Off To Woolacombe On Saturday............

[10ClarionSt]

.............for 2 weeks. Woo hoo! All the family is going. There will be 13 of us all together. I'm like a big kid - looking forward to playing on the beach with the grandchildren. what could be better than that? Woo hoo!

[Baldric]

Sounds good to me, enjoy.

[237SJ]

Have lunch at Watersmeet Hotel

[Patsy33]

We went there when our first son was about 10 months. Lovely little place, especially when the sun is shining! Enjoy your holiday.

[237SJ]

And have curry at Barricane.

[andy-hughes]

I holidayed many times there as a child - still remember that wonderful beach, and reading Edgar Rice Burrough's Martin Chronicle stories, I would have been maybe nine or ten.

I remember my parents took my sister who is a year older than me to dinner with them in the evening, but I had a supper tray in my room - cereal and bread and butter, and I was allowed to play on my own on the beach until it went dark.

I went back years later with my own children, and was sad they could never enjoy that freedom that I had.

[New Judge]

Have a good time.

The area holds fond memories for me. I spent some time at RAF Chivenor - when aircraft flew from there and it was not full of Royal Marines (sorry Balders!). Lee Manor country club where I went often to see a friend in a jazz band (he still lives in nearby Bideford).

Happy days!

[237SJ]

Chivenor is closing down again. I remember the first time it closed down. Hunters used to be based there and when it closed, it was used as a council estate. Then the RAF came back for a while. They went again and the Marines took over. It's going back to being housing now.

[marval]

Hope you all have a lovely holiday.

[New Judge]

"Hunters used to be based there..."

Indeed. It was an Operational Conversion Station training on Hunters and Swifts. They also had a few Gloster Meteors there and a couple of Search and Rescue helicopters (one Whirlwind and a newer Wessex IIRC) for use round the North Devon and Cornwall coasts.

I managed to cadge a few flips in a Hunter trainer whilst I was there. One of the chopper winchmen (Flight Sergeant) lived in Clovelly and every couple of weeks or so he would get his skipper to take the aircraft to land on Clovelly beach to pick up his wife. They'd fly her over to Barnstaple (landing in the grounds of the hospital as I recall) to do the shopping. Heaven in Devon!

[237SJ]

There is no beach at Clovelly. Maybe Westward Ho?

[sunny-dave]

One of my 'all time great' experiences was horse riding along the sands at Woolacombe - that was good enough, but when we turned into the sea, galloped through the shallows & then my horse just swam along underneath me as we crashed out through the surf it was just amazing.

Thanks for bringing back a very happy memory, 10ClarionSt.

D xx

[New Judge]

"There is no beach at Clovelly. Maybe Westward Ho?"

No, Clovelly. When the tide's out it's possible to put down just to the right (facing the sea) of the harbour and the Red Lion.

[237SJ]

I know the Red Lion (I fell out with them a few years ago but that's another story) There is no beach at Clovelly.

[New Judge]

Well there was when I was there. I actually saw the Wessex set down there from the breakfast room in the Red Lion (where I'd had to stay overnight - what was left of it - after becoming too "tired and emotional" to travel following the pub's annual "Spoof" tournament - but that's also another story). It landed just to the east of the harbour where the "Hobby Drive" descends from the main road. It wasn't what you'd call a beach. More a sloping area of mud and shingle.

[chelle7272]

Yes there was a beach at Clovelly when I went as a child, a small pebbled beach.
Woolacombe is lovely, have a fabulous time :)

[anotheoldgit]

Ah! Woolacombe bay We once spent a camping holiday there, the camp site was on top of the cliffs, one night we had a gale force storm and although I had roped the frame tent down internally we still spent all night holding the tent down by it's frame. Come the morning our tent was the only one upright most fellow campers had abandoned theirs and spent the night in the Toilet block.

Still I hope you have lovely weather and an enjoyable holiday, it is times like those who's memories live on for the rest of your life, enjoy them while you can, one can never relive them back.