Back into Devon

The 10^th April saw us driving up to Plymouth and taking the Torpoint Ferry to get us back into Devon. 

This was my son's 'office', when his submarine was in for a refit.

We were booked into a site at Slapton Sands Well, that just isn’t a pretty name, is it? And I didn’t think I knew the place at all but it turned out, I did.

As a child we spent a few Summer holidays at The Sea Trout Inn in  Staverton. Such happy memories, of hot summers and days on the beach. We normally went to Paignton for the beach but I remember this one day we seemed to drive for ages and when we got there, what a disappointment for an 8 year old. Miles of beach, with nothing there, no Pier, no shops and it wasn’t sand, it was, well it wasn't quite shingle either, it was very coarse sand and not what my sister and I liked for making sandcastles.

When Mike and I arrived at Slapton Sands I realised that this must have been the place I’d been to, all those years ago. What a difference adult eyes make. Mike and I loved it and as we had a few good days, weatherwise, this became probably our favourite place so far on our tour. We also found some good areas of proper sand on the beach. There are public Loos and an Ice Cream van, which I think does Teas too.

The weather obviously makes a vast difference but even so, we fell in love with the place straight away. We could see the sea from our pitch and the beach was and bus stop were a ten minute walk downhill and the village just 5 minutes up the hill, behind us.

And what a village! It’s just a delight, with narrow streets, old cottages and 2 good pubs, not to mention Slapton Tower, which is all the remains of a college dating back to the 1400s, built by Sir Guy de Brain and according to a painting in the Tower Pub, his Squire at one time had been Geoffrey Chaucer.

What Mike and I hadn’t known about the area is that it was used by the American Armed Forces, in WW2, in 1942, to practice the D Day Landings. A topical subject at present, as we are just approaching the 70th Anniversary. The practice in itself wasn’t so big a story but there was a very sad twist to the tale. Whilst carrying out their manoeuvres, a German E boat had arrived in the bay, unnoticed and the result was mass carnage, with a total of 946 lives being lost. This was hushed up at the time, as it would have been so demoralising to the forthcoming Landings.