‘Whereabouts in Devon?’
I get calls from all over the country on Radio 2 and Channel 5. I get rung by Lottie in Lincolnshire and Andrew in Aylsham (not that one). Sarah on Skye. Mohamed in Manchester, Florence in Flintshire. When they say, ‘Hello!’ in cheery (or angry) voices, I nearly always launch in with: ‘And what would you like to say?’
But when it’s Dave or Debbie or Darren or Di from Devon, the conversation is very slightly different. When they say hello, I always need to check — ‘Whereabouts in Devon?’
Because I just have to know. It’s the ‘whereabouts’ that makes Devon such a special county.
So, you’ll have Daisy from Devon who’s hopping mad about the government’s latest pension plans, and when she says: ‘Hello Jeremy, now listen, I think...’
I’m straight in there. ‘Just a second, Daisy. Before you go on. Whereabouts in Devon?’
Cards on the table. My two favourite Devon towns are Sidmouth and Appledore. I’m sitting in my kitchen typing this at 5.05am (the best writing time), and, presuming you can bear a sight of my dressing gown and unkempt early morning hair, I’ve just taken a selfie in front of the two pictures which face the kitchen table — beauties by the super-talented Becky Bettesworth, one of Appledore, one of Sidmouth.
We had a question on Eggheads once. Which is the only county in the UK with two separate coastlines? Cornwall’s is continuous, and you can search high and low for another English county which goes all the way from west to east (although weirdly, North Yorkshire comes close, separated from the west coast at Morecambe Bay only by a 12-mile-wide strip of Lancashire). The answer is Devon. The answer to most things is Devon.
Appledore has car-free backstreets with old fishermen’s houses and, just when you think it’s postcard-cute, you see the still-working shipyard.
Sidmouth gives the sense of a working town, bigger, bustling, but then you look back at the hotel fronts from the promenade and you have to take a photo because it’s pure Agatha Christie (which is why I committed all my murders in Sidmouth*). While in town, visit Connaught Gardens and ask for cake at the Clock Tower Café. In Appledore, get breakfast at Jack Sprats (brand new, with a happy crew).
But now I’ll take you away from the bustle of the metropolis to some of my other favourite Devon gems.
Firstly, Lympstone. On the eastern shore of the River Exe, not far from Exmouth. Find a way to walk there on the Exe Estuary Trail. This place has history (Norman church, Georgian buildings) and new traditions as well as old — like anywhere with water and light it draws artists, and in August their Furry Dance is a procession of local musicians. Only drawback — on my first visit I backed into someone’s Landrover while doing a three point turn in the rammed village car park, they arrived raging in their other car, and I had to pay them £1,000 for the microscopic scratch. Another place, sadly, where oversized SUVs have killed the back-in-time vibe.
If you want to swap the peace of Lympstone air for a bracing murder, I recommend a visit to two places ― firstly, go to Agatha Christie’s Devon home at Greenway. I went on an idyllic day and spent half an hour just looking at the priceless first editions. And you can see the River Dart from her bedroom window.
The other place is Torquay. It’s where Agatha was born and the town is really embracing her story ― I helped unveil the new ‘Agatha on her favourite bench’ statue! If you are a devotee of the Queen of Crime, book a chair at the Agatha Christie Festival in September. Oh, and before you go to sleep in your hotel, open the curtains and repeat Basil Fawlty’s line: ‘Well, may I ask what you were expecting to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House, perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically...’ There are too many gems in Devon to list them all properly. With kids, visit Escot and marvel how their amazing drop slide hasn’t been closed by safety inspectors; for even more fun visit the Exmouth Escape Room. There’s Exeter for shopping and the cathedral; the Tarka Trail if you want to ride a bicycle.
Time for two more?
Visit the lovely people who are restoring the train station at Bideford. The Beeching cuts of the sixties cost us many, many branch lines. I would like to see Beeching’s grave dug up and put under the constantly-jammed Stonehenge bypass so he can understand what he did to us. The gorgeous people at Bideford are reversing his vandalism one sleeper at a time. I fully expect the first Bideford-Birmingham service to be live by 2100.
Find yourself a secret beach. Ours was a long walk down the coast from Westward Ho! to Abbotsham Cliffs. Ho! is the opposite of secret, but when you find a safe route down the cliffs you’ll enjoy being completely alone. You just have to accept the pebbles and lack of lifeguard. Beaches without names are always better.
Oh, and finally, fly a falcon on Dartmoor. I’ve included here a favourite photo of my late mother-in-law, Margaret, with a falcon – she loved nature in all its forms.
*I may have phrased this wrong. ‘Which is why my murder mysteries are set in Sidmouth’ would have been better. I haven’t done any murders myself. .
Jeremy Vine’s second murder mystery in the Edward Temmis series, Turn the Dial for Death is published by HarperCollins
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