Beach hut memories

Last week a London based businessman paid £91,000 for a beach hut on Teignmouth beach. For those of you who have travelled down to Cornwall by train, Teignmouth is the bit with a large, red cliff that sticks out, known as The Ness. It has a few pine trees on top, like tufts of hair. I know it well, for I was brought up there.

I used to have ballet classes in one of those beach huts, and they’re tiny. There was room for a barre, a mirror, our ballet teacher and three small girls to jig around in and that was about it, so what someone is planning to do with it baffles me. As I remember there isn’t a window either, or if there is it’s of postbox dimensions.

However, the situation is superb. This row of beach huts overlook the village of Shaldon opposite and Teignmouth docks round to the right. Just outside the beach huts a tiny passenger ferry trundles back and forth, linking Shaldon with its busier sibling. A long, beautiful iron bridge spans the river Teign, linking Shaldon with the rest of the world, and in the distance the estuary winds its way up to Newton Abbot.

I arrived at this idyllic spot as an 18 month old baby. We rented a cottage in Shaldon which was apparently damp but picturesque, and my parents made lifelong friends with the couple next door. Mum had had a bad time with me as I’d been very ill at birth (in London) and we were both closeted in Intensive Care for months, so coming down to Shaldon must have been like a sigh of relief.

Not used to babies – I’m the oldest – Mum was naturally nervous, but help was at hand. An elderly fellow used to run the passenger ferry which trundles back and forth, taking kids to school, people shopping, tourists and walkers to and from the beaches.

One day when Mum was at her wits end with a screaming me, the ferry man said gently to her, ‘Ere, love. You give Curly to me. I’ll look after her – you have some time to yourself.’ (In a broad Devon accent.)

A red eyed Mum handed over her baby and, with several backward glances, went off with her friend for a few hours. Apparently I slept, woke and gurgled, and slept again. Life on the ocean wave, that was for me.

So ever after that, whenever Mum needed a break, she’d hand over her daughter to the ferryman who delighted in his tiny, curly haired passenger.

What a shame that nowadays he’d be branded a paedophile, and I’d be taken away by Social Services, my mother reprimanded for being incapable, neglectful, at fault.

I wish I could remember back that far. I bet I delighted in the attention, in the gentle lapping of the waves, the cry of the gulls overhead. The shouts of the other boatmen, the swish of the tide running fast, the steady chug of the engine, the deep satisfying rumble of the boatman's voice. What better start to life?

I hope that whoever bought this beach hut – which is a piece of history, after all – will treat it as a place for quiet contemplation. I hope they will walk outside, sniff the autumn air and clamber aboard the little ferry. They will watch the water eddying around them, see the beach huts recede and the Shaldon boats beckon. On a quiet day, you can hear the happy gurgle of a child.