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MEMORIES page 2
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MISS BUTTERFIELDS SCHOOL- dated about 1939
Left Right
1 3 7
2 4 5 6 8
9 10 11 12 13
1. Hugh Butterworth – Deerhurst Beach Road born 2 July 1930
2. Alan White Mayfield Avon Lane
3 Patricia Way- sister of Julian
4 Margaret Loomes her sister Joan was killed in the War, her name is on
Northam War Memorial.
5 Beryl Wiley sister of Julian- killed in road accident 1950 aged 21
6 Richard Johns always known as Dicky- lived in end bungalow off Avon
Lane by footpath leading to car park. Father in Merchant Navy mother
Persian
7 Robin Weatherby- Beach Road opposite Henderson and Wilkinson
8 Herbert Moore of Belmon (his mother was a Bellew) Bungalow on Venton Dairy side of Aysha Gardens.
9
10 Peter Bellew, Heather Vaggers and I think that this might be Alison Moore sister of Herbert Moore. She was born in 1934 and we think that there are facial similarities
11 Dennis Goldring- family moved from London lived in Avon Lane area.
Miss Butterfield used the school house, part of Kingsley Hall. On entering the school Miss Butterfield sat on the left and the children sat in three rows facing her. I had forgotten the dog but Miss Butterfield did sometimes bring it with her.
The room was heated by a gas fire on the right hand wall. In winter Miss Butterfield brought in a paraffin heater. This would be placed beside you, you then warmed your hands before the heater was moved on to the next child.
I started at the age of 4 on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The hours were 9-12.30 and 2 until I suppose 3.30 or maybe 4p m.
On Mon, Wed and Fri we started with arithmetic, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays the first period was devoted to such things as rug making, cross stitching and simple embroidery. This finished with the outbreak of war because of shortage of materials. Miss Butterfield read stories during theses sessions.
Miss Butterfield certainly gave me a good grounding in the three R’s. She also tought elementary French. Like the rest of my generation I learned’’ La Plume de ma Tante est dans le jarden’’. The pen of my Aunt or my Aunts pen is in the garden. I am still waiting to use this useful information. Strangely she taught us phonetically so the word les meaning the was pronounced as in Leslie and not as in lay.
At that time the BBC produced a childrens educational programme from 2.15 to 3 and we listened to this. We were about to start German but in September 1939 the broadcasts were cancelled.
We occasionally used the main Hall for games and on one occasion several of us sat in a row and did something out of Midsummer Nights Dream. Afterwards I was told off by my mother for fidgeting.
Strangely Alan, Dicky , Herbert and I did not become close friends. I saw Herbert more than the others. Sometimes on our way home we would play ‘ tag’ any wooden structure was a safe haven- there was little traffic – on reaching Alans home we would split up, Herbert and Dicky would go down Avon Lane and I would continue to Beach Road.
I am fairly sure that we also attended on Saturday mornings.
Hugh Butterworth.
Memories of Westward Ho! BARBARA SENIK,(formerly WHITE/CURTIS
My childhood in the 1930’s was spent in Northam and I did not leave the area until my marriage in 1954. I have very vivid memories of Westward Ho!, not so much in my early years, but certainly in my teens.
When I was a small child Westward Ho! seemed quite far away, the only means of getting there was by bus or walking. Summer picnics were more likely to be held in a pit dug out of the leeward side of the Pebble Ridge or in the sandhills than at Westward Ho! The walk to the Pebble Ridge from Bone Hill, along Pimpley Road to the Burrows gate was quite long for a small child – and then we had to cross the Burrows, sometimes scaring the sheep, looking out for golf balls and stopping at the little bridge to see if the burn still had its distinctive smell. It always had! All our picnic gear and buckets and spades had to be carried unless someone in the party had a pram or push chair. If we were lucky there would be a vacated pit and that would save us having to heave large pebbles out of the way. There we would have our picnic and then find time to go to the windy side and play on the sand or paddle in the sea. Many small items, particularly coins, were lost between the pebbles on those days. Sometimes things were found there. One lucky day I found a small woven basket, which delighted me and then, under another pebble, I found a very small toy dog, a Scottie which the basket had obviously been made for. The two items together only measured about 4 inches and I treasured them for many years after. We seldom had the time or the inclination to walk what seemed to me to be a vast distance to Westward Ho!
Westward Ho! had some private schools but the children who did not go to those schools had to travel to Northam where there was an Infant School in the Square and the so called ‘Top School’ farther up Fore Street. Until the mid 1940’s ‘Top School’ had all ages from 8 to 14, children who ‘passed the scholarship’ going to Bideford Grammar School or Edgehill College at the age of 11. The distance and travelling involved usually meant that there was little after school contact between the children of the different areas that were Northam, Westward Ho! and Silford Cross. When the war came evacuees were sent to the area and the school population increased. This meant overcrowded classrooms. For a while the largest classroom at Northam was divided into two by a curtain. This was not very satisfactory and the Methodist schoolroom was taken over to accommodate the overflow. Many of the evacuees and their teachers were transferred there. I think we felt rather overwhelmed by this sudden invasion of city children, many of whom had a strange accent (London!) and different modes of behaviour. Certainly some of the older children seemed quite alien to us.
I lived close to the school but children from Westward Ho! were reliant on the bus service. The children from Silford had no choice but to walk to school. We all got used to carrying our gas masks to and from school. They were supplied in strong brown rectangular boxes with a cord long enough to be slung across the shoulders. As time went on many of us acquired smarter looking triangular shaped bags into which the gas mask would fit without the eye piece having to be folded down. Gas buses were a memorable feature of the war years. The old double deckers towing a nasty smelling gas trailer were used only on the Westward Ho! route in our area. I think the steep hill out of Appledore precluded their use there and the Westward Ho! bus often struggled as it tried to get to the top of Lakenham. I think passengers had to walk that hill sometimes and the bus would be late arriving in Northam
I retain many memories of the war years. I believe someone else has written about visiting ‘Top Camp’, (the newly built holiday camp, completed just before the war and taken over by the army), to attend a concert given for the school children. One of the soldiers at the camp, most of whom at that time were from countries other than Britain, was Coco a very famous clown from Bertram Mills Circus. As far as I know he had produced this concert. I thoroughly enjoyed it all. I marvelled at the magic acts and the clowning and also Coco’s daughter, who did not seem many years older than myself, and her ability at acrobatic dancing. She seemed to find it so easy to be able to twist and contort her body in the most unusual ways. Everyone agreed that she must be what was then called ‘double jointed’. Imagine our surprise when the following week Coco’s son and daughter, Alexander and Tamara Polokovs, turned up as pupils at Northam School! I have oftened wondered if I had imagined that but no – the School Log Book has them entered as attending the school for two weeks in November 1940. Tamara was indeed only 12 at that time – and she did demonstrate to a curious audience of 10 year olds the flexibility of some of her joints. After the war I think Coco and his family returned to work at Bertram Mills circus and I recall reading that Tamara had married the lion tamer.
My eyesight was much different in the 1940’s and some days ,when on the sea front, I was able to spot porpoises in the bay and I can clearly remember seeing a faint line of ships on the horizon – a wartime convoy on its way from the Atlantic to some port further north. Closer to shore and on the Burrows we were able see the coastal defences –large concrete pyramids at the foot of the slip and much barbed wire. The Burrows was mined and was forbidden territory. Pylons erected near the Pimpley Road gate were fenced off. I think they were some sort of early radar installation. There was a huge searchlight placed just off the footpath at the back of the park adjoining the bus terminus. I was never able to see it in use. At some time the Bailey Bridge was built over the Pebble Ridge, making it easier for wheeled or tracked vehicles to cross from the Burrows to the beach, or vice versa. It remained for some years after the war.
During the 1940’s I had much more contact with Westward Ho! than in the ‘30’s. We had a Girl Guide company in Northam and at least half our members came from Westward Ho! Our Guide Captain was Freda Trapnell, whose family were well known in the area and who lived in one of the houses overlooking the ‘park’, which at that time had a putting green. I also began to have piano lessons from Miss Trapnell so I had to visit the house weekly. The Guides owned a hut at Westward Ho! – along the front, not far past Mr Wiley’s shop, tucked away in its own little fenced off enclosure behind the first two rows of huts. Many of our summer meetings were held there. We had a flag pole and at the beginning of each meeting the Union Jack would be hoisted – one of us having to demonstrate the correct way to furl the flag and the knots to be used so that, when hoisted, a gentle tug would unfurl the flag to fly freely until the end of the meeting. We would then solemnly sing ‘Taps’ as the flag was taken down and safely stowed away for next time. We spent those meetings doing various guide activities such as First Aid, knots, tracking. On occasion we would go for a hike across the cliffs, learn how to take up the turf and make a fire safely and, with luck, cook some items of food in the billy-cans we had brought with us. My first such hike was very eventful. Before making our way home we had a game of ‘Sardines’. I eventually found other members of the company hiding in a slit trench (dug by the army for defence purposes). I jumped in to join them, fell and hurt my arm. The walk back to W Ho! was long and painful despite help from the older girls. The first doctor who saw me diagnosed a sprain and my mother rubbed embrocation into the arm every day for a week until it was discovered my sprain was actually a fracture. It had begun to mend in the wrong way and had to be broken again This was dealt with by the local GP who in those days was also a surgeon and allowed to operate on his own patients at Bideford Hospital.. Oh, yes, on the next hike someone spilt hot cocoa on me giving me a blister on my foot. I was becoming a jinx!
I also learnt to swim at the Lido – somewhere my mother was happy to let me spend time as she considered it much safer than trying to swim in the sea! I remember a very sunny day in June 1944 watching what seemed to be like hundreds of planes flying right overhead heading south. It was about that time that the Normandy invasions began.
When the war ended, apart from Guide activities, I did little at Westward Ho! My music teacher had married and gone to Malaya to live and my best friend lived at Appledore . I went for an occasional Sunday walk with my parents, up to Buckleigh, past the holiday camp and through the little gate leading to the Kipling Tors. We would walk to the old coastguard lookout and then take the path to the bottom, leaving the Tors by the path which went under an arch. I was told that the arch was made from the jawbones of a whale once washed up on the beach and which my mother and my aunt remembered seeing.. Next to the arch was a large bone which I think was a vertebra from the same animal. In the summer I would cycle to the Lido, meet friends there and pass away many happy hours. Of course the beach also had its attractions but I was never very keen on the rocky area. Sand was much kinder to the feet.
After 1946 I spent much more time at W Ho! My boy friend, who I was later to marry, lived there. For almost two years, while still at school, our term time routine in spring and summer was to do our homework, meet up at the Northam bus stop, walk to Westward Ho! by way of Bay View and either Long Hill or Short Hill, down to W Ho! bus terminus where I would catch the bus home. When walking the Bay View route towards Buckleigh there were some fondly remembered land marks. First, the house called Conybeare – during the war there was a sort of tower on what is now the flat roof of the house. The various Local Defence Volunteers (later the Home Guard) and ‘firewatchers’ would have to mount watch there every night to give warning of enemy attacks or fires. From there, during the nights of the Plymouth Blitz, those watchers were able to see the red skies reflected over the city although Plymouth was over 50 miles away. Farther along , on the left hand side, was a large grassy mound –known to us as the reservoir- and we would pause there to listen for the hollow sounding bang which occurred every few minutes inside the mound. I was always told that it was some sort of valve closing as water was pumped into this storage chamber from the main reservoir at Melbury. A simple happening but a very strong memory from days of my childhood and youth.
At some stage my friend, Alan, and I joined the Tennis Club and remained members until we both moved away from North Devon. The club then was at the three tennis courts at Golf Links Road, just opposite the cricket ground. We had very enjoyable times there. I was hopeless at tennis but he was very good. I was quite useful at serving teas on match days! We were, I am sure, a happy and friendly group. Quite often during the summer months, when high tide was late in the evening the playing would go on until someone shouted that the tide was getting close to the ridge. Then we would all quickly change and rush to the beach and swim until the tide was at its height, making our trek back to the clubhouse very short. After that there was nothing else to do but to go to the fish and chip shop (then opposite the bus stop at the old railway station). Very good fish and chips they were too! Often by that time there would be a moon somewhere – a perfect ending to the evening..
I remember, also, during the years of ‘double summer time’ we would make the most of the light and be playing putting until 10.30pm. It was also good, late on a calm night, to stand looking over the sea wall making note of all the lights – the extra bright rhythmical sweep of the Hartland light, the much dimmer light on Lundy which grew then faded, the light on the bell buoy (on a very still night the bell could be heard) and the light at Crow Point. To stand there watching, with a slight salty breeze in the air and the only sound the shushing of the waves, was magical – and romantic if one had the right companion. I am not sure that one would be able to recapture that atmosphere now.
Although not born and brought up in Westward Ho! it was always a favourite place for me and also for my daughters when they were little. As my husband was a teacher we were lucky enough to have long summer holidays and with two sets of grandparents living in the area where else could they possibly have their summer holidays?
I have not seen enough of Westward Ho! in recent years to know what the present generation feel about it, but I know that all my memories are still very vivid and happy ones.
Barbara Senik, (formerly White, nee Curtis).
Hi,
I grew up in Westward Ho!, and have enjoyed looking at your web site.
I have typed up some of my memories, I hope there's some use for them.
Regards,
Chris Caton
We moved to Westward Ho! when I was only 3 or 4, into No 17 Swanswood Gardens.
Next door on one side was Mr Clark who worked in Braddicks TV shop in Bideford. Other side was Mr Stevenson, who worked for Pump Maintenance repairing petrol pumps at garages (I still have a big box of spanners and odd home-made tools of his).
Our house had a big patio outside the back door, about 3 feet high above the grass. Lost count of the times I managed to fall off my bike riding over the edge! Looking at the satellite view on Multimap, it's still there, although the garden has changed quite a lot.
One time my Dad bought an old boat, about 15 feet long. It never saw the water though, just sat on the patio for years, and ended up becoming part of a bar in the Kingsley Leisure Centre. Dad had a friend who lived in a strange house with a tower in Tadworthy Road who played in one of the bands at the Kingsley Club, we used to get free entry to the swimming pool (where I first learned to swim). The pool had just been built and the changing rooms always smelled of wet cement - even now, I can't smell wet cement without being transported back there.
I was one of the first pupils at the then new St Georges School in Northam which was built in 1975. I remember a huge mudpool left by the builders at the side of the playground. Others in my class were (in no particular order) Adrian Roach, Charles Holland, Nicholas Elston, Andrew Curtis, Steven Turner. I have no idea if any of these guys still live locally.
I used to go with my dad to the clubhouse at Torville Holiday Camp to watch him play snooker; the full size table seemed as big as a field then!- the year would have been 1976 then, as The Wurzels' No. 1 hit "Combine Harvester" was on the juke box, and I would have been aged 8. This was the year of the Long Hot Summer, I remember the Standpipes - we didn't have one outside our house, but the Redmans just up the road did, which meant their water was still on! Torville was where Coral Avenue is now.
I went to St Margarets school. I remember there was a weather station just outside the back entrance, and a climbing frame that I fell off more than once! The headmaster was Mr Harrison, Mrs Mounce played the piano for assembly, Mr Dark was one of the teachers (who taught me all about photography and developing films). Another teacher I remember was Mr Saltern (did he ever become an MP?) who had a moustache like Burt Reynolds in Smokey and the Bandit.
Once I had a bicycle the world (well, the bits of it I could get back in time for tea from) was my oyster. The coast path and the Tors in particular were a favourite haunt.
Summer holidays were livened up by CSSM, who were something to do with the church, and came to the village and entertained the kids with activities and games. I especially remember the "Tide Fights", sort of a massive sandcastle building competition on the beach - last one standing was the winner. One year the CSSM used the mostly empty Kipling Terrace, which I later found out was where Rudyard Kipling went to school, and it was a fascinating building to explore.
Round the back of Kipling terrace was a path running up to Highview Terrace. This path emerged by a gap in a hedge, if you looked over the edge of this gap there were some rusty iron poles on either side of a large circular depression in the ground; I believe this was the remains of Captain George Molesworth's Gasometer (mentioned in Kipling's 'Stalky & Co.'). This had been used as a rubbish dump for years - I used to play down there a lot. There's even an old car down there! - now I'm 40 I still wonder how it got there, and if it's still there under 30 years of vegetation.
Just up the road (Fosketh Hill?) from the Church was what seemed to be an old quarry - there was an enormous rope swing in there.
There was a path behind the old livery stables (Bracken House now) that joined up with a path that led up to the derelict Top Camp, another great play spot. Sometimes, I feel I only used to play where I shouldn't - building sites, derelict sites and landfill sites!
I used to get sent on my bike to get stuff from the village shops - batteries from Twoses Garage, Bones for the dog from the Butchers (Heard's?). I would go down Swanswood Gardens, across Avon Lane, and up a small road (Park Avenue) that had an alley at the end which led into a very long car park (part of the old railway route, if I remember right, and I'm sure one of the houses along the route had an old signal box in the garden). On a wall in this car park was the only piece of graffiti that has stuck in my mind for such a long time - written in big letters using green paint, it said "I'm just an angry passionate soul crying out in this tortuous mediocrity". Deep thoughts from a small minded vandal!
I also remember on Bath Hotel Road there was a pub called The Nelson. Just down from this was the boating pool, which had pedal powered boats on. Later these were replaced by petrol engined "bumper boats" - like big red or yellow inner tubes with plastic seats and an outboard motor in the middle. I dread to thing what modern Health & Safety regulations would make of these now! When the Bumper boats went, the pool was drained, and the owner hired unicycles out to ride around in the now dry pool. He also had a small video game arcade. Me and his son used to ride around the village on the unicycles! I'm not sure if the same fellow later rented out the four-wheeled pedal powered "cars" that went around the village.
At the bottom of the road was Wylie's amusements, where I wasted quite a lot of time and pocket money too. There's no sound like the sound of an amusement arcade in the days of Space Invaders and Pac Man! Along the prom from here, going towards the Patio Pool, was a bridge where the railway used to pass over a lane - I believe it's gone now, just the embankment and bridge abutments remaining. Further along still, on the rocks, was the pool which was filled by the tide - one time the tide went out and left a shoal of mackerel stranded in the pool! From the side of this pool one could walk along the top of the concrete which covered the sewage outfall pipe, there were some enormous deep rockpools along the side of this pipe, we used to catch fish and crabs in these. At one point there was a funny little concrete igloo with a trapdoor in its side; this was where the sewage was let out at high tide.
The Slipway was another great spot, especially at Spring Tides, when the waves came crashing against the sea wall and sent huge plumes of water up to 50 foot in the air. We'd run along the top of the sea wall in between waves, trying to avoid a soaking. The waves would come right up the slipway, up as far as Golf Links Road sometimes.
The Burrows was a great place as a child, too. Memories of collecting tadpoles from the river under Pimpley Bridge, there were quite a few other bridges across the burrows, too, without any roads going over them. Possibly remains from the war? I remember there were other concrete structures, one near the bottom of Sandymere Road and another near Burrows Lane, that were like bunkers - very dark inside. The Sandymere Road one had a go-kart track built around it. There were the remains of an old radio antenna mast installation nearby, too. And about halfway between the two bunkers, there were a couple of brick structures - rectangular, without roofs. There was definitely a lot of wartime activity along this bit of coast, what with the big pile of old concrete tank traps piled up by the slipway, and occasionally someone would find an uneploded mine buried on the beach - the army would come along and blow it up, which was really exciting to watch as a kid.
The pebble ridge was always a feature. I could see it from my bedroom window (the view from this window ranged from Hartland Point to Baggy Point and Croyde, with Lundy on the horizon in the middle). When we walked on the ridge, we'd find circular depressions made by tourists trying to shelter their picnics from the wind. We called these "Grockle Nests"! There were remains of Groynes - wooden fences put in try and prevent the sea from moving the pebbles. Another attempt to do this had been made (1974 ish?) by making big cages out of wire fencing and filling them with pebbles. They didn't last as long as the groynes had! just proving that the sea is bigger and stronger than us - whatever we throw at it, we get back with interest!
We used to go to St Margarets Church in Northam, with its splendid high tower. My dad was one of the bellringers there. When we started going there the Vicar was Rev George Lucas, his successor was Rev David Chance, who had the biggest train set in the world (or so it seemed at the time) upstairs in the vicarage.
Chris Caton
TOP CAMP-Graham webster
My name is Graham Webster.
I was web browsing my computer this Sunday night only to find your web page.
I am a Bideford boy with my childhood dating back to the mid fifties. I now live in Bristol but often think back to my early teens in and around Westward Ho.
When I saw the photos of Top Camp it all came back to me as I spent many many years working there as a porter, and on the entertainment staff.
For a young teenager of fifteen it was a very well paid part time job earning around £10 in tips carrying cases to and from the accommodation blocks.
When all the out going holiday makers had departed we were ready for the
incoming guest many had come from the Birmingham area by train and road.
When most had arrived by 4,o clock I would start to show the first film in the dance hall which was the same one week after week, The Wizard of OZ.
In the evening mainly Saturdays and Sundays when the dance bands would
entertain the new guest we would do a baby sitting patrol. This meant we would walk around the camp and when we heard a baby crying we would run back to reception and tell who ever was manning the desk.
I could go on regarding many stories on the goings on in and around the camp. So as I said he was looking for porters. We were so excited but had to convince our parents first. Any way we were taken up for an interviews through which we were told that management would not tolerate bad
behavior as they remember us from when we were caught on the camp. We all had a three week trial and thats when it all started for us.
We started at 07,30 on a Saturday morning and with in an hour the three of us wondered what hit us. I can remember working in the dinning hall for breakfast, setting up tables with staff from Liverpool which did I remember bring its problems.
As they lived on the camp there was a lot of heavy drinking done after working hours and quite often we were sent to get them up the next morning before the dinning hall manager arrived, they were in quite a state sometimes.
Breakfast would finish at around 09,00 and we had to make ready a section of the dinning hall for the guest departure, this is where they collected their cases.
We started our porting duties at around 09,30. We had a large four wheel pull trolley and a two wheel upright trolley which we had to guard with our lives as it would vanish. Most of the chalets were some distance
from reception and that was the closes cars could get. We would knock on the chalet door and ask if they wanted a porter or pick the cases up outside the chalets. Most holiday makers were good tippers and we could earn up to £10 each which was a lot of money then. Again porting had its down sides because if the weather was bad we would get quite wet and also cases had to be in the dining hall on time for the bus link to the railway station. There was only a two hour gap before the arriving guest would start turning up. We often a mad rush around 14,30 when the holiday makers from the Midlands started arriving, thats when the fun started. They would often arrive in large families tired and demanding.
Some times it was sheer frustration settling the guest in as quite often
the chalets were not to their liking our they would try it on stating they asked for chalets next to each other. Most guest were settled in by 1600 and thats when the entertainment normally started. My job was to show the Saturday film which was either The Wizard of OZ or Cliff Richard in Summer Holiday. I can still remember scenes word by word.
Table Tennis, Ball games and Bingo were all played leading up to the first dinning session but most people had made there way down to the beach area to play the slot machines or explore. Westward Ho would be alive with holiday makers playing putting on the green and sitting on the beach weather permitting.
One very strong memory is one Friday evening. The weather had been playing tricks in the area that day with a very warm humid atmosphere most typical of threaten thunder storms. As the evening drew in you could see lightning flashing over Lundy island. With in an hour you could smell the wet moisture in the air. At around 08,30 the weather hit the camp with vengeance. The wind reached around 70mph along with hail stones, thunder and lightning to which I had never seen before. The chalets on the outer side of the camp over looking Kipling Tours took a direct hit slightly dislodging the roofs and causing tremendous damage.
In Bideford Kenwith valley flooded and the stream running next to Kingsley Rd burst its banks causing flooding in and around Newton Rd where I lived.
At that young age we could not wait for Friday and Saturday nights when
the camp would come alive. I can remember the dance hall so well because of the heavy drinking families along with the cigarette smoke. Quite
often the local police had to sort out drinking issues on the camp but most of all the dance bands made a strong impact on me. There was the resident band along with visiting bands playing the hits of that time such as the Swinging Blue Jeans, Freddy and the Dreamers and many other Mersey bands.
I was involved with the camp for three years when i guess immaturity set in. We thats me and one of my close mates had got to know a group of
young girls that had been staying for two weeks. At that age you did anything to impress the girls so thats what we did. On a Friday night which was always the good bye dance evening for the Saturday departing
guest and we were on baby patrol . Because there were only a small amount of baby's on the camp we were quite happy to go for a good bye kiss and cuddle down the tours but to our cost. Yes the baby's started crying and we could not be found. I will let you guess on the outcome.
Any way to finish up I left school and went into the Shipyard, I did return to Top Camp only on invited functions. The last time i saw the place is when the reception building was under the bulldozer.
Looking back I feel Westward Ho will never regain the feel it had in them good old days.
Chris Mumford
Thank you for this wonderful site.
I stayed at Westward Ho for the first time in the early 1970's (Ennisfarne House?) which was under the wnership of a Mrs Barclay. I was around 8 years of age and it was the best holiday I ever had in my life. Such a beautiful place, with miles of beautiful beach and views so breathtaking I will never forget them. My sister almost drowned when we were there when a freak wave pulled her off the main ramp on the front (near Mr B's). I jumped in to save her and 3 ladies jumped in to save me!
I returned to Westward Ho in 2005 and again in 2007 and found it has changed a little. The place where I stayed as a child was sadly demolished in 1998 and a few other buildings have gone although the town still
retains it's character... the putting green is still there after all these years as is the pool that is cut away in the rocks. Most of all thouhg, I am fascinated about Seafield House. I noticed it is creeping ever closer to the eroding cliff edge. Such a shame. I hope somebody can step in to
save this fantastic dwelling from impending disaster and protect it from falling into the sea. It is a wonderful house that stands out a mile from the others in the area. Such a pity to see it has deteriorated but the garden is still immaculately kept with a beautiful lawn.
Westward Ho wouldn't be the same without it.
I plan to return again very soon.
ROBERT WEBSTER
A WARTIME CHILDHOOD IN WESTWARD HO!
Shortly after I was born in 1939, my father disappeared into the “forgotten army” and my mother and I were evacuated to live in Westward Ho! where I spent my early childhood. We rented number 5 Park View opposite the tennis courts where we lived with another lady and her son and her daughter. Sandra was a year older than myself and we grew to become inseparable and attended Miss Butterfield’s school together
This was my first school and Miss Butterfield made learning a wonderful experience, although some of her reading books were so politically incorrect by today’s standards that the authors would have been imprisoned. I can clearly remember writing in books with ruled lines and trying to make the letters touch the top and bottom line as I wrote. I quickly learned to read and write, even at four years old. The other thing that I remember was the wonderful coloured sticky paper that we made pictures with.
In 1995 I revisited Westward Ho! and I was fortunate enough to be able to go into the old school room once again. Even though it had changed considerably, the memories still lingered there. I also visited our old house and the owners, at that time, were kind enough to allow me to look around inside. This had also changed considerably but I could clearly remember the way it had been. The bedroom that Sandra and I shared had a window that looked out to the West and I could remember looking out at night and seeing the flashing light of the lighthouse at Hartland, although I did not know what it was at the time. When I revisited the house I was surprised at how small the rooms would have been before the renovations - at four years old it seemed such a big place.
Christmas was a wonderful occasion and we never seemed to lack presents although I do not remember any special food being served, probably because of the war shortages. We had no electricity; only gas and we were forever needing gas mantles for the lights. Our radio was powered by a small wet battery, of which we had two. One was being charged whilst we used the other one in the radio to follow the speeches of Winston Churchill and the progress of the war. We had a wind up gramophone and, when we had needles and the spring wasn’t broken, we would listen to Bing Crosby records. I especially remember “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.”
Sandra and I spent hundreds of very happy hours on the beach fishing in the rock pools and getting our toes bitten by crabs. There were two large stone blocks in the middle of the beach below the sea wall and we would climb on these. They have long since been eroded away by the waves.
The Spring Tides were something special and our parents would take Sandra and I to stand by the sea wall and get soaked as the water climbed high over our heads. On our walk to the beach we would pass a large Nissan hut, which stood on the corner where the Fish and Chip restaurant now is. During the daytime the Nissan hut was open and we children would play in there because there never seemed to be anyone around. Inside it was full of huge coils of rope and strange smells. One day I fell from a coil of rope and cut the top of my head, which bled profusely.
There was a military presence in Westward Ho! but it did not mean a lot to us children. The Americans would give us Coca-Cola and it was only in later years that I found out why, as a child, I became addicted to it – in those days it contained a small amount of cocaine.
I can remember going on the sands one day below the pebble ridge and an Army tank had sunk in the sand. The tide came in and the tank sunk lower and lower under the sand until it finally disappeared completely – I expect is still there!
We had very occasional trips into Bideford on the bus. ( I think we went there to celebrate the end of the war?).The bus pulled a large tank behind it and had great difficulty getting up the hills. Every time it stalled on a hill the conductor would get out and put a wedge shaped block of wood under the rear wheels. When the bus managed to pull off again the conductor would retrieve the block of wood from the road and come dashing after us.
The Spring, and May Day, was marked with the children from Miss Butterfield’s school dancing around the Maypole on the village green. For some strange reason I remember that there were no toilets accessible to us kids and we had to dash home to answer the call of nature.
The summer holidays were fantastic for us children with never ending days that were filled with play and pleasure. Sandra and I would mostly find a hundred and one things to do together but occasionally we would do things with our parents. Sometimes they would take us winkling around the rocks and we would boil hundreds of winkles on our return home. Picking them out of their shells was a time consuming pleasure. Some summer evenings we would be treated to fish and chips eaten out of the newspaper followed by a game on the putting green opposite our house. Then two very tired but happy children would be more than ready for bed.
Life in Westward Ho! in those days was the way life always ought to be – just perfect.
One evening in 1946 my mother took me to stay the night at the Pebble Ridge Hotel and early the next day we went by taxi to catch a train. I had no idea where we were going or why. I did not say good-bye to anyone or anything and it was to be many yeas before I saw my beloved Westward Ho! again.
STAN ANDREWS
Memories of the Tyrolean Ice-Skating Rink.
When I was about twelve years old and my friends and I heard the news that an ice-skating rink was going to be built in Westward Ho!, our big playground, we literally couldn't believe it. When they started building it, around 1983, we couldn't believe how big it would be, either. I mean, an ICE-SKATING RINK? In Westward Ho!?
The fact that it was 'plastic ice' not the real thing, didn't bother us. We now had somewhere proper we could hang out and it was just what we needed. When it opened and we saw inside for the first time, we thought it was huge and saw the walls were decorated with a Tyrolean scene depicting snow-topped mountains against blue skies. There was a cafe, a bar, toilets and the music playing was modern stuff from the charts (the type of music playing is very important to a thirteen-year-old!) . I can remember hearing Cyndi Lauper's "Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun" there, which was apt, as the place was full of girls having fun and boys trying to find a girlfriend. It was a fun place to be, and we had fun times there.
I remember it being the sort of place you could just look in and spend a few minutes there chatting with your mates, or you could spend most of the day there skating, eating chips and ice-cream, playing on the fruit-machines, messing about and being an annoying teenager basically! When you exchanged your flip-flops for a pair of skates at the counter, they would give you a coloured wristband and when they called out your colour, your time was up. So we would try to conceal the wristband, or take it off, to get an extra five minutes on the ice before the sharp-eyed staff threw you off. Another reason why I'll never forget the Tyrolean is that I smoked my first cigarette there! I didn't want to start smoking, but someone had left a smouldering cigarette in an ashtray next to me and I couldn't resist the temptation. Anything to try and look 'cool', you know.
Not long after the Tyrolean had opened, it caught fire and nearly burned to the ground! That was a big shock, for everyone, but after local volunteers spent a few weeks cleaning it up, the doors opened and our local club was up and running again. The future of the new ice-rink was to be short-lived though. After only 2 or 3 years, the plastic ice was covered over and the place ran as a 'club' for a while. I don't remember the disco-nights being that good. It all started to get a bit cheesy, cheap and desperate. A couple of years later and the Tyrolean had closed down. We all waited for a new owner, or somebody, to open it up again, but the boarded-up windows stayed boarded-up, even to this day.
The Tyrolean was built on the site of the old bus depot, behind the Putting Green, next to what is now the Buccaneer Pub. It's still there, looking sad and derelict. It will disappear soon, to be replaced by modern flats, like so much of Westward Ho! I wonder if anyone reading this remembers the old skating-rink? Does anyone have any old photographs taken around the time, either inside or outside? It would be great to see them on the website.
By Stan Andrews.
from Richard Sumner
I lived between Northam and Diddywell from 1929 and 1958 (I was born in 1929). In 1947 I climbed one of the wooden radar masts and from the top I photographed a panorama of about 360 degrees. My camera was basic and I developed and printed the film myself so the quality of the prints is not brilliant.(these copies are now in our archive, and Mike Passmore who has been researching the R A F Northam has very kindly matched the photos with the info he has found, these pics are a valuable addition to our archive.)
Bideford, Northam, Appledore, Westward Ho.
This triangle of North Devon formed my youthful world. Whether in a pushchair, walking or on a bicycle I got to know it very well, all the little nooks and crannies. Bideford was the Town; Northam, the Village; Appledore, an interesting and slightly exciting fishing and boatbuilding town; Westward Ho, a popular seaside resort. Between Westward Ho and Appledore were The Burrows on which was the Royal North Devon Golf Course - at that time a championship course. ‘Over the Burrows’ was where we went to bathe, in Bideford Bay (NOT Barnstaple Bay we insisted). Our house was on the lower Appledore road half a mile from Northam. The house was demolished in the 1980s after its land had been developed into a housing estate, but between 1929 and 1958 it was my home.
Northam was half a mile from the house and was visited daily. All the necessary shops were there and most of them delivered their goods. The two misses Burch owned the bakery in the Square; a butcher was nearby, a garage and Glovers the hardware shop. Opposite was a sweet shop. Bishop’s the grocer, the bank, the Post Office, the chemist. Also a carpentry, a slaughterhouse (on Tuesdays one heard the squeals of the pigs being killed), the coal merchant, and a blacksmith where I used to watch the horses being shod. A quiet, gentle community where everyone was known and very little disturbed the daily routine. Mr Pinney, the vicar, was active around the village, we went to church every Sunday and father sang in the choir. From the village you could see out over the Burrows to the sea and Lundy Island in the distance. The road to our house left the square down a short, steep hill and the horse-drawn wagons going down it had to have cast iron skids under their wheels to brake the descent. The roads in the area had only recently been covered with tarmac after they had been dug up to lay main drainage; many others were still only dirt, dusty in summer and muddy in winter. We had a car, an open Fiat with a canvas roof; when this was down our dog used to be placed in a fold, until one day the bumpy road threw him out.
Westward Ho had developed as a popular seaside resort in Victorian times probably as a result of Charles Kingsley’s and Rudyard Kipling’s stories. Kipling had been at the United Service College in the 1870s and wrote about it in “Stalky & Co”, but after it left in 1904 the area declined somewhat. The long, flat stretch of sand facing the Atlantic gave good, safe bathing, and I remember Sir Alan Cobham’s flying circus using it for their five shilling (25p) flights for the public – my sister went on one. Nearby was a sheltered, salt-water, swimming pool where I learned to swim. It had been opened in July 1875 as The Nassau Baths but in 1930 it was called The Patio and was owned and run by Major Pleydell-Bouverie, a retired army officer, and I was always fascinated by his pumping engine and cleaning operations. It was a favourite summer place for the family and was very pleasant with its sheltered walls, ice creams, and music - ‘Sleepy Lagoon’ was always playing. Now (2007) it has been developed into 26 luxury appartments. Some houses, a few shops, a putting green, a row of huts, and a holiday camp was about all there was to Westward Ho, however it was fun to visit when there was rough weather as the surf was big along the sands and waves would break over the sea wall and pebble ridge. We mostly bathed further along the Pebble Ridge, over the Burrows.
Appledore was more interesting as it was a working community with fishing boats and shipbuilding yards. It had a lifeboat station. The narrow streets and tiny houses were always a fascination but they have now been gentrified as desirable second homes. Near to the village was a sandy bay at which old wooden coastal trading boats were beached and dismantled; they were exciting for us to explore. We used to go into the old cabins and holds and imagine ourselves at sea. The smell of bilge water, oil, and tarred wood is a very strong reminder of those days.
Bideford was two miles away and something of an excursion to visit. We usually went on the bus from Northam, and sometimes in Sammy Guard’s bus which went past our front gate. This was a large, open, old fashioned charabanc; the canvas hood only being used if it rained. Sammy was a large, colourful character and on market days, when it would be full of Appledore folk, the journey was usually a riot of screams of laughter as he made remarks about his passengers - one had to expect to be singled out for attention. The town was a very pleasant one built alongside the river Torridge. The Quay was the centre of activity, always busy with small coastal shipping unloading and loading and the few cars parking there, the shopping streets running uphill from it. It was a happy mix of commerce and community enhanced by the attractive river and the old many-arched bridge. The summer regatta held at high tide was right in the middle of the town and was a great occasion. My sister had had a canvas canoe and in it she won the race for girls. The town had all the essential shops but I had my favourites: Gales the sports and gun shop, Puddicombes the toy shop where there was a drawer of toys which cost only one penny, Chopes the drapers, The Old Bank Café where there were back copies of ‘Punch’ magazine which I liked - aged four I startled a man sitting next to them by asking him to “give me a Punch”. The pannier market at the top of town was always attractive. The cool, vaulted building filled by the local farmer’s wives with their produce was really ‘direct to the consumer’: cream, butter, eggs, junket, all manner of meat, and vegetables, and, of course, fish straight from the quayside. It was always thronged with customers. There were also two cinemas - The Strand and The Palace; they showed the early films like Gone with the Wind, and Roy Rogers cowboy films, even some silent ones. Somehow the town gave the feeling of pride in its ancient sea-faring history with the names of Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake still resonant. I liked it and am saddened by the changes of the last fifty years - the modern road bridge over the river has spoiled it for me.
Westward Ho! Seems to be a second home for our family. My Grandfather's parents used to have a caravan down there and my grandfather followed in their footsteps. A lot of people from this area have and still do holiday at the Ho!I have on numerous occasions been sat on the beach and a wiveliscombe local has walked past.
My grandfather's family used to visit Westward Ho! as a change from the land we are all farmers still hanging on just, and have farmed in this area since early 1700 all within a five?mile radius.
My Grandmothers family (Spearman, Headon, Nancekivell, Goaman) came from Parkham, Buckland Brewer, Hartland, Northam, Bideford area etc; since the late1600's there are still cousins albeit distant in the area.
My Mother remembers when on holiday walking to Abbotsham to visit cousins.
When I visited from school I always felt at home. I was sent to Edgehill in Bideford to school as my mother remarried a civil servant and went abroad. I never realised at the time how close so many of the family were, including at school!
A few times when life has got difficult I have considered moving to HO! But have never got around to it for some reason or another, maybe it isn't meant to be. But I have brought my children down to visit when I can. My daughter now 18, loves to visit and intends to bring her daughter down preferably when she can walk. My sons aged 2 and 4 love the beach although they are definitelyfarmers/
engineers. The leaflets are really interestingespecially about Seafield House. We have also always called it the Haunted House my daughters says it sends a shiver down her back but I am fascinated by it and feel its a great place to be, in another life it would be my idea of home with cream teas in the garden, actually this life would be good. I have always wondered about the stained glass windows and how they came to be and why. I assume it must be to the stairs and hall. It is such a shame it is so run down,
Sylvia Cattrell.Taunton.
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