Greetings Tavistock!


dusting all the shelves and bottles in the storeroom and accidentally knocked a bottle of something onto the floor where it smashed. I went to get a broom and dustpan and on the way back one of our pharmacists walked into the room, read the label on the smashed bottle and got me out of the room faster than a speeding bullet ... it was a bottle of Ether I had smashed.


My Uncle Alf also worked in Boots and he used to supervise me as I weighed saffron. Wish I knew how much it was, but nowadays that amount would cost a fortune. Mums used to make lots of “saffern cake” back then. Oh, that reminds me of my Aunt Alice who used to come down to Tavvy every year from up Birmingham way. She used to buy a lot of “saffern” as up in the Midlands if you wanted to buy saffron you had to sign the poison book.


Binkie Bennet was our errand-boy at the time. He received his call to go fight the foe towards the end of 1941 and boss told me I was to be the new errand-boy. I told Dad, he wasn’t happy so got me a job as apprentice at the Tavvy Gazette, where I worked until 1950 until apprenticeship ended, which included 3 years in the army.


I joined the Tavvy Cadets in 1946, became a Sergeant, because I think Mr Collacott who was our commanding officer, was one of Dad’s men in the 5th Devon’s during WWI. Dad was a sergeant in the “Bloody Devons” in WWI. Being in the Cadets I was asked to be a ‘runner’ when the army had a pre-war exercise up on the Moor. It was the most filthy night you can imagine that night .. .but luckily I got captured by the ‘enemy’, was transported to Tavvy and spent all night in a Tavvy police cell. At age 17 I joined the Home Guard and have a certificate to prove it.


One night I was called upon to do night duty as a sentry on the rail tunnel going out of Tavvy towards Plymouth. The only time in the Home Guard and three years in the army I had served sentry duty with ammo in the gun. One bad memory was being “white-washed” THREE times by Cyril Hodge in the Bedford Hotel playing darts, that was in 1952. We were waiting for our third mate ... wish he’d turned up on time.


It was at one of our Bible classes in the church tower with the Rev. Coleridge in 1944, I learned my terrible fear of heights. He took us up to the top of the tower, I wanted to see the town I love from up there, walked over to the edge, and you


“I remember


Poole’s fish and chip shop and the queue to buy the most popular food in Tavvy..”


have never, ever, seen anyone move as fast as I did back to the flag post in the centre of the tower, and hang on tight. Rev. Coleridge had a brother who was shot down as a Spitfire pilot during the war.


Ah! Well do I remember Poole’s fish and chip shop and the queue to buy the most popular food in Tavvy back then. And the “Goose Fair” in the Meadows. We lads used to pick up all the empty cartridges from the shooting gallery next day when the Fair had gone and who remembers the slippery pole over the canal in the Meadows?


That was fun to watch people fall off into the water. Remember also watching salmon trying to jump the weir? Magic!


Then there was a day at the


beginning of the war when Sis’ Phyl came home after joining the Fire Brigade. She


walked in home ... with a pair of trousers on! I’d never seen a lady in trousers before. How many lads aged 17 would get locked out at 10.30 in the evening these days by their parents? I did.


Took a mate’s sis’ home from our Boy’s Club to oblige him one evening as he wanted to take a new girlfriend home. She took me in for a cuppa with her Mum and Dad, maybe she had designs on me. I was worried as any- thing being out so late, and ran, yes I ran, the ... must have been a mile ... home, only to find the door locked, so settled down for the night in our outside toilet. Mum came out a mite later, said “your Dad will speak with you in the morning, come in”. Can’t remember what Dad said to me, if he did say anything.


I had wonderful parents and all these years later still miss them as I am sure my Sis, aged 87, still back there in the most wonderful town in all England does.


“Beam me up Scotty” and take me back to the town I love so very much. But be careful all you Tavistockians where you walk when I am with all Tavistockians from long gone, my ashes might be where you tread.


At the beginning of November


here in Adelaide and the temperature heading up into the 30 Cs I wish every person in Tavvy, the very best of health hoping that you all know Tavistock is the very best place in all this wide world and tho’ my body is in Australia, the heart is in Tavvy.


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