The winners of the Bideford Conservative's Bathing Belle competition.

On the left is the winner, Susan Stewart, and on the right, Wendy Robins (second) and Christine Cannan (third).

Gazette article dated 18 August 1961

Hartland Round-the-Houses Race

There was a ‘meet’ of prams, trucks and trolleys in Hartland Square on Saturday night for the start of an open novelty race, organised by the Hartland branch of the Young Conservatives.

Dressed in the gaudiest of outfits, competitors dashed through the streets and lanes. Five minutes later, the winners were spotted – Mr Colin Ritchie, from RAF Hartland Point, with his pram passenger Miss Valerie Jeffery. Second were Mr N Pomeroy, with Mr Norman Westlake; third were Mr J Downie and Miss J Sanson.

Only ‘accident’ of the occasion involved Miss Joyce Goaman with her passenger Miss

Parliament and the Parish of Buckland Brewer (by Jim Lowe)

When I started researching this project, I thought I would find it interesting and, with a head start in having a Politics Degree from Bristol University, pretty straight forward in terms of number crunching and tabulating historical events. How wrong I was!

Buckland Brewer has found itself in a number of constituencies over the past 200 years. Prior to the 1832 reform act it was in the county constituency of Devon which returned two MPs. Following the act, Devon was split into two constituencies excluding the boroughs and Buckland found