The North Devon Coast

by Charles G. Harper

(Confidentially)

“I went out on the tiddly-hi.
Oh, fie!
On the sly!
I came home with a head;
I put me boots in the bed
An’ slep’ on the mat instead;
Yus (proudly) I’d bin out on the tiddly-iddly,
twiddly, fiddly, hi, hi, HI. (Crescendo).

“When you’ve bin out on the tiddly-hi.
Oh, my!
(You try!)
You feel confoundedly cheap, and dry.
‘You’ve bin on the bend,’ the guv’nor said,
‘You’ve bin painting it red.’
I’d bin wanting a rise,
But ’e giv me a nasty surprise;—
For (dolefully, dimuendo) I got the push instead;
An’ that’s the result of goin’ out-on-the-blooming—
tiddly, iddly (but, with returning confidence,
fortissimo) HI, TI-HI.”

But, wearying for local colour, rather than for more of this sort of thing, which, after all, is done very much better in the London music-halls, you resort to the harbour. There indeed—if anywhere—you look for something characteristically Devonian. But even there the streets are brilliant till late at night with dining-rooms and the like—merciful powers, how every one must eat and drink at Ilfracombe—and the fishermen, if the samples heard by the present auditor are representative, are pre-eminently the foulest-mouthed to be found on many a varied coast-line.

I know not what the quiet holiday-maker may find to do at night at Ilfracombe. He may, at any rate, go to bed, but even there he is pursued by sounds of revelry. He undresses to the refrain of tiddly-iddly, diddy-dum-dey, or something equally intellectual, and his first dreams mingle with the distant, but distinctly audible,

“I ’eard the pitter-patter of ’er feet,
Oh, so neat!
Pitter-patter on the pyvement of the street.
On ’er fyce I tried to look,
An’—good grycious, ’twas the cook!”—

And thus, in the Cockney celebration of mean intrigue, the melody merges into the mesh of visions.

What, indeed, shall the lonely visitor to Ilfracombe do with himself in the evenings? He may wander around the walks of the Capstone Parade or the Tors, and feel himself reduced to a singular loneliness amid the amorous couples who there most do congregate; or feel not less lonely in exploring the endless “gardens,” “terraces,” and “crescents,” where every house is a boarding-house; or, in the finer flavour of euphonious avoidance of the commonplace truth, “an establishment for the reception of visitors.” There, alas! he feels himself lonely indeed, as, passing the endless array of lighted rooms with open windows, he sees the holiday-making families assembled.

But morning in Ilfracombe is more endurable for such an one. Bustling, democratic Ilfracombe has, then, none of that illuminated vulgarity and would-be, shop-soiled wickedness that characterise it overnight. Nature gets her chance again in the light of day, and in the long, narrow High Street you see the crowds in pursuit of natural enjoyments. Some are shopping, some are making for the bathing-coves; others are going on one or other of the many coaching excursions to “places of interest in the adjacent country,” as the notices have it. It may be observed that not yet have motor waggonettes and the like replaced the coaches and other horsed vehicles at Ilfracombe, and that drivers and guards still affect the traditional red-coats associated of old with coaching. More than ever are there popular joys attendant upon one of these coaching-trips to Berrynarbor, to Combemartin, or Lynton; for in these fiercely enterprising times the local photographers take views, day by day, of the laden coaches as they prepare to set out; and so, at trifling cost, you have a permanent pictorial voucher as to the way in which you fleeted the sunny hours at Ilfracombe. Not, by any means, that all hours are sunny, this especial spot in North Devon being notoriously rainy; but it is at worst but an April-like raininess, and even as the showers come down, the sun that is to dry them up smiles through the watery sky. Thus, no one minds the “soft weather” of Ilfracombe.

It is many, many years since Charles Kingsley wrote of Ilfracombe in this manner: “Be sure, if you are sea-sick or heart-sick, or pocket-sick either, there is no pleasanter place of cure than this same Ilfracombe, with quiet nature and its quiet luxury, its rock fairyland and its sea walks, its downs and combes, its kind people, and, if possible, its still kinder climate, which combines the soft warmth of South Devon with the bracing freshness of the Welsh mountains.” The climate is the only thing that has not suffered change since that description was penned. The kind people are, doubtless, at bottom, as kind as of old—such of them as are Devonshire folk—but they are now urban (which, despite the etymology of the word, does not now indicate what is in these times understood by “urbanity”)—and to be urban in these days is to be, colloquially, “on the make.” Ilfracombe, in fact, like any other large seaside resort, has turned its scenery and its climate to commercial account, and, as the local Urban District Council frankly acknowledges, exists for, and on, the visitor. It is a town of hotels, lodging-houses, and boarding-houses, few of whose proprietors can be natives. All the natural features are exploited, and, lest the visitor be in doubt what there is to see and do, the Council has taken in hand the task of placing notices in prominent places, indicating the things to be seen and to be done. Thus, kindly shepherded, you lose all personal enterprise, and do, like an obedient fellow, what you are bidden. From these official productions you learn instantly the features of the place, as thus: