jan and freddies brasser i e


Christmas greetings from all the team at Jan and Freddies. Jan and Freddies is not just for Christmas


Christmas menu is available every evening, along with our a la carte menu from the 1st December. We are also taking reservations for New Year’s Eve.


CHRISTMAS MENU £16.95 for 2 courses & £19.95 for 3 courses


Open Monday - Saturday from 6.30pm


10 Fairfax Place • Dartmouth • TQ6 9AD 01803 832491 www.janandfreddiesbrasserie.co.uk


Our research has shown that readers most love reading about local people in By The Dart. If you know of someone who you think should be interviewed by us in


2011, please email us with your suggestions to mark@ bythedart. co.uk or


phone us on 01803 835740


Pirates, Aliens and Men in tights


PREPARATIONS UNDERWAY FOR DARTMOUTH’S TRADITIONAL NEW YEAR CELEBRATIONS!


hose who think of Dartmouth as a quiet little town that goes to sleep in winter have obviously never been here at New Year. For some reason, that no-one can quite remember, the town goes crazy on New Year’s Eve with crowds of revellers joined by one common theme – fancy dress.


T


This genteel community kicks up its high heels and parties all over the town, from pub to pub, in wigs, frills, feathers and capes – and that’s just the boys!


It could be the lubrication of the festivities that’s made everyone forgetful, but never mind how it started, the New Year fancy dress tradition is here to stay, according to one of its biggest fans, Joppy Pillar. Born and brought up in


Dartmouth, Joppy has run Pillars Newsagents and Toy Shop with his brother-in-law Gordon Barnes (l & r in above photo) since the 1980s. Sister Bridget is also a partner in the business. The Seventies and Eighties were flamboyant times for clothes and that’s when the idea of fancy dress as a New Year celebration really took off in Dartmouth, although Joppy can’t remember a time when


people didn’t dress up. “We used to do it because the better your costume, the more people would buy you drinks!” said Joppy. “There would be about 20 of us going from pub to pub, and other groups making their way around the town too. We always made our own costumes – wigs and


“I’ve got my costume all ready – this year I’m a showgirl with a purple outfit and feathers in my hair. It’s going to be great!”


Tea in the Park D


Colin Brown, Browney’s, Coronation Park


artmouth seemed to undergo a collective embracing of Coronation Park in 2010. The big green space to the north of the town was tidied up and hosted a hugely successful cricket tournament. Children came with footballs and frisbees, parents sat in the sun while youngsters played on swings and slides, pensioners dozed.


everything. We’ve had some brilliant ones over the years – scary fairies, half bride half groom, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, aliens, cowboys and the ever-popular pirates. I love it!” With such an eye for a good outfit, it was a natural progression for Joppy and Gordon, front of house in the shop, to start selling fancy dress in Pillars. Both regular looking chaps by day, anything goes when it comes to fancy dress and the albums of photos of them modelling their creations are hilarious.


Even now as winter tightens its grip, a steady stream of people make their way to Coronation Park, and this rediscovery is due in no small part to the huge success of Browney’s, the refreshment kiosk that wafts bacon butty and fresh coffee smells along the North Embankment from first thing in the morning.


Behind the counter is Colin Brown, a son of Dartmouth as well known for fishing as fry ups, and a chef of national acclaim whose work has featured in the Which? Good Food Guide. By The Dart caught up with Colin on a crisp morning, grateful for a steaming mug of tea. He chatted while he cooked fresh breakfasts for a steady stream of builders, taxi drivers, walkers and tennis players. Colin looks after the tennis courts and putting green for South Hams District Council, taking payments and bookings, and also manages the boat park on the opposite side of the green. When we meet he is doing a roaring trade in Christmas cards for the RNLI (the lifeboat station is next door) and tickets for various local events. “I like to help out – I’m happy to sell tickets for local organisations trying to raise a bit of money,” he said.


Fifty-one-year-old Colin is “Dartmouth through and through.” He was born and bred here, like his father, David, before him, growing up in Townstal with his brother and two sisters. His mother, Bernice, was from Rochdale. Colin said: “She used to come here on holiday, met my Dad and stayed. They went roller skating together, and she never went back.”


From an early age Colin was at home on the sea. David Brown was a crab fisherman and often took Colin with him when he needed an extra pair of hands. He also ran boats on the river, and Colin helped there too. “I loved the water and when I left school I joined the Merchant Navy. In five years I travelled all over the world. It was a brilliant life. That’s where I got my cook’s ticket.” When he left, Colin came back to Dartmouth and took up deep sea fishing, around the Channel Islands and Scotland for months at a time.


he thing about penguins’ eggs is they taste a bit fishy if you just poach them or boil them. The white stays clear when you cook them, and the yolk is almost red – but they make great Swiss rolls!” When Clive Pearson’s culinary dabblings at home led his parents to demand that he be the only grammar school boy in Dartmouth to study cookery and domestic science in a class full of girls, little did he realise his aptitude for cooking would lead him to tackle the most unusual ingredients in the most southerly kitchen on the planet. Clive was born and brought up in Dartmouth, and now lives just a few yards from the house where he was born in Victoria Road. But his travels have taken him all over the world – giving Clive a great repertoire in stories!


“T It was in March 1935 that Clive’s


“I enjoyed it. There was a crew of five and I was the one who looked after the food, as well as fishing. On one trip we stopped off in Cornwall and I stayed behind – for 15 years. The usual story, I met a girl and got married.” Colin fished out of Newlyn before returning to the catering trade, working in hotels, pubs and restaurants


mother, Violet, walked from the family home in Victoria Road to her mother-in- law’s house a few doors up in Valetta Terrace, just days away from having her second baby.


“But not everyone wants to make their own costumes – and most people are very last minute. So about ten years ago we started selling costumes in the shop and we’ve never looked back.” The fancy dress sits alongside cards, confectionery, toys, newspapers and magazines. What would Joppy’s uncle, who founded the shop in 1919, have made of the sequins and dresses? “My uncle had lost a leg at Passchendaele, and came home to Dartmouth with £1,000 compensation. He used the money to open the shop, a quieter place than it is now – a stationers and newsagents with a library at the back,” said Joppy, real name Jonathan (“but only my Mum calls me that – and only on Sundays!”) “My father Edgar and his brother


around Penwith.


“I ended up in St Ives running my own seafood and game restaurant, called The Hunter. It was listed in the Which? Good Food Guide. I was pretty pleased. You don’t put your own restaurant in there – their writers visit you anonymously and if the restaurant is up to scratch you get your place. I didn’t know about it until Which? sent me a copy with a note saying which page we were on.” Circumstances changed. Colin’s marriage ended and he met Halina, now Mrs Brown, who worked the front of house in the restaurant while Colin was the chef. But the couple were keen to change direction and location, and returned home to Dartmouth. For 11 years Colin worked as a landscape gardener – and then, in the saddest of circumstances, the kiosk became available. Former proprietor, Eddy Preece, passed away. “I’d known Ed since school days, we were both involved in the Gig Club, and it was very sad when he died,” said Colin.


No-one liked seeing the kiosk empty. Colin took it on in April. He’s revamped the décor and the menu, and developed the snack shack into a popular new venue that sits happily with Dartmouth’s foodie reputation. It attracts both locals and visitors seeking breakfast, lunch or afternoon tea.


MY DARTMOUTH Clive Pearson


Ever modest, Colin said: “It’s going alright thanks – I’m pretty busy. I’ve got a good relationship with my customers and I’m building up a growing group of regulars as well as making the most of the holiday trade. “It is a beautiful place to sit outside and see the river. In the winter everyone is wrapped up warm and they just like to be outdoors.


“Mums tell me they’ve never used the park so much. Where else can they sit and have a cup of tea with their friends while their children play? It’s ideal and there’s a great atmosphere. During the cricket it was brilliant.” Colin cooks all the food himself, from curries and sweet and sour dishes to pates and home baked cakes. Sandwiches, breakfasts and salads are made fresh to order.


“The path was pretty uneven, and Mum tripped and broke her leg,” Clive explained. “Our house was up lots of steps, so Mum had to stay at Granny’s, and there I was born a few days later, with poor Mum’s leg up in a splint.”


There were eight brothers and sisters in all. Clive’s parents George and Violet Pearson met and married in Dartmouth, but their families hailed from further afield. George was from Liverpool, the son of a chef on the railways who brought his family to Dartmouth in 1916, drawn by a better rate of pay. Violet was born in London, the daughter of a Dartmouth man who had fled to the capital.


“My Grandfather worked as an ostler


at Norton Park, and got into terrible trouble with his employer after he moved a ladder, not realising it was used by his employer to get back into the house after visiting the girls in the servants quarters. He found work at a stable yard in London, married and had three children. But in 1912 his wife died of milk fever and my Grandfather was injured when a horse fell on him and broke both his legs. My mother was declared an orphan, and aged four she was brought to live with a great aunt in South Ford. The baby went


With his shock of blond hair, Colin is an instantly recog- nisable and well known local figure. He’s the chairman of the Dart Gig Club and has been involved with them for


I grew up swimming in the Boat Float, playing in the fields, and going to church and Sunday school every week


to her grandparents in North Ford Road, and her other sister to a relation in Dittisham. The aunts were all from the Adams family, and I remember them as being very grand. “My Grandfather eventually recovered and made his way back to Dartmouth. He had married again by then and had a son, who I remember well. Sadly the lad was killed when the Noss shipyard was bombed.” George Pearson worked in the maintenance team at Britannia Royal Naval College, and was a keen rower. From a young age, Clive was a regular at the rowing club, swiftly learning about staying away from the water after stepping off the slipway and disappearing under the surface in his best toddler outfit. “My first memory is of being taken by my father to a flat field at the back of the headmaster’s house at the Naval College, from where we watched the launch of the RRS Research – a beautiful ship built at Noss. It was magnificent, white and lovely to look at, but it was never used. It was just before the war, which brought with it so many advances that afterwards the Research was declared obsolete and scrapped. It must contd over


75


have been awful for the men who built it. It would have made an amazing private yacht. “The second memory is of being held up to a very small window at the Dartmouth Amateur Rowing Club and watching the opening of Coronation Park. They cut a ribbon and all the children ran onto the grass. It was lovely to see – before that it was just a muddy pond.” Clive went to infants school in Higher Street, but things got off to a shaky start: “Part way through the morning the teacher said we could go, meaning we could get our drink of milk and have a wee, but all I heard was that we could go. I thought school was over so I walked home.”


Young Clive with his father


He enjoyed school days in Higher Street, then the boys’ school in Victoria Road and finally the Grammar School in Vicarage Hill. Clive remembers air raid shelters and water tanks for war time fire fighting being built at the boys’ school, and the cellars being reinforced so staff and children could take cover. He did well at grammar, maths and science but was caned frequently, “for the usual things – letting off stink bombs in class, throwing water over somebody.” It caused a stir when Clive’s


contd over 51


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136