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- The Royal Connection
- Devon Eats
- Devon VIPs
- Richard Remembers
- Owlbut's Birdwatch
If having the word "Royal" in its name
wasn't enough, the Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth can list as its previous cadets, King George V, King George VI, King Charles III, Prince Andrew and
Prince William. Not only that but, as you may have heard, it was while he was a naval cadet there in 1939 that the late Prince Philip met Princess Elizabeth as
she then was.
Royal Navy officer training has been taking place in Dartmouth since 1863 and since 1998 it has been the sole centre of Royal Navy officer training. An old
wooden ship, HMS Britannia, was moored in the River Dart as the first base and in 1864 another wooden hulk, HMS Hindostan, was added. The current stone buildings. as seen in
the photo, were completed in 1905 and the first cadets arrived in September 1905. The ship now moored in the River Dart still bears the name "Hindostan" although it is a
more modern minehunter class. The college was bombed during WWII and cadets moved to Cheshire until 1946.
Should you wish to consider a career as an officer in the Royal Navy you would need to have at least 72 UCAS points, as at 2021. Then you go through
an interview board at the Admiralty where you would undergo physical fitness tests, mental aptitude tests and a medical examination. Most cadets join after uni
but some join directly from secondary school. You can join between the ages of 18 and 39 which basically adds yet another reason as to why I won't be there.
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Devon and Cornwall are famous for their cream
teas although there is a subtle difference as to how they are served. A cream tea is basically a mid-afternoon snack, popular with the upper class in olden days,
comprising of scones, clotted cream, jam and a pot of tea. As I don't drink tea, or coffee for that matter, I only make use of the edible part of a cream tea, which
I thoroughly enjoy.
Cream teas exist elsewhere but an authentic Devonshire or Cornish cream tea should have warm scones. The scones are not buttered. Traditionally you
would have strawberry jam, not any other flavour, and only clotted cream not whipped cream.
Clotted cream is a golden-yellow colour made by using unpasteurized cow's milk, again tradition says the milk should be from Jersey cows, and letting
it sit for up to 24 hours in a shallow pan and then slowly heating it and leaving it to cool for another 12-24 hours. The cream that rises to the surface and "clots"
is skimmed off and served and that is clotted cream. My mother had a relation who lived in Devon and each year would post us a can of clotted cream. Mother would
make scones and we would have a cream tea.
I mentioned at the start that there was a subtle difference to Cornish cream teas and Devonshire cream teas and this is it. In Devon you split your
scone in half, cover each half with clotted cream and add strawberry jam on top. In Cornwall you split your scone the same way but coat each half with jam and
put a spoonful of clotted cream on top of that. Which do you prefer?
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Seven random people who were born in Devon in the last 100 years:-
Guy Burgess (Diplomat/Spy), Sue Barker (TV Presenter/Tennis Player), Chris Martin (Singer/Songwriter - Coldplay), Miranda Hart (Actor/Comedian),
Tom Daley (Diver), Jo Pavey (Athlete) and Wayne Sleep (Dancer).
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As you can see from our map on the previous
page and our fun facts, Devon is a large county. I have only seen a small part of it and I know I want to go back. It is so varied and so beautiful. It is home to
two National Parks, Exmoor and Dartmoor. These are inland and I have really only driven through them. Let me take you, in my memory, along the coastal parts I have
seen, loved and enjoyed. Oh, by the way, Devon has a coast that faces north, west, south and east.
We'll begin our journey on the north coast, just after leaving Somerset. I've already told you a lot about Lynmouth, almost the first coastal place you
come to, but on top of the cliffs above Lynmouth is Lynton. You can get there up a 1-in-4 road or, when I was last there, up a cliff railway operated by a 700 gallon
water tank fitted to each car. The track was about 900ft long and climbs 300 ft and opened in 1890. Also, a little further inland here, is a place called Watersmeet.
I only found this on my first trip, it was mid-Autumn, and the trees and scenery were stunning. Watersmeet is the fifth of my 10 memorable, wow-giving views in England.
Head west along this rocky coastline and you eventually come to Ilfracombe.
If you do nothing else when there, climb Lantern Hill to the little Chapel
of St Nicholas which overlooks the harbour and has burned a guiding light for sailors since it was built nearly 700 years ago. And if you do want to do something
else climb Capstone Hill which my memory says was built by prisoners on their way to Australia but I might be wrong. As I've said, this is my memories so I don't
look things up on google. At the top of Capstone Hill you can see across the Bristol Channel to the nature reserve of Lundy Island. Come down the hill and you used to be
able to take a trip across to the island from Ilfracombe harbour.
The coast then turns south past sandy, surfing beaches at Woolacombe,
Croyde Bay, my fourth favourite beach in England, and Saunton Sands. There's no bridge over the river Taw so you need
to head some 10 miles inland to Barnstaple, rejoin the shingle coast at Appledore and keep going south and then turn west. Here you find Clovelly which, between
my first and second trip I think, changed from a cute little village to a tourist attraction. In other words a visit nowadays costs money. The village is really
just one street, called Up-a-long or Down-along, depending on which way you are going. No cars, mentioned in the Doomsday Book and, at one time, the only transport
was donkeys pulling sledges, Clovelly is still well worth a visit and there are some beautiful drives around there. Eventually you reach the stark cliffs of Hartland
Point and Hartland Quay, with the harbour financed by Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake. Some of the rock structure there is truly awesome and
makes this the fourth of my 10 memorable, wow-giving views in England.
A few miles further south and you leave Devon and enter Cornwall.
However, should you follow the Cornish coast all the way around Land's End and back eastwards, you would, after some 700 kms
(422 miles), find yourself back in Devon again, this time on its south coast. Different again, I remember the numerous little inlets at Salcombe leading up to Kingsbridge.
Then there is the beach at Slapton Sands where the US Army practised
for the D-Day landings in Normandy. In 1943 3,000 villagers in little
hamlets around the beach were told to leave their homes. They had six weeks to go. They had to find somewhere to stay, no accommodation was provided for them. The reason was
to be able to provide accommodation for thousands of US soldiers shortly to be landed in Normandy and to keep the plans as secret as possible. Slapton beach was chosen
to practice the landings as it was similar to the beaches in Normandy. However, on 27th April 1944, during a training exercise using live fire, over 400 men were killed by their
compartriots because of a timing error. Then, the following day, some German E-boats, passing through Lyme Bay, came across the training exercise and the pretend invasion fleet,
opened fire and killed 749 men. There is a tank on the beach as a memorial.
Up the coast is Dartmouth and then the so-called English Riviera comprising of the holiday resorts of Brixham, Paignton and Torquay. To be honest I
only remember Brixham which had a replica of Sir Francis Drake's round the world ship the Golden Hind in the harbour. What I do remember, though, is the red sandstone cliffs
at Babbacombe Bay further along that stretch of coast. I hadn't seen cliffs of that colour before. Further along you go up the west side of the
River Ex, reach Exeter, turn 180 degrees and go down the east side till you get to Exmouth and then east until you get to Dorset. Some resorts here and Sidmouth is
where Queen Victoria lived in her childhood days with her parents.
Once you've seen all that, you have so much to explore inland. Off you go.
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The razorbill is a medium-sized seabird. They can be seen during the breeding season around the rocky cliffs on England's
coast. The breeding season runs from March until the end of July. There are no razorbills that can be found between the Humber estuary on the east coast, clockwise
around to the Isle of Wight on the south coast. Razorbills will eat sand eels, sprats and herrings. There are 130,000 breeding pairs around the UK.
Their feathers are black on their backs and white on their fronts. They have black legs and a black, medium length beak which is powerful and chunky.
Razorbills are about 38cms in length, have a wingspan of 63 to 67 cms and weigh between 590 and 730 grams.
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Two extra sections, "It Happened Here" and "Now That's Weird", will appear on 2 December 2024
