Lympstone’s chequered past

Fires, deaths and famine – Matt Smith reports

• Lympstone dignitaries Garbutt Knott, Norman Jenkins and Major Barton Aitken lay the foundation stones for the restored boat shelter, April 1936.

• Miss Lympstone, Violet Moore, with runners-up.

NOSTALGIA can be deceptive. Most older people will claim that things were better in the past, but a peep into life in Lympstone in the 1920s and 1930s reveals tales of disaster – from fatal fires and car accidents, to infant deaths, famine and unidentified corpses.

While community spirit was especially strong at this time, with the building of the village hall and reconstruction of the boat shelter, the battle against anti-social behaviour was not a new phenomenon as one Lympstone drunk found out to his cost in 1931.

These stories of village life have been unearthed by Angela Coles, of Birch Road, who has been searching the archives of the Exmouth Journal from 1928 to 1945.
Mrs Coles said: “Researching the newspaper reports have helped to make the past come alive and reveal the main characters of the day.

“There seems to have been a lot more accidents back then, especially fires started by stray candles. Funeral notices would list the principal mourners so they are ideal for tracing family history.”

Now, take a step back in time……

November 24, 1928

A cyclist was exonerated of blame after a collision killed a pedestrian.

Edward Bowker, of Topsham, said he was riding along the Exeter-Exmouth road when he saw a man walking in the same direction. He rang his bell and the man started to move to the side of the road, but slipped and fell backwards, causing the cyclist to crash into him.

The victim, John Stuart, of Woodbury, died at Exmouth College Hospital.

May 25, 1929

On the eve of the 1929 general election, Lympstone voters flocked to hear Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin speak at the Manor Hall, Exmouth, and the Public Hall, Budleigh Salterton.

June 22, 1929

Potter’s Farm, Lympstone, was almost completely destroyed by fire, causing £700 damage. The fire was blamed on sparks from a road engine, which set the building’s thatched roof alight.

Three onlookers rushed to the blaze and battled the flames with buckets of water, but could not stop them engulfing the farmhouse.

Exmouth fire engine arrived and the fire was finally extinguished three hours later.
The blaze attracted hundreds of locals who stood and watched the drama.

Two years later, the farmhouse owner, Captain A Peters, successfully sued the road engine owners, Carter and Carter, of Exmouth, for £338.5s.

December 14, 1929

A six-year-old Lympstone boy died in his sister’s arms after choking to death on a balloon.

Herbert Parker, of Harefield Cottages, was walking home from Lympstone Primary School with sister Violet, when they stopped off at Mr Cobley’s village shop to buy a balloon attached to a piece of liquorice.

Violet said Herbert ate the liquorice and was running along trying to blow up the balloon when he began stamping his feet and waving his arms.

She picked her brother up and ran with him in her arms to Doctor Sydenham’s surgery, but he was out on call and Herbert died in her arms.

At an inquest into Herbert’s death, the coroner said the balloons, which were attached to a liquorice tube, should be not be given to children.

April 12, 1930

A 65-year-old former Royal Naval Reservist committed suicide after being served with an eviction notice.

Frank Bamsey was ordered to leave his home at Bakers and Bassetts Cottages, Lympstone, after falling 31 weeks behind with his rent.

He had no pension and was forced into casual work as a farm labourer to try to make ends meet.

Mr Bamsey barricaded himself inside the cottage and gassed himself.

The year of 1930

Plans for a village hall were given unanimous approval by the parish council. A one-and-a-half acre site near Candy’s Field was earmarked for the building.

The Women’s Institute said that since 1928 it had raised £54 10s towards the hall’s construction.

The scheme was enthusiastically supported by villagers and,, by September 1931, they had raised £845 towards the £2,000 cost of the hall.

January 10, 1931

A Lympstone woman was killed and 13 people seriously injured when the bus they were travelling on collided with a car at Halsdon Cross, Exeter Road.
Mrs S Parsons, of Sowden Lane, died in Exmouth hospital. At the inquest, the car driver was exonerated of blame.

August 15, 1931

William Miller, of Ridge Cottages, Lympstone, was ordered to pay a £2 fine or face a month in prison after he was convicted of using obscene language.

PC White said he heard Miller, a notorious cider drinker, shouting foul language from his home at 11.50pm on July 28 and ordered him to stop, but the defendant ignored him and continued swearing until 12.15am.

Miller was also banned from all pubs in the area for two years.

January 16, 1932

A Lympstone fisherman had a lucky escape when his boat sank in the River Exe.
Mr F Litton, 60, was heading for Topsham when his boat was sunk by a sudden gust of wind. Fortunately, the boat struck a sand bank, keeping the mast above water, and he clung to this until rescued an hour later.

June 11, 1932

Four Lympstone teenagers were each fined a shilling after being convicted of playing football in Station Road.

July 2, 1932

Two Lympstone fisherman made a gruesome discovery when they found a badly decomposed woman’s body floating in the sea off Pole Sands.

The woman was estimated to be between 35 and 40 years old, five foot six inches tall, with long auburn hair.

The body had been in the water for four to 27 days. An inquest recorded an open verdict. The woman was never identified.

April 22, 1933

A labourer working in a sewer at Rectory Hill, Lympstone, was buried alive after a trench wall collapsed on top of him.

William Hawkins, 34, of Ottery St Mary, was working nine feet below ground level when one side gave way and he was buried by two tonnes of earth.

Colleagues frantically tried to reach him, but he could not be revived.

July 8, 1933

Lympstone Village Hall was officially opened by Lady Clinton.

December 2, 1933

A 56-year-old Lympstone woman was killed in a fire at her home in Brookside Cottages.

Neighbours found Marjorie Marks, 56, in flames in her kitchen and she was taken to Exmouth Hospital where she subsequently died.

March 3, 1934

Today’s drinkers in Lympstone should be grateful to their pre-war predecessors for campaigning to keep The Globe open.

In March, 1934, more than 200 people signed a petition to save the pub after the police lobbied for it to be shut when its licence came up for renewal.

The police claimed the pub’s three entrances would prevent them from apprehending a suspect if he were to run inside.

Officers also said the pub was not needed because Lympstone’s population of 1,042 was served by four others, with the Railway Hotel, London Hotel and Spirit Vaults all within 300 yards.

Concerns were also raised that female visitors to the tea room upstairs would face an unpleasant walk through the bar.

Magistrates backed the villagers and renewed The Globe’s licence for another year.

April 18, 1936 – see picture

Forty years after it was first erected, Lympstone’s fisherman rebuilt the village’s boat shelter. The revamped store was officially opened by Sir Garbutt Knott.

July 18, 1936 – see picture

The annual Lympstone Revels summer fair was staged despite torrential rain.
Miss Lympstone 1936 was Violet Moore and she arrived for her coronation by boat. She was described as a “vivacious brunette, her dark beauty enhanced by truly regal deportment”.

January 23, 1937

Life for Lympstone’s 40 fisherman could be extremely tough. After going weeks without landing a catch, village philanthropist Sir Garbutt Knott organised a soup kitchen for the starving men and their families.

The kitchen was staged during a flu epidemic which saw more than 70 villagers struck down and these were all fed too.

The gargantuan vats of soup were cooked up in the Methodist Hall, with Mr Knott keeping a close eye to ensure no outside ‘slicker scroungers’ shared the village treat.

April 23, 1938

Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria had dramatically stoked tensions in Europe as war looked increasingly likely.

Lympstone began to prepare and, 17 months before hostilities broke out, a village air raid precaution (ARP) scheme was founded.

Villagers were warned that bombers headed for Plymouth and Falmouth could jettison additional bombs anywhere and people could be killed by bombs exploding 150 yards away.

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