Memories of Devon 2

May 1986 - Dartmoor - Ten Tors!
I went to boarding school in South Wales and loved it. Everything was available for a young man who loved the outdoors, sport, music and drama. They were truly the best years of my life. One of the many adventures that I had during my time there was Ten Tors. For those who don't know Ten Tors is an expedition on Dartmoor that is held every year. Several thousands of young men and women (between 14 and 18) hike various courses, depending on age, across the moor, over two days. During their hike, they have to check in with the armed forces who man many Tors (Hills with granite outcrops) across the moor. Every team has a route, varying from 35 to 55 miles, that visits 10 Tors.
1986 brought the most appalling weather seen for this event in its history to that point. A depression tightened over the moor and created ghastly conditions for people to be as exposed as Dartmoor can be. Very few teams (made up of six individuals) finished, most were washed off the moor by the end of the first day. We did very well and were ahead of target but were advised not to go on as we were approaching the toughest bit of our walk at the height of the storm - it was very good advice, though we were bitterly disappointed. The armed forces got thousands of young people off the moor. The worst injuries were a twisted ankle and a broken arm.
My parents had come down to stay in Devon with the dual purpose of house hunting for their retirement and supporting the team, they were staying at the farm I mentioned in my last post.
When they heard that we had been "crashed out" they swung into action.
My mother headed back to the farm to ask Agnes to open up the cottage for a bunch of hungry, wet, disappointed 17 year olds. My father contacted our Master in charge and at the base camp informed him of the plot! Damp and sullen, we were all thrust into the minibus and driven into the night. I was the only one who knew that it was all going to be fine. The roads got smaller and darker as we thundered through that filthy night. Conversations ended and were not started again as apprehension fell upon the team. Finally, we arrived at the farm and we were all shepherded in.
Things had not been standing still at the farm. Agnes had gone to the butcher's house and informed him that he was to open up as she need some meat. This is at 8 pm on a Saturday! By the time we were all steaming in front of a roaring open fire there was the best stew I have ever tasted being ladled in to bowls for us. Agnes clucked around ensuring that we all had three or four dumplings and plenty of meat. The look on the face of the Master in charge of the trip was one of a man rescued from a dreadful fate. After all, the other alternative was driving 250 miles back to school with tired, cold, wet teenagers in the minibus.
The cottage had been opened and we all slept like logs in the little house where I had spent so many happy summer holidays.
It was in the morning, which incidentally was glorious, that Agnes excelled herself, I'm not sure if I had ever seen so much bacon, sausage, black pudding, eggs, fried bread, mushrooms and tomatoes on one table before. We had regained our spirits and were ready for the journey home.
Agnes, her husband Ernie and her father Mark have long since died and the farm is run by Agnes' grandson from the neighbouring farmhouse. The Farmhouse and cottage are now in different hands but as I drove down the lane, so remote that it has grass growing in the middle. it was clear that they were both inhabited by someone who loves them as much as I did in my childhood. They were newly whitewashed and the garden was full of flowers. There will always be a bit of me left in that living room, with my schoolmates and a bowl of stew born from pure generosity of spirit. A little bit of my heart is still at Madworthy Farm.

Memories of Devon 1

Those of  of us who serve at the chalkboard have now been back at school for three weeks or so and thoughts have turned back to the joy that was the summer holidays. I spent a few days with my mother in Okehampton in Devon chasing up the family tree and this brought back many happy memories.
When I was between the ages of nothing and about 15 we holidayed every summer in a cottage adjacent to a working farm situated in rural central Devon. In my memory the sun always shone and the two weeks of bliss was an eternity of fun. How many eight year old boys today get to drive a tractor during harvest? I know my late father considered those two weeks to be the reason he worked so hard.
My father was an appalling cook. He was blessed with my mother who was a superb family cook so all was well when it came to domestic issues.
The one occasion, during the fortnight we would all, including members of the farm family and my Godfather's family (who often shared the cottage with us), head off the area around Brat Tor on Dartmoor. This tor is special as it has Widgery Cross on top of it. We used to call the area "Black Rock" in a Swallows and Amazons sort of name change.
There was a small river which had been dammed to provide swimming pools and always a climb to the top to touch the cross and wave to our parents far below. I still have no idea how we swam in  the cold of fresh Dartmoor stream water and did not catch our death of cold.
Before we had been there long we would be called for lunch and, of course, we would ambush the adults from a direction they were not expecting.
This was my father's moment. On a twin primus stove he would be doing a "cook out" (his name for it). This was very simple: In two frying pans there would be plenty of proper butcher's sausages, sizzling, spitting, occasionally banging and being generally harassed by Dad. Once cooked, these would be thrust into a folded piece of sliced white bread (probably "Wonderloaf or "Mother's Pride"), smeared with ketchup or brown sauce and wolfed down so fast that they made us pant at the heat. Never in my life since, have I been able to recreate the sheer joy at the taste of those sausages and their pulpy, bread blankets.
My parents retired to Devon some 27 years ago. A few years before he died, my father was able to take my niece and nephew up on to the Moor for a Cook Out, on the same old primus stove, with sausages from the same butcher. I think of those days in the sun often, and they make me smile with happy memories tinged with the fact that I miss my Dad, but I still can't work out how I ever swam in a Dartmoor river and survived.