STREETLY,
STAFFORDSHIRE
MEMORIES
(1936 - 1961)
...
FROM A SMALL
BOY'S "DIARY"
...
TUESDAY 14th
AUGUST 1945
BEACHES AND
OTHER THINGS
Beesands,
Lannacombe, East
Portlemouth ...
and
Beeson
by Chris Myers
|
Tuesday August 14th 1945.
Beesands is a nice place
but it has one big
disadvantage. Here's a
picture of me and Mum on it.
Do you see it? NO SAND! Just
shingle,
Torcross and
Slapton are just the same
even though they call them
Slapton Sands. Difficult to
build a sandcastle. And it
hurts your bare feet until
you get used to it. That's
been a problem for the
family ever since they first
started coming here. There
aren't many sandy beaches at
all. My big sister used to
tell me about one which they
had discovered at a little
place called
Lannacombe and
the lane you had to go down
was so narrow that the grass
and bushes brushed against
each side of the car. We
haven't been there this time
but I expect the lane is
just as narrow and overgrown
as it ever was. (Unless the
Americans have widened it!).
Another place the family
found which suited them was
a beach near
Salcombe. And
we have been there again
this time. When I say
Salcombe, it is not the town
itself. That is a sleepy
little place with some nice
shops and pubs and not too
many people about. What I am
talking about is
East
Portlemouth, on the opposite
side of the estuary from
Salcombe. You can get there
from the town on a little
boat which goes from down
some steps near the
Ferry
Inn or, if you want to go by
car, you can get to it
through a lot of little
lanes on the other side of
the water. I haven't got any
photographs of it this time.
But this is me when I was
there a long time ago, in
1938 when I was two.
I'm with my sister,
brother, Mum and Rex. You can
see there is a nice beach
and a lot of water, even
though it isn't exactly the
sea.
And me again,
on the same day, breathing
in the wide open spaces.
Everything is still much
the same there, now. With one
big difference. Again, the
Americans have been here.
There's a lot of concrete
and some bits of rusty
equipment. It's difficult to
work out what it was all
for. But I think they are
the remains of workshops and
docks where the US Navy
repaired vessels of
different types, probably
including landing craft. It
all looks so solid that you
think that it will be there
for ever. Perhaps it will,
perhaps it won't.
Everything is going
wonderfully at the cottage.
I have made some friends.
Local children and visitors,
like me. Mainly boys, of
course. But I have also met
a sweet and gentle girl
called
Mary.
She lives in one of cottages
over the road and she's a year or two older than
me. I have talked to her
once or twice. I think I
must be a bit strange to
her. She knows I come from a
big city and possibly she
thinks that I have a life
she can hardly imagine. But
I don't, really. And I envy
her for her own life, living
in this beautiful place
where it's never winter, the
sun always shines and the
rich, red earth makes
everything grow twice as big
and twice as lush and twice
as green as anything at
home. She has promised to
take me on an errand shortly
to see her grannie and
grandpa who
live in a remote cottage
which you can only get to
over the fields. This will
be an
adventure and I'm really looking
forward to it. Mum and Dad
say that I can go.
One of her neighbours is a
man who is quite old and
they say that the furthest
he has ever been away from
the village is the town of
Kingsbridge which is only
four or five miles away. He
also says that he's not
bothered about seeing
anything else and is quite
happy.
Dad and Mum
make regular visits to the
The Cricket. They like
chatting with the the
locals. One man they have
got very friendly with is
Mr. Alfie Steer who is, like
nearly everyone else, a
fisherman. Dad has bought
one of those glass balls
from Mr. Steer which the
fishermen use as floats for
their crabpots. They are
made from thick green glass
and have tarred rope around
them so that they can be
tied to the crabpots (which
are like big, upside-down
baskets with a hole in the
top which the crabs climb
through to get at the bait
and then can't get out of).
Dad wanted one of these
balls as a "souvenir",
as he calls things like this. It's
the sort of thing which gets
hung up in our hall at home.
This one will probably be
on a hook near a little wooden
barrel, small enough to
carry easily. That has
always been there. I think
Dad brought it back from
Devon a long time before the
war. He's told me that in
the old days the men working
on farms would take these
out into the fields full of
cider to last them all day
if they got thirsty. (There
are other interesting things
in our hall. They have only
been there for a few months,
so far, but there are now three
different sorts of Home
Guard hand grenade on the
china shelf. Dad likes to
have them there to look at.
He says they are dummies and
won't go off. I
expect he's right).
And Dad has been waging war
on the Beeson rabbits. He
sometimes goes out, over the
fields, with a shotgun which
he has borrowed. I'm not
sure how successful he is
being and I haven't been
with him so far. I expect I
will, eventually. He hasn't
got a shotgun of his own but I
think he is going to buy
one. What he has got at
home, though, are three Home
Guard rifles. They live in
his wardrobe. I don't know
why he hasn't brought one of
these with him. Perhaps they
are not quite the right thing to
shoot rabbits with. Or
perhaps Mum wouldn't let
him.
And as for our
cottage? Everything is still super
here.
Mrs Honeywill is wonderful. She's
still making lovely crab salads and
she is always cheerful and
joking. (She and Mum have
fits of laughter when they
chat together and they call
each other Connie and Freda.
Not
Mrs. Honeywill and
Mrs. Myers, like
grown-ups usually do. She is the
most beautiful lady I have
ever seen and I love the way
she speaks, pronouncing
Tom
(her husband) as "Taaam". In
fact I have fallen in love
with her. I told Mum and Dad
the other day that she is so
nice and such a good cook I wished
she would demob Tom and
marry me. They thought this
was a huge joke. Of course
it WAS a joke. I'm not daft.
I'm only nine. And I know the age difference is
against us.
We are
still waiting for the
Japanese. Dad says that
something is going on and
it's definitely going to
happen. I'll tell you when I
hear anything for certain.
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
|
