Budleigh Past and Present

The photo shows the model of a rhynchosaur, made by Budleigh-based designer Neil Rogers and displayed in Fairlynch Museum Yesterday I went to my first meeting of a local poet’s group in Budleigh Library. I read my poem ‘Dear Rhynchosaur’ about this strange Triassic reptile which lived about 235 million years ago. Its bones were found near the east bank of the River Otter in the 19th century. The creature helped me to realise that, whether LORP is a success or not, the project occupies, relatively speaking, only a few seconds of our local history. But here’s my poem: Dear Rhynchosaur, inside your case, You have a really funny face. Your beady eye and parrot’s beak, As creatures go, are quite unique. In ancient times, it seems, your paws Walked upon Budleigh’s streets with claws Like those of really savage brutes. Yet all you ate were simply roots. I wonder, does your lizard’s tail Mean that you were an adult male? The pattern on your scaly back Could camouflage against attack. Your b...

Continued from 21 January 1945 FLIGHT SERGEANT RENNIE ARTHUR LOADER (1915-45) Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR), 518 Squadron https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/04/ww2-75-21-january-1945-forecasting-for.html         A photo of Gerald Arthur Richards sent to me by his daughter Louanne   Like a number of war dead whose names are not listed on Budleigh’s War Memorial,  Gerald Arthur Richards is mentioned by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) as having a link with the town through his wife Kirstine. It was difficult to confirm that link, but there were enough intriguing aspects to Gerald’s story to raise questions that I wanted to see answered. Further research led to more East Devon links – to Honiton, Exmouth and further afield. In a very roundabout way I finally made contact with his daughter Louanne, to whom I am grateful for providing information about the family, not least some family photos like the...

How the real-life ‘M’ of Ian Fleming’s novels planned a survival strategy with local resident Murray Levick during WW2.      The poster that I designed for the 2011-12 exhibition Fairlynch Museum’s 2011-12 exhibition,   entitled   ‘Survival!’, featured the extraordinary experiences of Antarctic explorer Murray Levick. This remarkable Budleigh resident’s expertise proved vital during WW2. When he was well into his sixties he came out of retirement to work on the same secret operation as James Bond creator Ian Fleming.   Levick skins a penguin on board the Terra Nova , part of Robert Falcon Scott’s last Antarctic expedition of 1910-13. Photo by Herbert Ponting (Ponting Collection: Reference P2005/5/911); Wikipedia More than 20 years ago after his polar experience, Murray Levick’s reputation as an expert in survival in hostile environments was such that at the outbreak of war he was asked by the Government to instruct commandos in the art of survival...