Burgh Island

Looking across the Avon Estuary to Burgh Island

Pebbles on a Devon beach. Thanks to Jessica Wilder for allowing me to use this photo.

Be warned! Not a lot of kayaking! Lots of family history! Some jokes.

Nearly a hundred years ago, in 1931, my Grandmother Penelope collected pebbles by the sea pool on Burgh Island, near Bigbury in Devon. Burgh is pronounced Burr, softly. My grandfather Jim had the pebbles cut, polished and set in a little gold bracelet for her. He liked to give her pretty things. The bracelet is a celebration of something so ordinary and beyond precious: family, a loved place, time to meander, the smell of salt, sunburn. A susurration of waves sliding in and sifting out through the shiny pebbles. 

Pen's bracelet, so slim it looks as if had been made for a child.

Pen and Jim’s home was a rubber estate at Slim River in Malaysia. They came to England “on leave” every three years. That was wen they could spend time with their children: John, known as Jack; Thyra, my mother; and June. The rest of the time there were letters, seven or eight closely written airmail pages for each child arriving every Monday without fail. When Thyra died she left me a suitcase of papers. Among the letters were her school girl photo albums and a little five year diary, bound in red leather.

Front to back, June, Thyra and Pen, Burgh Island 1931

The wartime correspondence between Pen, Jim, Thyra, Jack, my father John and between Thyra and John’s mother Betty crossed continents and captured historic times. Foillowing Thyra's wishes I gave them to the War Museum. They’re in three separate boxes in the Museum archives along with John’s Burma railway war diary.

One letter of Pen’s caused excitement: posted in February 1942 it was the last letter from Singapore known to have arrived in Britain. The Great Depression and World War II are bearing down on this family like a juggernaut.

But for now they are on holiday. This post is a story of a seaside holiday in 1931. Days of joy and sorrow, recorded in Thyra's little diary. August 8th 1931 “Rougher seas. Glorious waves. 2 huge beach-hats arrived for me and June from Regent Street. From Daddy.” August 14th 1931. “Awful day. M, Toddy and I climbed up the cliff. I dislodged a huge stone which hit him on the head and knocked him over. He’s gone to hospital.” Toddy got better, but Mum never forgot how bad she’d felt.

Wormie, Thyra's favourite of "the kids" in Thyra's new "huge beach hat".

Pen beside her and the Kids' railway carriages behind them. Photo by Thyra.

For Colonial children the structure and fabric of life came from their boarding school and their friends. Jack, Thyra and June were lucky, they loved their school, St George’s, Harpenden, a progressive co-ed which aimed to create a family atmosphere before academic prowess or a competitive spirit. St George's allowed them all to be together which was unusual at that time. Thyra and Jack started together in 1924, Thyra aged 7, Jack 9.

Thyra's beloved Jack, 1934. He was running towards her to stop her taking his photo.

In the holidays they boarded out at a children's home in Reading run by a formidable woman, Miss Henry. She was far from kind. In fact she was cruel. But she did one thing that was wonderful: each summer she managed to get all her charges to Devon. The summer of 1931 was at Bigbury on Sea. This was the summer that Thyra remembered as the happiest of her life.

Thyra and the kids. 1931. From her album

Miss Henry got them there by train to Totnes and then bike, the littlest ones in a trolley behind her bike. In 1931 Thyra and Jack were old enough to have their own tents. The younger children slept in “a lovely house of railway carriages.”  The “kids” as Thyra referred to them, stayed under Miss Henry’s charge but Jack and Thyra and the older children ran wild and free with little intervention. It was a child’s world.

Jack's tent. photo from Thyra's album, 1931

From Thyra’s Five Year Diary I can follow the pattern of their days: the beach, the cliffs and swimming, endlessly swimming. “Big waves. Jack and I swam 5 times!” She didn't mind at all occaisionaly playing big sister to “the Kids” and her favourites: “Wormie” and “the littlest kid from Poplar.”

Best of all adventures with Jack and the bigger boys: “Went to Shelly Beach with Jack and Toddy. Waded back up the Avon with the tide. Water up to our waists! Had to climb back over the cliffs.” Wading that river waist deep with a 2 knot flow was no mean feat. Her self-reliance and spirit of adventure, qualities that served her well all her life, flourished.

Left to right, a friend, June, Pen. Photo by Thyra

And then “Wonderful day. M and D arrived at lunchtime. Staying in the hotel on the island.” Business was good for rubber in the late 20’s and early 30’s. Jim and Pen could afford to stay in the new art deco hotel that was one of the most fashionable of the time. Jim’s motto that summer was “Every Saturday is a Sundae”, which meant Knickerbocker Glories and Peach Melba. Thyra’s diary recorded: “Went to Plymouth today. Lunch on the Hoe. Then a matinee ‘Mauve Ruffles’. I ate some lobster!”

The entry for 27th August reads: "Wonderful waves today. Swam 5 times, three times from the beach and twice at the pool." The pool was a natural sea pool that was created below the hotel and reached by wooden steps. It’s still there.

Left to right, Joan and Thyra, photo by Johanna, Thyra's album 1931

There were exciting and less wholesome pursuits. Thyra and her friend Joan used to steal cigarettes from naive adults whenever the occasion arose and smoke them at the bottom of the field. "I had an incident last night. I think I will have to avoid changing ciggies." This was the mother who impressed on me smoking was not for nice girls. You can find out a lot from your mother's five year diary.

On August 27th “I’m going to leave St George’s and go to the Abbey School.” Jim knew that the boom years were coming to an end. Saturdays could no longer be Sundaes. Jack stayed at St George’s, more expensive, the girls would go to a less expensive day school in Reading and lodge all year with the dreadful Miss Henry. Thyra would lose the world she had built over 7 years. June, still in the Montessori Juniors seemed less affected.

When Thyra was in her 80s she asked me to take her back to Bigbury. It was a wet grey September day and the tide was way out. She sat small and sad,looking out of the passenger window across the beach. It wasn’t going to be the fun we had anticipated.

She had new (to her) leggings on, blue with silver dots, from a charity shop. All soft and comfy but unexpected. June would never have worn such a garment. Thyra had on a favourite pale green jumper on that my sister had knitted her. And well-polished shoes. Neat. She maintained that anything and everything could be eccentric or tatty but not shoes. There were boxes of them lined up in her wardrobe. Shoes must be clean and polished and never second hand. She was dressed for a day of adventure.

"Would you like to walk over to the island Mum?" We had wellies and raincoats in the boot. We had swimmers too. It was very rare for her not to take the chance to swim.

"No," she said. "It's all changed."

So we sat there, watching soft rain falling, Mum looking away, not looking at the island, just to the grey line of the open sea. It looked as if all colour had been drained from the sky and the sand and the sea.

She was not given to introspection. That, she said, was “to think too much about yourself” and would have dire effects which would serve you right. But still she sat there, looking sideways as if she were talking to someone else:

“On Saturdays" she said, "in term time at St George’s me and Johanna and Joan would buy a paper bag of broken biscuits from Woolworths. Then we’d walk around till we found a house with a For Sale sign on and we’d break in. Well we didn’t do any damage. And we’d tiptoe through the empty rooms and sit in the kitchen and have little picnics and pretend we were in a home of our own.”

“But it was strange” she said. “Once I knew I was leaving school Joan and Johanna weren’t such friends any more. It had been just the three of us and then it was just the two of them, long before I actually left.”

So there she sits, in her carefully chosen outfit, fiddling with the ribbing of her best jumper.

We sat there in the car, softly wrapped in drizzle and the tide crept in, a whitey grey line against the shore. I hauled from the back the picnic bag she had packed: tartan flask with two plastic cups, a couple of apples from the garden, a jam-jar of milk, and an important hoard of biscuits squirrelled away for just such an occasion. The car smelt nicely of biscuit crumbs and tea.

The slatey waves joined around Burgh Island under the soft colourless sky and it was time to go home.

This island, and this post, is dedicated to my grandparents Pen and Jim, to my mum Thyra, to her brother Jack and sister June, to their friends and for all their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

But most of all it’s for my Mum, that brave little survivor. Time goes on. It does heal most things, if you let it. I wanted to make Bigbury and Burgh Island a place of happiness and friendship once more, for her. And we did.

Pen and Eve (Pen's Great Great Granddaughter), paddle back the Island. Phpto bu Amy

Same old moon, same old sea, same old campsite. Photo by Pen

It hasn’t all changed Mum. We camped in the same field with that same view of the beaches and the Avon estuary and, best of all Burgh Island. June's grand-daughter Nell, husband Tom and daughter Jess came and we swam in the tepid evening sea, the same sea that you all had swum in. We didn’t swim five times but we did swim twice.

Tom, Jess (June's great grand daughter) and Nell (June's granddaughter). Photo by Pen

My Amy (Thyra's grand-daughter) and Eve (Great grand-daughter) came for a glorious sunshiney day with picnic and ice-cream and more swimming and picnics and love.

Mikey, Thyra's grandson Mikey and his wife Sally with their children Sam and Emily came to camp arriving just in time for a giant rainstorm. Which didn’t stop them leaping into the waves in the morning. Sally is a mermaid in a wetsuit.

Thyra was with us in spirit, that’s for sure. And here's a thing: Mike, Thyra's grandson and Sally got married at Bigbury just a few months after Thyra died. The service was down on the Shelley Beach where June, Jack and Thyra had played that summer long ago and the wedding party walked back up the cliff path that she had walked. She was with us all.

The wedding party, including Sally in her wedding veil goes wave jumping. Photo by Pen

Pre swim wedding photo, Sally and Mikey. Photo by Pen

Katie with great grand-daughter Ella at her first wedding, photo by Jack

Wedding guests great neice Nell and Tom, photo by Pen

So it was in a rainstorm that I kayaked around the island. It took less than half an hour even taking time to explore all the rock alleys. Amy had walked over before high water. Between us we carried Ethel up. If you're going to bivi it's kind of luxurious to be able to go to the pub first, so we did.

Pen and Amy getting some Dutch courage at The Pilchard Inn. Photo by Amy

But in the end it was a matter of slithering into our bivi bags and resigning ourselves to getting wet. I've never yet managed to use a bivi bag as it should be used. Thyra would have relished it. Well she'd've been with us, for sure. In her eighties she’d slept on the beach with me and Amy. East Prawle I think it was. And she'd found some big waves to swim in too.

Damp bivi on Burgh Island. Character building? Naturally. Photo by Amy

When I first asked the Hotel if I could sleep on the island there had been a "probably not" response. But then, a while after Amy and I had bivied there I had a lovely warm invitation from Vlad, the manager. His invitation was so warmly extended that I couldn't resist it.

Oh Art Dec-oh! I can imagine Pen and Jim here but I was a bit overawed. Photo by Pen

Bit smart, with Bigbury and Banbury beyond. Agatha Christie stayed here. Loads.

Mary took it all in her stride, though her beautiful dog Zane had to stay at home.

My old school pal Mary had planned to kayak with me but had been prevented by a little brush with cancer. Or at least she said it was a little brush, but I have always admired her for her courage. So the two of us went back some weeks later. We had coffee with Vlad in the beautiful art nouveau orangery. That was lovely. I was glad of Mary's company. I'm not bravest in posh places but it was water off a duck's back to her.

Vlad clearly loves and cherishes the hotel he has managed for so long. Photo by Mary

Mary and I walked down to the sea pool and stood in the warm shallows watching shoals of fish and I felt very close to my dear Mum where she was the happiest in her young life. Looking at the pebbles I realised they were a match for Pen’s bracelet. I felt a rush of salt air as the past brushed through.

The Sea Pool photographed from the meadow above by Amy

So, Burgh Island. One more island slept on and one more circumnavigation. That’s £11 for Aban and a special thanks to Vlad for his welcome; to all the family who came down and made it joyful; to Mary Martell for her careful recce and to Amy for sharing the rain and the spirit of adventure, and adversity. We done it!

And thanks to Thyra, who shared her biscuit collection and

her spirit of fun and adventure with us all.

Photo by Amy

For more from Jessica Wildre's inspirational blog go to

https://natureinfocus.blog/about/

For more about Burgh Island Hotel go to

https://www.burghisland.com/