Devon Meet - March/April 2007
Created | Updated Apr 7, 2007
You all know how damn proud of this county I am, so I thought I'd ask if there would be any interest in a Devon weekend Meet sometime in the spring?
— My journal, 13 October 2006
It seemed like a bit of a silly idea at the time. I'd just got home from the pub, it was cold and wet, and I really, really really wanted it to be spring. Of course, I didn't really think anyone would make it down this far, and they nearly didn't. For various reasons, the year didn't start quite as it had been planned; I got tetchy, depressed and apathetic. Life started grinding along. The old oils needed wheeling and I needed to get somewhere more comfortable to me than the warm side of a thick duvet. I didn't realise at the time, but four weeks ago I was about to shaken into action by a post out of the blue from Germany:
Hello? Is this project still alive? If not, I hope it's only been postponed and not cancelled all together. It would be lovely to meet up in Devon some time.
— Trillian's Child
I stared at the post on my screen for a while. That was it! Of course! A spring weekend on Dartmoor! I was going, whether h2g2 could make it or not.
Last Friday, I found myself apologising to AlexAshman for a few things: for the grinding noise my old Escort was making, for the traffic in Newton Abbot, for complaining too much about work. As we got closer to the Moor, though, my mood improved. I can't begin to adequately describe what Dartmoor feels like to me. It's a place where I stared at rivers and scrambled over rocks and ate sandwiches with my father as a kid. Its wildest hills gave me a place to hide alone when my best friend died. I've learnt the stories of the places and walked every hill, and used my experiences to guide children in their own journeys of exploration. Girls have held my hand there in front of spectacular sunsets. I've been inspired, exhilarated, embraced, exhausted, astounded, terrified and humbled on Dartmoor at almost every turn. When people say 'this is my moor' or 'I know this place like the back of my hand', I think they really mean the contrary; that they belong to it and that it has seen every corner of their souls. A journey into the heart of the moor is not just a long walk, but also travelling deep into oneself.
Having said all that, we were also there to drink beer. I'd decided in the days before that it would be easiest if we stationed ourselves in the beer garden of the Princetown pub, knowing there is rarely a phone signal inside the Plume of Feathers, so we sat and shivered and quaffed, occasionally returning to the car for more hats and coats. If you haven't met Alex, you really should. He's one of those people for whom the phrase 'nice fella' was intended and is blessed with a sharp wit and dry outlook on the world. With a toot and a cheery couple of waves from the Bedford Bambi, Mina and her son Okami arrived with their dogs Beauty and Fred. Mina was looking a bit shaky — the brakes had gone a little soft on one of the many notorious Dartmoor hills — so we thrust a cider into her hand. I knew straight away that this was going to be a great weekend; sometimes you know within seconds that you're going to like and get on well with someone, and it proved to be like this with Mina. Okami was a bundle of excited energy, and the dogs sniffed the air with similar excitement. As we were going to put our tents up, my mobile rang and a cheery voice said 'Hi, is that you walking up the steps?' I looked frantically around for a grassy knoll, but instead saw the friendly figure of Paff strolling over with his hand outstretched. We were assembled.
We took the dogs and a bottle of Luscombe cider for a short leg-stretcher up a nearby tor. It was cold, but as we strolled back to the Plume I felt like I was home. What more can you want out of an evening than good company, great scenery and an honest pie and a couple of pints in the pub? Mina and Okami were tired and had the dogs to think of, so left fairly sharpish after dinner, leaving the three of us to get on with man talk. Paff told us about all the musicians he'd killed simply by going to their gigs. I swore I'd walked past Gnomon on my way to the toilet, a suspicion confirmed by Alex's astonished face when he looked at the chap I was referring to. Alex himself was astonished, and possibly quite scared, to be asked by a random stranger 'You the fella from Norfolk?' At times it was an odd night, but the beer and conversation flowed. Princetown is a fine place to visit; an even better one to stay in.
Saturday morning came a mite too soon for my liking, but after a decent breakfast we headed off for a walk. We'd lost Paff to a day of car-washing for his local community1, so the six of us remaining made our way along the disused railway. Abandoned during the Beeching reforms, it now forms possibly the most gentle and level walk on the whole moor and has great views stretching down into the Other County2 — except today, of course, as the cold made moisture linger in the air. Things never quite go to plan when you have company. We left the easy path and headed cross-country, climbing over another tor before following the Devonport Leat uphill, skylarks singing their skittering melodies all around us. We had lunch at the positively insane Crazywell Pool, before hiking back uphill to the car.
For the afternoon, I took the gang for a whistle-stop drive around some of the sights, starting with the Warren House Inn, a wonderful rough-and-ready pub completely in the middle of nowhere. According to local legend, it was moved brick-by-brick from one side of the road to the other to avoid paying taxes on alcohol. Just down the road is the hamlet of Postbridge, once home to 15,000 people during the Bronze Age and now a local beauty spot. The road bridge is flanked by a much more ancient 'clapper' bridge, and in the summer tourists flock to the spot by the coachload. On a chilly March afternoon, we had the place almost to ourselves. We ate Devon ice-creams in a sudden hailstorm, and headed back to Princetown.
Sometimes I have quite silly ideas. Buying a crate of beer was the first, deciding that they all had to be drunk in one evening was the next, and I crowned the madness by wanting to sit outside in a camp chair to drink them. Mina sensibly made tea, while Alex and I sat outside buried under layers of warm clothing. It wasn't long before we were in the Bambi, trying to keep warm and making the most of Mina's offer of sausage sandwiches. Just as we were getting cosy, Mina spotted a man and his partner trying to put up a tent in a sudden gusty hailstorm outside, and Alex and I rushed out to help. The man scrunched his face up against the weather in a pained sort of way, his partner wisely ran away and hid in the dry, Alex put the tent up, Mina loitered inside the Bambi just in case we had a crisis and I took a photograph. Well, we all have our own ways of dealing with adversity.
Alex and I went and did the Princetown pub crawl — all three pubs! — and went to work on finishing the beer after closing time. 2am found us huddled over a gas burner in the porch of my tent, finishing off the last dregs of beer and putting the world to rights. 'See you at nine!' I called to Alex, as he struggled through the wind and drizzle to his tent.
There was a noise outside, but a bigger one in my head. I ignored both, buried my head in my sleeping bag and fell asleep again. I didn't realise that the noise was Alex trying to wake me up, and didn't even notice half an hour later when Mina took Fred for a loud sniff around my tent. I finally awoke, fuzzy-bellied and with a raging headache, after some less gentle prodding at 10.30, quite embarrassed that the host had slept in with a hangover. I soon felt a bit better, because today I was taking the gang to Wistman's Wood, one of my favourite places. Just a mile or so from the road, it's a tiny fragment of ancient woodland that survived the busy work of Bronze Age foresters, partly due to its lack of accessibility. The stunted oaks grow through huge piles of boulders and mosses and lichen dominate everywhere, giving the wood a spooky atmosphere. I used to imagine that wizards would wash their beards in the river below and hang them on the trees to dry, without ever knowing that the lichen I made these stories around was actually called Old Man's Beard. There was a moment of panic as Fred crossed the stream below and slipped his harness, but it was a great last activity for the Meet.
Over lunch at the Railway pub back in Princetown, I reflected on the Meet we'd had. With the benefit of a whole weekend, it felt like I'd known Mina, Alex and Okami for years; they'd gone way beyond a collection of U-numbers, journals and Entries. As much as I'd loved being on the moors, it was the company that made the weekend one to remember. As we toasted DNA, h2g2 and Trillian's Child in particular, I hoped it would be an experience we could repeat sometime. Maybe when it's just a little bit warmer, though....
