Thursday 12 August 1993. We drove from Sidmouth to Paignton. We had been in 1990 but just about the only thing I could remember about it was drawing the harbour from near the public toilets. Yes folks, it's all glamour on one of our holidays...
Anyway the harbour is a lovely place to start so let's have a look round here before we wander off.
There are plenty of boats tied up here, from commercial small boats offering fishing trips to visitors. The visitors come with visions of huge big game sailfins and probably arrive back from a trip with a few herring. "But you should have seen the one that got away...!"
The ends of the two harbour walls are labelled IN and OUT to ensure that no landlubbers crash into each other going in opposite directions on the same side of the opening out to sea.
Fishing trips are bookable on the harbour side, with each boat having its own small kiosk. There are ferries to Brixham and Torquay, River Dart cruises and one kiosk offering both mackerel and wreck fishing. I imagine that means fishing for fish over the site of a wreck rather than any amateur salvage operation. Hook onto any sunken U-Boat and you'd soon be joining it...
Once we have laughed derisorily at the tiny fish some would-be shark killer has brought back, we leave the delights of the harbour and out to see what else Paignton has to offer. There's this bit of thatch that catches my eye and I amble around it before coming across an old red telephone box and an anchor. Apparently it used to sail off when it got fed up of people shouting "Hello? Can you hear me?"
There is a very attractive and probably ancient green sward along Esplanade Road. Not many towns can boast a space large enough or with architechture of a quality fit for calling an Esplanade. I was born in such a town which had a long wide thoroughfare fronting the town hall which was famous the world over apparently. In fact my grandfather, stationed out in Burma during World War II sent a letter back to the local newspaper in Rochdale saying how everyone, on being told where he was from, answered "Isn't that the town with a grand centre?"
In appreciation of Paignton's foresight and continuing good sense in keeping it, I plonked myself down to enjoy it whilst reading a book. It was The Silence of the Lambs in fact. And in truth I heard not a solitary bleat the whole time I was there...
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