Paignton Harbour

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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Miss Franny Leads the Way!

The delectable, ever-sexy and kind-hearted Miss Franny (I think I got in all the things she told me to...) was in the local newspaper last night.

No, she hadn't created a rumpus in the chippy or been dragged off by the police for staggering around the village centre, swearing and swigging lager from cans, throwing her empties at passers-by, although it can only be a matter of time...

Instead she was shown displaying a number of alternatives to plastic bags as Blackpool has "declared war" on plastic carrier bags. A shame the photographer failed to spot that she was holding one of them upside down, but not to worry!

In the battle against plastic the weapons on display include cardboard bottle carriers, hessian bags and ... er... plastic carriers... Oh! They are the re-usable type Miss Franny assures me. Would it not be easier if shops just bought paper bags like we had in the 50s and 60s and like in modern day America?

And why has nobody the guts to declare war on the real bane of every shopper whether bothered about being green or not - the blister pack!!! You need a pneumatic drill to open those things and they are always several feet long and wide even to hold a toothpick! Put a tax on the suppliers and manufacturers and importers though - not on the public who don't have a choice... Or just ban the bloody things! I'd be quite happy to buy my razor in a carboard box or even a paper bag!

Babbacombe

Saturday 1 June 2008. Today we are in Babbacombe, just a short distance along the Devon coast from Torquay. Tonight we are going to see a couple of mates who are part of a Sixties Reveal show at the local theatre.

Babbacombe lies just north of Torquay on the opposite side of a small peninsula and has sandstone cliffs overlooking a small beach that you can get to on a furnicular railway.

There's an excellent and large green. There was however the added enjoyment of the local ...er... character. In her sixties, she was dressed in a bikini top and long skirt and was carrying a deck chair all over the place, putting it down and then picking it up again talking angrily to herself all the while... She never actually sat on the deck chair, but then there was no need really because with her antics she had soon emptied all the nearby benches...

The theatre itself sits at one end of the green and there are several large hotels strung along the road between the theatre and the furnicular railway.

We had a walk along the cliff tops to the theatre and, having got our bearings and having noted that despite the lack of crowds along the seafront, there was also quite a lack of car parking spaces along the seafront road. We decided to go back to the hotel, get changed and ready for the evening then head back early to Babbacombe, to secure a parking spot and have a meal before the show.

Once we were back in Babbacombe, we had a meal in the Babbacombe Inn and the food was excellent. Halfway through our meal most of the cast of the show turned up and we were spotted and had a chat with Tony Harte, then the lead singer with The Honeycombes. In the next article we'll have a look at the show itself.

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