STREETLY,
STAFFORDSHIRE
MEMORIES
(1936 - 1961)
... FROM A SMALL BOY'S
"DIARY"
...
MONDAY 13th
AUGUST 1945
GETTING ABOUT
Hallsands,
Torcross,
Slapton Sands,
Keynedon
by Chris Myers
|
Monday, 13th August 1945
Back again. No war news
although Dad says that Japan
is definitely ready to give
up.
We are now in the second
week of our holiday and, as
I've already learned, the
second half of anything goes
much more quickly than the first.
So, before I forget, I'll
tell you a bit about what
has been happening.
You'll probably remember
that we have been going to
Beesands quite a bit. Most
days, in fact, even if it is
only in the evening after
supper. Last time, I
mentioned two other villages
on this coast,
Hallsands and
Torcross.
Hallsands
is mainly a ruin. I think it
used to be a village much
like Beesands but they
removed a lot of shingle
from the beach to help build
new Royal Navy dockyards at
Devonport
(which is part of
Plymouth, just down the
coast). There was a terrific
storm one night in 1917 and
it looks as though the
village wasn't as well
protected as it had been in
the past. So the storm
overwhelmed a lot of the
cottages. Dad knows about
all this. They are still
there but they are nothing
but ruins. It's all very
eerie as you walk in and out
of doorways and rooms where
people used to live. But
this all happened a long,
long time ago. It's nearly
30 years.
Torcross,
on the other hand, hasn't
changed that much. In fact,
only a tiny bit from how I
remember it from years ago. I came here
when I was only four months
old. (Now don't be daft, of
COURSE I don't remember it
from then. Just from later).
This is me being carried by
my mum along the front on my
very first visit in 1936,
with my sister and Rex
(who had a different name
then
but I'm not going to say
what it was).
And, while we're about it,
here is a decent picture of
Rex by the pond which Dad
built. That was at home and
so it hasn't really got much
to do with all this. But I
thought you would like to
see him. He has been our
friend and companion (and
still is) all the days of
the war. He used to spend
the night in his kennel in
the garage while the Germans
were overhead and we were
all safe in the shelter down
the garden. (When I see we,
I mean Mum, my sister and
me. There wasn't room for
Dad. He would be up at the
top of the steps in his tin
hat, keeping watch. Unless
he was away on Home Guard
duty. My brother would be
with him as well, before he
got called up and went
away). I hope Rex didn't
worry about the bombing too
much. But he was always very
happy to see us again in the
morning. And we were happy
to see him.
Torcross is a village at
one end of Slapton Sands on
the road to
Dartmouth. I
can't remember a lot about
it from prewar. But one
thing I do remember is a
rather nice cafe where once
I had a milkshake. This cafe
stands in the village,
between the road and the
sea, just where the road
bends round the end of
Slapton Ley (which is a
large lake). There is a
wooden double door which is
mainly glass and which you
go through to get inside. It
used to be all neat and tidy
and modern. But it isn't any
more. It's burnt out and the
doors, which haven't got any
glass in them now, are
half open. This isn't too
much of a surprise to me. I
know a bit about why this
has happened.
I'll go
back for a moment to the
farm which the family stayed
at from before I was born
until 1938 and then again,
once more, in 1941. This was
Keynedon Mill, near
Sherford.
You might remember that I have already
told you about this before
and showed you some
pictures. There is also a
picture of
Mr. Cumming who
was the farmer there. Here
he is, again.
And this is the farm
which he used to have. Mum
is looking out of the
window. And my brother is
standing at the gate. To the
right, the little lane goes
off to Sherford through a
tunnel of trees.
If something hadn't
happened, that is where we
would be staying again now,
in 1945. But what happened
was that the Americans
decided that they needed
Slapton Sands to practise
their landings for D-Day.
That was because Slapton
beach was a bit like the
beach they were going to
land on in
Normandy. In June
last year that was known as
"Utah". So all the people in
the surrounding area,
including the villages of
Torcross, Slapton, Sherford,
Stokenham, Blackawton and
others, were brought
together and told that they
had just six weeks to move
everything out, all their
possessions, their farm
animals, their equipment,
everything. And so that's
what they had to do. Can you
imagine it? Mr. and Mrs.
Cumming were amongst them
because their farm was in the Americans'
area. What happened after
they had gone and the
Americans moved in is still
a bit of a mystery (although
I do know a bit). But a lot
of damage was done during
all the practising and I
expect it took a long time
to clear everything up
afterwards, after June last
year. I know they were using
real ammunition, not blanks.
And so, that is obviously
what has happened to my
cafe. People have moved back
into the area now and of
course we are able to go
there. But the cafe is still
a ruin. They haven't mended
it yet. So no milkshake or
ice cream for me this time.
Dad has been discussing
all this at the pub with
some of the locals. He tells
me and Mum that there is
talk of some dreadful
disaster which happened to
the Americans during the
time that they were at
Slapton. A lot of Americans
were killed. But nobody
knows any details and
nothing official has ever
been said about it. Not yet,
anyway. For the time being
it's a complete mystery. And
a secret.
When I say
that most of the locals have
moved back to their homes,
Mr. and Mrs. Cumming
haven't. I don't know why.
It tooks as though they are
never going to return. We
have visited them. I think they are
living in a little cottage
in
Frogmore (or it might be
East Charleton
- I'm not sure exactly
which). If you go out of
their back door there's a
big area there which has
pens made out of wire
netting and stakes and in
these pens are all of their
animals. It's not really
like a farm at all. The
cottage is small, not like
Keynedon Mill. And Mr.
Cumming has a dartboard in
the sitting room. We
had a game.
If you leave their cottage
and go back through
Frogmore down the hill to
where the bridge is, the road to Keynedon
Mill and Sherford goes off
to the left. The junction is
quite different from what it
was like before. Much wider.
That's something else the
Americans have done, because
of their big lorries. (When
I first used to see them at
home, I thought the name on
the bonnet was "PODGE". It
seemed a funny name to me.
It took a long time to
realise it was really Dodge
and, of course, that was a
make of American car which I knew
all about. I felt a bit silly
about that).
I hope
that Mr. and Mrs. Cumming
will be able to have a
proper farm again, one day.
Just like the one I remember
where we used to help with
the harvest and drink milk
which was still warm from
the cows and had lovely
meals in our room brought to
us by Phyllis, their jolly
daughter.
And where
(in 1941, which I told you
about
earlier) I
once played in a meadow by a
water-wheel with a little
evacuee boy from Birmingham called
Bob.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Please see INDEX page for
general acknowledgements.
Grateful
acknowledgement is also made
to:
- the several owners of the Myers
Family Archive of which all the
images shown on this page are a
part.
This family
and local history
page is hosted by
- The Home Guard in Great Britain, 1940-1944
-
www.staffshomeguard.co.uk
All
text and images are, unless otherwise stated, © The
Myers Family 2025
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