Torbay

[sheenaghpugh]

Just did a gig at the Torbay festival - well two actually, a reading, with David Perman, and an adjudication. The reading would, I think, have worked better if the sound equipment had worked - as it was, we had a duff microphone that seemed to be generating crackle, which was irritating for the performers and must have been worse for the audience. These things really need testing in advance. By the evening it seemed to be fixed, and adjudications are always fun because you're giving out money to winners. I was dead chuffed that one of the winning poems, which I'd chosen for its musicality, did in fact turn out to be a song lyric, and its proud owner was delighted to have it recognised that Lyrics Can Also Be Poems. She was a Brassens fan, too.

While we were there, we naturally took the chance to look around a bit:

Torbay is essentially three towns strung out around a bay: Torquay, Paignton and Brixham. and of these the nicest by far is Brixham, IMO, because it has a working harbour with fishing boats, not just a marina. It also has a main street with some local independents, not just the usual chains, a replica of the Golden Hind - and maties, if that was its size, no wonder a bunch of strong-willed men got on each other's nerves - and a statue of William of Orange. I didn't know this before, but His Orangeness came ashore at Brixham to start the Glorious Revolution.

Paignton we saw little of, but it does have a steam railway, where we saw a small, earnest engine puffing in and making clouds of important-looking smoke. His name was Hercules, which was slightly at odds with his minuscule size, but doubtless he was a strong little engine and well capable of hauling his string of coaches down to Kingsweir.

Torquay, like Paignton, has loads of seafront. Paignton's struck me as exuding that air of quiet pastel desperation that epitomises British seaside for me. Torquay's was slightly posher-looking. Torquay also had a little headland with a memorial to a wartime mishap; some Home Guards were being taught how to load and fire a Bofors gun when the breech blew, killing six of them plus an artillery officer. The inscription on the memorial, "We will remember you", might mean more if the date of its erection weren't 2005 - 61 years after the event. We will remember you.... eventually.

Just inland from Torquay is Cockington, optimistically billed as the most beautiful village in England, which it ain't - it isn't even really a village, just a set of old houses most of which are now gift shops or teashops - sorry, tea shoppes. But the scenery, especially the river gorge, is indeed beautiful and well worth a look. It also has a church with a pulpit that allegedly came from the wreck of an Armada ship, the Rosario, and this might well be true because it is not only clearly very old but nothing like the rest of the furnishings.

And we sold some books, which is after all the entire object of the exercise.... but it's nice when you can do it in pretty surroundings. Good also to meet some folks I hadn't seen in a while.

Comments

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

That's the replica of the Golden Hind that may only be one third of the original, the full size, working ship is in London. http://community.livejournal.com/dv_squee/250523.html?nc=10

[sheenaghpugh]

Thank God for that.... though for 10 officers and 60 crew, even three times the size would still be claustrophobic.

[(Anonymous)]

I think you summed up Torbay pretty well, Sheenagh. I both love it and hate it and always feel it could be so much better than it is. I did like your description of the steam train. That's a great little trip to Dartmouth.

Carolyn