Clovelly

Christmas Eve at the Front

An interesting letter has just been received by Mrs Packer, of Broadclyst, from her husband, Corpl Packer of A Company, 1st Battalion Devonshire Regiment, who is serving with the Expeditionary Force in Northern France. In the course of a letter he describes a remarkable incident which occurred on Christmas Eve between the British and German trenches.

Capt A Sowman, secretary, receives on behalf of the Clovelly branch of the RNLI, a cheque for £500 from Group Capt I M Pedder, commanding RAF Chivenor.

Funds came from the sale of Air Day postal covers sent with a Lundy stamp and postmarked with the British Forces Post Office post mark at Chivenor. The 11,000 issues commemorated the Chivenor rescue unit’s 5,000 emergency calls, many of them a combined operation. Clovelly lifeboat took the covers to Lundy and they were flown back to Chivenor by Flt Lieut Ralph Probert, commander of the unit. Copies were sold at 30p or 50p with Flt Lieut Probert’s signature or that of Mr Jim Hunter, Clovelly lifeboat coxswain. Mr Hunter who was present at the ceremony together with crew members Messrs Robert Tanner and Michael Burrow, and the treasurer, Mr Frank Gregory, received a plaque.

More information is in the full Gazette article dated 2 March 1973

Clovelly Custom

Very noisy!

Children from Clovelly Primary School observing the village’s traditional Shrove Tuesday ‘land-sherd’ custom of dragging tin cans on string down the cobbled High Street.
The custom, long held in the village but of uncertain origin, aims at driving the devil away from the village for another 12 months with its boisterous noise.
Gazette article dated 16 March 1973

Creeping Bank Of Pebbles

Clovelly Problem

Recent gales have built up a high, wide, bank of pebbles at Clovelly which has now crept around the end of the pier and is extending in the direction of Bucks Mills.
Anxious watch is being kept on this new ridge of pebbles because further movement in the direction of Bucks Mills will make it extremely difficult to launch Clovelly lifeboat especially at low water.
Coxswain William Braund said on Wednesday that the gales had built up a heap of small pebbles and shingle seven or eight feet high and extending in width from the end of the pier right out to low water mark. ‘It could make it awkward if we have to launch the lifeboat and we may have to get to work to shift some of it when the weather fines away, although the top of the ridge is flattening out a little now’ he said.
Mr J C Hilton, secretary of the Clovelly branch RNLI , said he did not think the present position of the new bank of pebbles would interfere unduly with the launching of the lifeboat but if the bank followed the course of nature and moved in the direction of Bucks Mills across the harbour and so onto the pebbleridge that lies at the foot of the cliffs, it might make launching difficult at low water.
‘It is not a new problem’ said Mr Hilton. ‘We are watching the position and if the bank moves right into the harbour entrance and lies across the end of the lifeboat slip we shall have to do what we have done before and cut a gut through the bank’.
Gazette article is dated 28 February 1958