Great Little Town, Cullompton

So then my brother John dropped in on his way from Germany back to Western Australia.

So we went to have another look at our childhood home - Cullompton again.



It's normal in these little Devon towns for the main street to be called Fore Street or High Street, but we found this amusing.

I got to have another look at the church ...



But this time it was open and so John and I managed to go inside.



It's a very beautiful church, with that multicoloured 'rood screen' across the front. The choir stalls - John used to be a sweet little choir-boy - used to be in front of the screen forty years ago.



This thing lay at the back of the church in those days too, and I remember looking at it often, not understanding what it was.



Of course, I probably never read the explanation - or maybe it wasn't there back then.



I know that it's a very old church, dating back to the 1200s, if I remember rightly.

The Butcher's Shop

When we left Cully John was 15 and I was 17. John had a job at Veyseys Butchers, delivery boy riding a bike. So he was keen to see if the shop was still there.

Only one butcher's shop in Cully these days - Veyseys!



John said there was an alley next tot he shop, and they used to butcher their own meat behind the shop.



Yup, there's the alley. And Roger Veysey - who was 18 and working there back then - assured John his bike was still there.



But they don't kill their own meat any more, a vet had to be on standby all the time and it proved too expensive. The meat is all still very local, as I read on their blackboard.



There was a young chap (about 9 years old) hanging around helping out wearing a butcher's apron - Roger's grandson.



We had a good chat and a laugh with Roger ... back then he had considered going to school a waste of time and couldn't wait to leave and get into the family business of butchery, and he's still there after forty years. He's happy - seemed to feel a bit sorry for John who is still stuck in 'school', doing research at a University.

Around Cully ...



The old Fish and Chips shop - on Saturdays we would often join the queue that reached right around the shop, out the door, and down the street. Now they offer takeaway Chinese as well.



Up the narrow main street - I'm sure traffic wasn't so heavy back then, and that was before the M5 was built nearby.



Lots of old buildings. This would be a tourist magnet in Australia, but here it's just ho hum another old building.



Then there was the "Secondary Modern" high school. It was brand new when we first moved into Cully. I attended here briefly (Dad taught here) before they decided I would fit in better at Grammar School in Tiverton. But in my short time here I was picked as a tree monitor to look after this tree - or maybe it was the one next to it - which had just been planted.

... and on to Tivvy

Where John and I both went to Grammar School. Now, of course, it's a primary school.



This little shed in the corner of the school playing field



was where John used to go to ATC (Air Training Corps). Lotsa fun.

The Tea shop - and a real surprise

It was a cold afternoon, and John and I were following the route we used to take to get to the bus after school each day. On the corner near the bridge there used to be a sweets shop where I often stopped for a little something. Now there seemed to be a tea shop in the same spot, so we went in.

Apparently I had got it wrong - maybe the sweets shop had been the other side of the road - because the proprietor (who had come from Birmingham a couple of years ago) told me he thought it had always been a cafe.

But he was a friendly chap, and we got talking over our Devonshire Cream Tea (yep, clotted cream again). We were talking about interesting people you meet in Devon, and after a few minutes we realised that my friend, Mary, from Cully 40 years ago was the same 'Mary' he was talking about. In fact, he said, she lives just over the road from the tea shop and drops in regularly.

Looking out of his window he said that he could see her sitting at the window of her flat. So he rang her, and she came over.



From left to right that's me, Mary, Helen, and (I think) Maureen.

She hasn't changed a whole lot - somehow we got talking and didn't take a photo of her in the shop.

She is the last person I expected to rediscover during my little sojourn back in Devon. The person I really want to find is Helen, and I hoped Mary would be able to help. But she had no information.

All the same, it made for a remarkable day of memories.

Together again ...

after nearly 40 years!

Today I had the very great pleasure of spending the day with my old school buddy, "Bish"!



I last saw her when I left England and moved to Australia in 1970. We were just kids, 17 years old, and we didn't keep in touch at all. So imagine my surprise when I walked into the bank where I heard she was working - and there she was, she hadn't changed at all.

Same cheeky grin, same infectious chuckle.

So the four of us went out to Dulverton - one of those beautiful little rural villages with tiny streets, magnificent churches, and interesting little shops. We wandered around, and then went for lunch in one of the village pubs.

Everyone says English pubs have changed since you can't smoke in them any more, they say the English pub is dead or dying ... it's just not true. This was a delightful warm, friendly place with folks sitting around tables and on sofas, chatting over a drink. We were quite surprised when a group came in with two large dogs, and settled comfortably into a corner - the dogs tucked themselves away under the table and we didn't hear a peep out of them. Another gentleman came in with a big dog, and it sat quietly at his feet while he drank at the bar. The dog group had their meal and left, and another group came in with a large dog and occupied the same corner table.

Englishmen and their dogs! I began to feel out of place without one.

We had some local cider to drink. It was quite surprising to us that it was still, not sparkling, and tasted quite similar to the kambucha tea I used to make years ago.

Then we went on out to Tarr Steps. Wikipedia says:

The Tarr Steps are a prehistoric clapper bridge across the River Barle in the Exmoor National Park, Somerset, England.



Pretty place, very old. Oh, clapper bridge?

A clapper bridge is an ancient form of bridge found on the moors of Devon (Dartmoor and Exmoor) and in other upland areas of the United Kingdom including Snowdonia and Anglesey. It is formed by large flat slabs of granite or schist supported on stone piers (across rivers), or resting on the banks of streams. According to the Dartmoor National Park, the word 'clapper' derives from an Anglo-Saxon word, 'cleaca', meaning 'bridging the stepping stones'.

So now you know, and so do I.



To finish off a great day out we went to Bickleigh Mill. This place has the biggest display of crafts, and knick-knacks, and doo-dabs, and even clothes ... you go in and through and up and around, room after room. So we stopped for a cup of tea.

[Yesterday a friend and I went out for dinner in a place really close to us here in Torquay, and it was called "Bickley Mill"! Things can get confusing in these parts.]

Memory Lane

I spent my formative years in these parts, here in Devon at least. It may be a long time ago, but they were important to me.

Church Street, Cullompton - until we drove here recently I had never realised what a tiny, narrow street it is ... unless they have somehow made it narrower in the last 40 years.



It didn't seem so small when I was riding my bike.

And then there was Gravel Walk, just around the back of the church.



You can't help noticing the big red house - well that wasn't ours. We lived in the little white house.



Not so little, though. There were 15 rooms, and half an acre of garden - and orchard - out the back.

Here is a photo of the front of the house in the '60s. That's my brother John putting food on the bird table.



The garden backed on to the Mill Stream, just the place for many hours of childhood fun!



The Mill Stream is still there - it seems someone has converted the old mill into a home - but it has developed a little island (complete with tree!) right at the bottom of our old yard.

This is an old picture looking out over our back yard (and next door's) and the mill stream from my bedroom window back in the day.



Every summer my cousins would come to stay for a while. This is looking at the back of the house - it needed a lick of paint, didn't it? It was really old, even then - about 300 years old, they told us. So I guess it's more like 350 years old now.



Apart from that, it's remarkable how little anything has changed in nearly 40 years. When we lived here they had just built "The Bypass" across the fields at the back. Now it's the M5, and the noise from it sometimes sounds like a plane coming in to land.

Going Back Even Further

In about 1964, in the few months before we moved into the Gravel Walk house, we lived about a mile out of Cullompton on the hilly road to Tiverton, in "Little Tom's Cottage".




That's my youngest brother, Mark.

It was winter, and very cold. The cottage had no running water inside, we had to use the outside pump.



This old picture of my sister, Mary, pumping water for Mark is water-damaged, but you can still see the vege garden.

The other day we drove out to take a look.



Yep, still there! The front door is gone now. In those days it was two residences, we lived in the left-hand part. Now it is all one.



And they park their car where the pump used to be. I guess they have water inside now!

Over the road was - and still is! - Wells Park.



New gate, new wooden fence instead of the old hedgerow.



The Old Grammar School

I don't have any old photos of Tiverton Grammar School. It actually stopped being a grammar school soon after I left.



It's a primary school now, but it really doesn't look any different.



The gym where we used to have assemblies - 500 or so big kids all sitting cross-legged on the floor. I think when we got to the big end of school maybe we were allowed to have chairs.



We used to thunder up and down these stairs, pushing past students trying to go the other way.



The classrooms have computers now, but otherwise they look the same. I was explaining to this present day teacher about how my brother, John, had left some chemicals on the radiator to dry out, and the teacher had leaned on them and blown a hole in her shirt-sleeve.



This house had just been purchased by the school then, and was used for some sixth-form classes - we felt very special and important having lessons in there.