BEESANDS - 1948

An image of Beesands, a crab-fishing village in the South Hams of Devonshire (the area of Kingsbridge, Salcombe and Dartmouth), a part of the world then, and almost certainly still, a favourite of Birmingham holiday-makers. It's late July or August 1948.

In the foreground is a man named Bert Ward. He is a "furriner" as the locals would call him, a visitor from the Kings Norton area of Birmingham, a survivor of the Great War, a stalwart of the Birmingham Home Guard in WW2 and a nice man, very kind to me during the war and later. He is a good friend of my father who is taking the photograph - he, similarly, a survivor and a Home Guard man. They are both on holiday in the third summer of peace. To the left Bert's wife, Mary, proceeds majestically towards us, clutching a vast handbag. Between them my mother, similarly equipped, looks towards the doorway of the Cricket pub where I, a 12-year-old, loll - and am perhaps negotiating with her the purchase of a shandy before we depart.

Bert gazes up at the strange building which shelters a mid-1930s limousine - I think the latter serves as the local taxi. The state of the building suggests the aftermath of the tragic Luftwaffe hit-and-run in 1942 when several villagers lost their lives and perhaps it reminds Bert that it wasn't only Brum which had suffered grievously in the very recent past.

In a moment he'll drain his tankard and return it to the pub before starting the climb, with the rest of us, up the narrow twisting lane towards the tiny village of Beeson where we are all staying.......