THERE was much happening in and around Teignmouth in 1976, not least of which the town's carnival - read all about it below!
► CARNIVAL DAY
Thursday was the focal point of the week, with the main carnival procession. The chairman, Mr. Douglas Mabon, welcomed Del Cooper, of Westward Television, and the Queen of the Carnival, and her attendants, from the Royal Hotel, and thanked the organisers for their hard work.
The children’s swimming gala was being held in the pool on the Green, and the Waiters’ and Waitresses’ race, sponsored by Whitbread Flowers, Ltd. where the runners had to carry a bottle of Mackeson, pour it, and run back without spilling a drop.
After a concert by the Lympstone Silver Band, the Procession led from Bitton Park Road and round the town, headed by Drum Major W Hooper, on horseback. It was pleasing to see, in this age of motors, so many horses, especially with the Royal Wedding theme. Two 13-year-olds had hobby horses!
The outstanding float was the Tooley family’s magnificent ‘Mystic India’, with all the trappings of the Orient, and a life-sized model of a baby elephant. There was a bevy of Eastern girls on ‘Whoops Bagdad’ from the Paignton, Newton Abbot and Torquay Independent Order of Foresters. Exmouth Motor Club recalled the Stone Age in ‘Flintstones’, and an enormous fish was the Shaldon and Ringmore WI’s ‘Cod War’ float.
A working water wheel was the centrepiece of the Town Mills Craft Centre. The Teignmouth Players presented ‘Henry VIII and His Six Wives’, while the students of Colegio Santa Maria del Mar demonstrated how ‘Spain Sings”.
The Howard family depicted Jimmy Savile’s ‘Clunk Click’, on of them with a flaxen wig, the others bandaged victims of a crash. The Holmes and Yeoman children featured in ‘The Belles of Saint Trinian’s’ – a really scruffy lot, with the youngest holding a copy of ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’. Three Daleks were entered by Air Training Corps – they took six weeks to make; and the Winterbourne Centre made a 60ft-long dragon for ‘St George and the Dragon’.
► SEA RESCUE
A man who was in danger of drowning was saved by a Newton Abbot police inspector on Monday. Inspector J A Emmett was eating a picnic lunch on the beach at Smugglers Cove, Dawlish, when he saw the swimmer, Mr Peter Malcolm Dowrick (24) from Wiltshire, in difficulties.
He swam out and with the help of holidaymakers brought him to safety. He applied artificial respiration before the arrival of the ambulance. Mr Dowick was taken to Teignmouth Hospital for treatment, but not detained.
► VORACIOUSNESS OF THE EEL
From an old Teignmouth newspaper: One day, I witnessed a novel exhibition, a chase upon terra firm of a crab by an eel. I saw the fugitive emerging from the water onto the ledge where I stood. The eel, of large dimension, soon followed. On landing on my rock, with great dexterity, the crab took to his heels, and showed his pursuer the advantage of the possession of limbs.
Nothing daunted, although labouring under the primeval curse of the serpent, the eel dashed after him with the utmost eagerness. He wormed, twisted and oscillated himself to and fro, to little purpose, for a considerable distance, until on my approach, both made a short cut and got into the water again.
► WISE WORDS
Nothing in itself is good or evil, it is only in its use. One way to sleep like a baby is to have a baby who sleeps. Hate, like love, mellows with the years.
► RIVIERA CINEMA
Afternoons only: Ursula Andress in ‘SHE’. Evenings only: David Essex and Ringo Starr in ‘That’ll Be The Day’. Thursday for seven days: ‘The Poseidon Adventure’. Late shows at 10.30: ‘Creatures the World Forgot’; ‘The Five Man Army’; “Up the Junction”; ‘The Vampire Lovers’.