Teignmouth

Another famous railway location is where the West of England main line curves out of the station at Teignmouth and onto Brunel’s sea wall. In the summer of 1979, we regularly walked up and down the steep, Eastcliff Walk footpath that crosses the line here, providing a link between our guest house and the promenade.

Our son was just eleven months old and one of the attractions was that our hostess provided a baby-sitting service, which meant we could enjoy the fleshpots of Teignmouth most evenings during our stay. One morning, the landlady rather abruptly demanded to know if we were Irish [perhaps prompted by my Merseyside accent?]. She told us that Lord Mountbatten had been murdered on a boat whilst out fishing. I did not know it then but I am exactly 48.1% Irish [more than any of the other identifiable bits of me, as it happens]. It was just as well I didn’t have that knowledge to hand because I would have missed my breakfast that day, I think, at the very least. She was livid.

That year, I began a period in which I took lots of pictures of our children at play and none of the railway scene, apart from very occasional trips to the embryonic, steam heritage lines. Meanwhile, a procession of HSTs, Brush 4s and Peaks continued to pass through at close quarters. The last Western diesel to be scrapped had been disposed of at Swindon just one month earlier.

On our recent return to Teignmouth, I caught a glimpse of things to come in the form of a Class 800 Intercity Express Train [IET] heading west. Continuity was provided by the iconic HSTs, still going strong forty years on.