“I’m in St Ives”

OK, so I was in St Ives when I wrote that but I finished it at home. “So what?” you may well ask. I was back in St Ives again, having recently read an article in the Guardian about the town by Tanya Gold (10/8/24). She had conducted a series of interviews with local inhabitants, including a former resident who had fallen on hard times and now lives in a van, the local food bank organiser, a fisherman in a shrinking business and a local artist who was campaigning against second home ownership. The message was the same. Tourism is bad for St Ives. 

St Ives faces the same problems as other peripheral coastal resorts – poor accessibility, seasonal employment patterns and a consequent high unemployment rate in winter, exorbitant house prices, local people being priced out of the housing market altogether, and that ghost town atmosphere out of the holiday season, where shops, cafes, second homes and holiday lets are often just empty shells.

So, why pick on St Ives, particularly? The gist of the article was that St Ives is a worst-case scenario. This could well be true. For all sorts of reasons, St Ives is possibly the most beautiful of all British seaside resorts. That’s why we go there and have been doing so since 1969. St Ives was already under a bit of pressure then. We parked up the hill, somewhere close to where the leisure centre is now and walked down into the old town centre. When we took our young family there in 1986, we had to make do with two basement rooms in a Victorian terrace that stank of damp and mould. I felt sick that I’d committed us all to this for a whole week, but it was before the internet and the accountability that has accompanied modern online accommodation provision. In short, they would not be able to get away with that today because it would be denounced as totally unsuitable in a very public way.

Should I feel guilty taking an expensive holiday let here in St Ives? I’m in favour of national and local government intervention to curb all sorts of excesses that are caused by capitalism and which magnify inequality when left to their own devices. Should I stay at home and never visit anywhere on the grounds that unessential journeys are harming the planet? I would find that difficult as there’s a wonderful world out there just waiting to be discovered. We were finding out that for ourselves in the 1960s when we first happened upon St Ives. Should I go by train? I’d like to but its considerably more expensive than coming by car and I know where the side streets are where I can still park for nothing.    

Perhaps I should feel apologetic about keeping on coming back, but I just can’t help myself. Maybe it’s just my acutely developed love of place. I hope that St Ives can continue to squeeze me in from time to time. I should probably try it out of the Easter to October half-term season so that I can better understand the problems it faces. I bet it's still beautiful, though.

   

A pit-stop at Okehampton

 

If you want a station that represents best practice in refurbishment and renewal then Okehampton must be right up there. Instead of shooting past the town when heading west on the improved A30, take time out, instead, to visit this ancient market town and its splendid railway station at the top of the hill. An hour’s free parking in the station yard gives ample time to take a snack in the well-stocked café, which has an imaginative and tempting menu with a number of hot food and vegetarian options. Even if its only for a toilet stop, you’ll find a moments peace surrounded by original tiling, plumbing and woodwork that offers quite a contrast with hectic motorway services.  

Today the award-winning station, which is immaculately turned out in Southern Region green and cream, is enthusiastically supported by a number of local community groups, including Okerail and the Dartmoor Railway Association. There is a museum, a book shop and the old goods shed opposite is a youth hostel. The only current blemish is the footbridge over to platforms one and two. It had its roof whipped off in gales early in 2024 and is now closed off and awaiting attention.  

That the station is now such an attraction is largely due to the reinstatement of passenger services to Exeter. First opened in 1871, passenger trains lasted until closure by British Rail in 1972. Part of the former London and South Western Railway main line from Exeter to Plymouth that skirted round the top end of Dartmoor then survived to take out stone traffic from BR’s Meldon quarry immediately to the west of Okehampton, but this link closed in 2011. A groundswell of opinion in favour of reopening the previously freight only section between the link with the existing Barnstaple to Exeter line and Okehampton was supported by Devon County Council. Occasional heritage services then operated between 1997 and 2019.

National Rail took over in 2021 to provide a regular passenger service once again on what had become known as the Dartmoor Line. Two-car GWR Class 150 DMUs now operate an hourly service to the city and are clearly being well used both by local people, fell walkers and other tourists. Sustrans National cycle route 27 passes the station and a dedicated bus service connects the station to the town centre and to Tavistock. There is now considerable interest in the possibility of re-establishing the railway link with Bere Alston to re-instate an alternative route to Plymouth. During 2024, plans were already underway to construct a new station to the east of the town to be known as Okehampton Parkway and serving A30 users and local commuters living in the surrounding rural areas more directly.

       

Back at the SVR

I shot round the M6 toll road on Saturday morning, full of anticipation for our latest lads’ day out on the trains. We met up at Bridgnorth station for another go on the wonderful SVR. Such a lovely valley to wend one’s way down in a heritage DMU, after the first cup of tea of the day. It’s now 64 years since we got our act together, coalescing around a shared neighbourhood, park football and the school railway society. Our twice-yearly reunions include a statutory railway backdrop - a familiar, scenic environment in which to update, to reminisce and to plan for more. Mostly, though, it is to reinforce friendships that have stood the test of time and that still offer continuity and reassurance in a continually changing and increasingly challenging world. And we were doing so well until VAR denied Beto his equalizer, and with that a precious away point for Everton vapourised, too. From ecstasy to dejection in a matter of seconds. Which just goes to show that although you can’t have everything you wish for, it’s just as important not to lose sight of the things that really matter. EFC will bounce back again. They always have, I muttered to myself, as I succumbed to a longer ride home than I’d expected, as I tried to extricate myself from the vortex that is inner Wolverhampton and then queued with the rest of the traffic on the southbound M6. Just like the marginal offside, motorway congestion is a small price to pay when compared to the camaraderie of true friendship.