It’s confession time folks. I’ve been meaning to get this off my chest for ages. ‘Elsewhere’ I was far too intimidated to come clean, but I’m feeling a lot more comfy in our new surroundings so it’s time to spill the beans. I think that I may have given you all the impression that I’m a Devonshire Maid but I am in fact a Londoner. We’ve lived in North Devon since 1972. After visiting my brother and his family for a holiday OH and I decided to up sticks and come to Devon to live. Now in those days it was a very strange thing to do so I like to think of ourselves as pioneers to the rural exodus. We had been looking for flat to rent for ages in London but they were all mostly hovels with dubious landlords so we had nothing to lose. So we found a house to rent down here and on one rainy September night we loaded all our wordly possessions into our MK1 Cortina, filling the boot and piling up the back seat, popped our ‘devil cat’ Winston on the top and set off for our adventure. We had enough for petrol [ you still got 4 gallons for £1 then] our first month’s rent and about £50 savings. We gave ourselves 2 years to settle or we would go back. Well we settled and we’re still here bar the 3 years in France.
Back then work was hard to come by as it still is now but OH managed to get a job as a builders labourer and I eventually got office work in the abattoir, not very glamorous but a job’s a job. I remember at the interview I was told in no uncertain terms that I couldn’t expect to earn fancy London rates in Devon and I was started on £12 a week. I had been earning the magnificent sum of £20 in London.
All this sounds as if it was an awful long time ago and I suppose it is in one sense but it seems quite recent to me. I was 20 and OH 21 and we thought we were so grown up…… I will return to this from time to time. It’s good to write it down for my grandchildren if I ever get any.
If the picture comes through it’s another of Max my daughter’s springer doing his Superman impression.
Back then work was hard to come by as it still is now but OH managed to get a job as a builders labourer and I eventually got office work in the abattoir, not very glamorous but a job’s a job. I remember at the interview I was told in no uncertain terms that I couldn’t expect to earn fancy London rates in Devon and I was started on £12 a week. I had been earning the magnificent sum of £20 in London.
All this sounds as if it was an awful long time ago and I suppose it is in one sense but it seems quite recent to me. I was 20 and OH 21 and we thought we were so grown up…… I will return to this from time to time. It’s good to write it down for my grandchildren if I ever get any.
If the picture comes through it’s another of Max my daughter’s springer doing his Superman impression.
10 comments:
Oh I think that make s you more country than some dear after all your heart and your home is in the country!! I know what you mean about jobs you would be surprised, well perhaps not, what jobs we have done in our time!!
Your story is an inspiration ! You were a pioneer.
Thank you for your comment on my blog. So sorry to hear about your beenfits . It really is getting harder and harder at the moment.
Exactly, a true pioneer. I bet Devon was so unspoilt - well I mena I know it's still absolutely gorgeous now, but I imagine parts would have been different? Really interesting story.
What an adventure you hasd back then, but I think living over 30 years in N Devon counts a being part of the country, you've lived there more than half your life!
I guess the locals may not think of you are a "Local" unless you were born there, but loads more have fled from London since you got there, so who's to know! Except us and we won't tell!
I think you are great wherever you come from!!
I can see Chicken Licken and I will share the same favourite bloggers!!
warm wishes
xx
It only takes around 20 years to become a local, and once the newies all appear you go up the pecking order. Specially when the old biddies fall off the other end. Being born in these here parts I am Ok and not a blow in, as they say. "Strangers", as dad calls them for the first 10 years. You did well to chose Devon, Suffolk now thats another tale.
I'm a Londoner too, much to my disappointment. I've always been a country bumpkin at heart, though, and feel much more at home here than I ever did in the 'burbs.
Good for you young Toady tadpole and husband! My sister who worked on a London magazine (not unlike CL!) married a Devon farmer more than 40 years ago and made a life there. I admire you and her. I couldnt have done it.
I come from London too, but feel far more at home here than I ever did there. Cannot believe that I ever lived in London now, feels like I have been here for ever.
You do have the one thing I really really would like today, a large dollop of clotted cream, bit whined out this morning, great for the munchies too !
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