were Budleigh residents – you can find their graves in St Peter’s Burial Ground – and our East Devon Golf Club is one of the best in the country.   And then I reflected, rather negati...

Continued from  26 August 1941 – Buried in Winchester:  Aircraftman 1 st Class Horace Bucknell (1905-41) Royal Air Force  https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/12/ww2-75-26-august-1941-buried-in.html   Ship's badge of HMS Repulse, the Royal Navy battlecruiser on which Boy 1st Class Peter Anstey served in World War II No words can describe the ugliness and chaos of war. For the families who’ve lost loved ones there’s some small compensation in the neat orderliness of war cemeteries. On land, all over the world, 23,000 of them are beautifully maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. And for shipwrecks at sea, most governments with any humanitarian awareness have a policy of treating war graves as protected places. So the recent news that there are parts of the world where scavengers have been stripping WW2 ships for metals such as aluminium, brass and steel is a cause for distress and anger.   Map of the 1941-42 Malaya...

As part of my research into life during WW2 in Budleigh Salterton I’ve been dipping into the ‘Henrietta’ series of books. They originally appeared in the form of letters published in the wartime Sketch magazine, and were intended to be read as letters from a local GP’s wife to her childhood friend Robert serving overseas.  'Henrietta’s War' and ' Henrietta Sees It Through' by Joyce Dennys, were published in book form in the mid-1980s. Some people find her brand of humour too arch for words, but I enjoyed the author’s humorous description of conditions in a Devon coastal village in wartime, especially as it’s clearly Budleigh Salterton – or Salterton – as the place might have been better known in those days. Dipping into other writings by Joyce Dennys I came across her autobiographical 'And Then There was One', published in 1983.  A World War One VAD ...