Memories of 'Old' Newton Abbot
| Published: 4th March 2008 13:30 |
Memories of 'Old' Newton Abbot
Jetty Marsh
Imagine if you can, Newton Abbot without its huge shopping complex now on the old Market Place; without its pedestrian malls and modern commercial buildings - and you had a lovely little market town full of character where I grew up.
The population of Newton Abbott in the ‘40s and ‘50s was about 14,000, swelled in the summer months by the influx of holiday makers and tourists from all over the country who came enjoy the sea and the countryside, particularly Dartmoor, and the plethora of other attractions so close at hand. With Torquay and Paignton so near, I frequently spent Saturday afternoons watching Torquay United play at home, took trips on 'The Western Lady', a converted motor torpedo boat which did a round trip from Torquay to Berry Head and Brixham, and visited Paignton Zoo. With so much to attract my interest, I was rarely at a loose end.
Market day was the high point of the week, when the market place was thronged with cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry, and, of course, Dartmoor ponies. The cattle market was mainly populated by farmers, drovers, auctioneers, buyers and sellers, and the curious onlookers. The Butter Market housed the vendors of clotted cream and honey, butter and cheeses, bread and cakes, hams, bacon, sausages, pasties, mostly from local small 'home kitchen' producers - no mass produced factory stuff here! The Pannier Market was home to the vendors of fruit, vegetables, flowers, and other produce, and a few stalls selling second hand goods, clothing etc., or 'antiques' and bric-a-brac. Here the housewives came to stock up the larder, and to meet and exchange news and views.
There were also the ‘cheapjacks', the itinerants who travelled the country, setting up their stalls wherever there was a market being held. They sold almost anything one could think of, from corn plasters (advertised by a large plaster-of-Paris foot with suitably painful looking patches in appropriate places - the purveyor of the merchandise using his own exquisitely clean, white foot to demonstrate his goods) to cheap jewellery and make-up, by way of bed ‘linen' (the sheets assumed strange shapes after laundering and could not be made to fit any normal bed), and cooking utensils. There was 'Mad Mark' who ran Dutch Auctions of things like canteens of cutlery, kitchen utensils and cheap ornaments, and always sported a straw ‘boater', the top of which had opened like a lid. The local tramps and layabouts were also in evidence, panhandling for the price of a drink.
The air rang with the rich, warm rounded sounds of the local Devon Dialect, competing with the sharper accents of the outsiders, and the mixed smells of animal dung and petrol fumes competed with the aroma of fried onions from the hot dog stall and that of beer and cider wafting from the pubs, usually packed to the doors on market days.
There was an annual fair, known as the Cheese and Onion Fair, also held in the market place, with swings, roundabouts and dodgems, hot dogs and candyfloss, and the booths where one could shoot an airgun at a target and, perhaps, win a goldfish in a jam jar or a fluffy toy, or toss rings over pegs or throw darts into playing cards on a board to win a cheap plaster-of-Paris ornament.
Newton Abbot also had its Carnival, complete with decorated floats, a ladder engine from the Fire Station with firemen performing acrobatic feats on it, the girls from the school of dance going through their paces, the town band, and those locals of an exhibitionistic nature got up in a variety of costumes, including a gay bus conductor who was usually costumed as a Greek god, or some other lightly clad character, his limbs heavily oiled.
During the rest of the week, the focus for youngsters was the ice cream kiosk or the snack wagon. This source of culinary delights was run by an ex-Army Catering Corps major, and, during the day, supplied snacks and meals to assorted members of the business community. In the evening, the venue would attract a slightly different clientele - taxi drivers, layabouts, and teenagers like I, out for the evening but at a loose end. It wasn't ever going to rival Las Vegas as a night spot, but the steak and kidney pies were wonderful!
Newton Abbott had its quota of local characters. One of the local photographers was known to have interests which went beyond wedding groups and family portraits, interests which involved persuading local lovelies to divest themselves of their clothes in front of his camera (this, of course, was long before nudity became commonplace, and at a time when photographic representations of the unclothed or partially clothed ‘female form divine' were still the subject of furtive transactions between young - and not so young - men). Charlie the Tramp was a common sight around the town, carrying all his worldly possessions around in carrier bags. He lived in a hollow tree most of the time, although occasionally he would take up residence in a barn or outhouse if he could get away with it or the owner was kind hearted.
Then there was the "fish man", a red-headed chap who pushed his two-wheeled cart full of fresh-fish and ice up the steepest hills in the town, shouting his products in a loud parade-ground voice! He later bought a three-wheeled motorcycle type van, which made his work and life much easier.
Papa Simpson, who appears to have been a coloured G.I. left over from the war years was well known in the town, not because he was black at a time when dark skins were still a rarity outside the big cities, but because he ran a newspaper stall at the old bus station in the market place, lit by a kerosene lamp in the dark winter afternoons.
It is probable that Papa Simpson was originally stationed at Stover Camp, a few miles out of town, which had been an American military hospital during the war, at which, so it was rumoured, the film actor, Forrest Tucker, was treated for an injured thumb! At the war's end, the facility became a hostel, housing displaced persons, mostly Poles, many of whom became integrated with the local population, and I well remember seeing the strings of Polish sausages hanging in the old Butter Market, and thinking that I could never eat anything that looked so peculiar!
There must be many more memories hidden away in the minds of long-tern residents to Newton Abbot to add to mine on this wonderful web-site.
Old cattle market
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