BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN The Number 25 rolled on towards the waterfront, revealing the juxtaposition of sleek modernity against the backdrop of historic stone buildings crumbling gently with age in sea fog. An evolving landscape—successive layers of adaptation sculpted through the oft brutal trials of time. Built from materials shaped by their environment, each crack and beam a response to a myriad of factors, just as … Continue reading Omnibus
BY ALEXIA JAMES The Met Office, the UK’s ‘national weather service’, positions itself as an essential entity, yet it increasingly feels like a government-funded dinosaur lumbering through a tech-savvy age. With claims of offering over £1 billion in value to the economy, the institution looks less like a beacon of scientific accuracy and more like a costly façade that exists to justify its bloated budget. … Continue reading Scrap the Met Office
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN “Welcome to Ukraine,” joked one of the dads from the visiting team. His son’s U14 rugby team was on a tour to Devon from wealthy, rural Berkshire. From the mobile breeze block seats—yes, literally—where we were perched under a leaky corrugated iron roof, looking out across the sodden pitch towards the building in front of us with a massive hole in its … Continue reading English Regional Rugby Needs Help
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Tom was omnipresent on the River Yealm. I often wondered whether he was real, as sometimes one imagines the dead come back to earth for the day when lookalikes of the deceased pass by in buses and cars – dead ringers, one might call these day-trippers. Over these last years someone or something was expertly catching those brown and sea trout – … Continue reading Tom
CSM EDITORIAL Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford, Newcastle – towns now synonymous with rape gangs and child abuse. Each of them tragic stories which only outed when substantial numbers of victims’ testimonies emerged and the authorities took victims’ complaints seriously. Evils were ended by victims’ bravery. Since then we have had “Nick” – Carl Beech’s fake reports of a VIP child abuse scandal – highlighting the fine … Continue reading Tuesday Club Torbay
BY NICK PEARCE The Squires have been told of a brilliant campaign for saving the English countryside. The campaign is called the Newton Say No Campaign and its website can be found here. Blinkered local planners are preparing to destroy a breathtakingly beautiful area and fill it with ugly roads and houses – utterly unacceptable when there are plenty of brown field sites around, and nearby … Continue reading Newton Says No
CSM EDITORIAL In many remote countryside communities across the UK the pub is the hub of the community. When an owner decides that their pub business is too much of a struggle, or the local property prices are just too tempting not to convert their pub into a house, that is when a heart can be ripped out of a village. Villagers may occasionally bump … Continue reading Saving Countryside Pubs
BY MERVYN SEAL There is a belief that the real world exists in the countryside, where nature goes about her quiet business, bringing us the greatest pleasure. However, swathes of pristine countryside and vital green fields are as in the past, and now, forever, in extreme jeopardy in Britain. My childhood education included the writings of the 18th Century born poet William Wordsworth. Family would … Continue reading The Countryside is Disappearing
CSM EDITORIAL Torquay has been a turbulent place of late, politically at least. Whether it’s alleged conflicts of interest or repeating votes of no confidence in elected officials based in the area, or planning bodies who run roughshod over wishes of local residents and ward councillors, one would wonder what advantages there are to a person, or their loved ones, in stepping up to get … Continue reading The Torquay Pavilion Storm
CSM EDITORIAL Every now and again, an article inspires readers to get in touch with a nugget of a story. This happened over Christmas time following our two articles about Torbay Council here and here. The Country Squires were pointed to an article one reader had prepared in connection with the dubious approval of a proposed major planning development in the heart of Torquay, and … Continue reading Is Torbay Council “Corrupt”?
CSM INTERVIEWS Gill Erskine-Hill has been painting for 35 years in a variety of locations, being fortunate enough to live and work in Devon, Scotland, Norfolk and the Dordogne area of South West France. Following a move back to Devon, she is re-experiencing the beauty and diversity of this part of Britain and drawing inspiration from the people and landscape there. Most of Gill’s early work … Continue reading The Artist Gill Erskine-Hill
BY JOHN ISMAEL Exeter became a solitary red island in a sea of blue following the results of the General Election in 2015. Ben Bradshaw was one of very few Labour success stories in the 2015 vote as he increased his vote and saw off the challenge of the Conservatives’ Dom Morris who was unable to increase the Tory share of the poll in the city. … Continue reading Last Red in the South West
BY ANDY COLLIDGE When you are in a trade or business that is constantly frequented by the public, there inevitably comes that invariable onslaught of thoughts, opinions, requirements and self-indulgence. After only a very short while, you begin, not intentionally, to put people with similar attitudes and characteristics into certain categories. After a longer while at the mercy of the over-needy public, the more elevated of … Continue reading Customers Think They’re Always Right
BY JAMIE FOSTER A lot has happened in the last 24 hours. I have travelled a journey through a strange and magical land where animals share their silent beauty generously. I have cried inside with empathy for a lost self who has been reborn. I stomped my boots to the mellifluous toll of the church bells hoping to drum up business for the Lord. Beautiful … Continue reading The Call of Seaton Beach
