Treasure This Beloved Devon

The attraction of Devon is that West Country blend of coast and country.

I love the way the farmland dovetails with open moor. And Dartmoor is the granite heart of the big, redsoil shire where the born-and-bred have Celtic roots. North of Dartmoor is the gentle upland of Exmoor.

We have a Bristol Channel coast and an English Channel coast, with their estuaries, coves, popular beaches, seaside resorts and fishing villages.

I never take it for granted when I follow the cider-and-pasty trails from Brixham to Bideford, Shaldon to Staverton, Clovelly to Cornworthy or Buckfastleigh to Beesands.

I can understand Jane Austen’s love of Dawlish; and I always enjoy renewing my relationship with Exeter, its main street, cathedral and canal. Plymouth, too, has its attractive waterfronts.

Our wealth of rivers include the Dart, Exe, Teign, Torridge, Taw, Tavy, Avon, Erme, Yealm and Tamar. The Dart (River of the Oaks) is one of the most beautiful in Britain. And I’ve walked its entire length, from Cranmere Pool to Dartmouth – but not in one go! I’ve swam in it, boated on it, watched its wildlife, and seen the changes which occur season after season.

I know the tidal creek, where Shelduck breed, and places where mullet shoals feed. Leaning on the parapet of a humpbacked bridge I’ve seen an otter create her underwater patterns while two of her cubs crouched among the alder roots on the bank, picking up the hunting techniques.

The names of the villages strike familiar chords: Tuckenhay, Zeal Monachorum, Widecombe, Providence, Henton Punchardon, Aveton Gifford, Cofton, Portlemouth, Cheriton Fitzpaine and Ashprington.

Many of them remind me of pub stops on long lane walks. Others are stepping stones to storm beaches, headlands, or places like Start Bay and the Salcombe estuary.

The dialect may be on its last legs. But occasionally a remark will fall from native lips to leave a tourist (and a lot of locals, too) looking blank: “Daw’n ee bissle yersel, buyh,” is maybe a classic example.

This is the shire of my birth and it has given me so much. Most of us locals have ‘our’ places which we’ve known since childhood. And there’s that root affinity akin to what the Native American feels for an ancestral green corner and its wildlife. So is it any wonder that I’ll fight to prevent urban-fringe farmland being smothered by housing development thrust upon us by Whitehall, the Town Hall or anywhere else?

Like the majority of locals and caring in-comers I feel I have a responsibility to maintain the environment that my ancestors helped create. People who have moved to South Devon and love it for what it is will understand.

There are thousands of properties for sale in and around Torbay. So let’s band together to stop the Bulldozer Brigade covering more and more countryside with concrete, bricks and mortar.

We owe it to ourselves, future generations and the wildlife it supports.

(c) 2008 Herald Express (Torquay UK). Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.