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Perfect Prawle
It's 30 years this summer since we discovered Prawle Point. A
friend had said there was a farm where you could camp, and it was safe
for children; and in East Prawle, the village above the point, there
was a reasonable pub called The Pig's Nose. It was one of those casual
introductions that change your life: your first cigarette, your first
aqualung dive, your first Thornton's chocolate...
We were hooked. For two weeks every summer and for long weekends in
between, we camped there. It was the mid-'70s; flower power had wilted
everywhere else, but down here in the laid-back South-west it lingered
on. We had steady jobs and a mortgage and kids, but what we really
wanted was to be hippies. At Prawle, in ‘our field', we could be.
There were no showers, and the only loos were on the village green. To
wash your hair – not something that real hippies did very often – you
dodged the sheep and stuck your head under the tap in a distant boggy
corner. It required dedication. There were other families as
daft as us. The population of our field waxed and waned but always
there was a nucleus of sort-of friends and a circular encampment of
perhaps a dozen tents. In the centre stood a long trestle table, a
former market stall owned by one of our number; it was the focal point
for cooking and eating and sampling one another's home-made beer while
the kids chased frisbees round the field and argued about whose turn it
was to sleep in which tent. They still enthuse about it now,
those kids, at thirty-something. When I asked my son what his clearest
memories were he reeled them off: collecting field mushrooms in a
saucepan, playing cricket on the bumpy grass, tying the tents to the
car on a night of wild winds, being seasick in somebody's crab boat... My
daughter was just as graphic: “A gang of us sitting in the porch of The
Pig's Nose,” she said, her eyes alight, “and parents bringing us Coke
and crisps and telling us to behave, even though they were the ones
making the noise!” And the fire, they both remember that. The
big old house below our field was a lost cause from the very first
flame. We stood and watched, helpless. There wasn't enough water in the
mains so the fire crews laid out half a mile of hosepipe to the village
duck pond and sucked it dry in minutes, to no avail. Years later, long
after an elegant replacement has filled the site, we still call it ‘the
house which burnt down'. A mile out of the village, just west
of Prawle Point, was Maceley Cove. Walking there on the sunniest days
we followed sunken tracks where the air was thick with the
summer-heated scents of greenery and sap and wildflowers. Nobody else
knew Maceley existed, we thought; its perfect sun- soaked beach and
clear blue water were our secret. On other days we'd wander the coastal
footpath, catch a supper of crabs and shrimps in the rockpools, or
simply lounge around the campsite and send the children to buy ice
cream from the rudimentary village shop. We soon learned that
Prawle had its own microclimate; weather forecasts meant nothing. So on
a Friday night, whatever it was doing back home in Ashburton, we'd
throw a few things in the car and pick up a fish supper in Kingsbridge
and be settled into our camp before dark. And early on Saturday morning
we'd open the tent flaps and lie there, watching the sun climb out of
the sea. Things change. We climbed promotion ladders and
discovered France and Italy. Our kids became adults and bought tents of
their own, and ours began to leak. Which was about the time Joan
Bakewell intervened. The programme was called something like Britain's
Best Kept Secrets, and there was Ms Bakewell telling the world about
Prawle. It seemed profane, a violation. Maceley had become public
property; cabin cruisers moored 50 yards offshore and clouds of exhaust
fumes swarmed up the beach like foreign invaders. Raucous yachtsmen
popped champagne corks and played loud music; women lay ostentatiously
topless on cabin roofs and men kicked beach balls and each other into
the water. We half expected to see Joan herself, perched on a
stainless-steel stern rail, Lady Bountiful: “Look, see what I've given
you! Enjoy the peace, the solitude!” Which, of course, is
completely unfair – the programme only reflected what was happening in
the world. If the '80s had brought a spirit of adventure, then with the
'90s came boldness and wealth; people were looking for quality time and
intensive leisure to make up for the long hours behind their computer
screens. And Prawle, a laid-back haven where bureaucrats rarely trod,
offered everything they wanted. This summer we've been back.
Driving into the village it all looks familiar: the duck pond is
healthily verdant, a small boat lies abandoned on the village green,
The Pig's Nose customers sprawl good-naturedly on the grass. Everything
seems as it was that very first time, 30 years back. But there
is something… Suddenly I spot it, the single factor which is
symptomatic of what has happened to Prawle over the last three decades.
It sounds ridiculous, but it's the cars. This used to be the
place where nobody drove anything posher than a 2CV or a 10-year-old
Escort. But now there are new BMWs and Audis everywhere and giant 4x4s
jostle for parking spaces. The Piglet Stores, which once sold only the
rock-bottom basics, now stocks enough bottled water to fill a trendy
hot tub. And the presence of a fresh pineapple among the more regular
fruit and veg says a lot about the customers this tiny village shop is
catering for. It's not just on the green where Prawle has
shifted up-market. Round every corner the cottages are resplendent in
fresh Sandtex; some once-simple semis – ex-local authority houses
perhaps – now have extensions and conservatories and parasoled patios.
There's a new house or two, slotted between the old and trying to look
as if it belongs, but in a casual way. And ‘casual' fits this place and
the people too, except that often now it's ‘designer' casual, with
accents to match. Prawle has become not exactly stylish, but
fashionable in a city-meets-country way; not just nouveau riche but
nouveau rustique. And its appeal is growing stronger. Some
former second-homers now live here permanently; others have found that
with internet access they can work here almost as efficiently as they
can in London or Bristol – any slight deficiencies are outweighed by
the gain in quality of life. And there are determined efforts to retain
Prawle's quirkiness: mobile phone reception is dreadful but BT's
old-fashioned red box caters for e-mails and text; The Pig's Nose
refuses to accept credit cards and still provides a coin-in-the-slot
shower room for post-hippy campers. Parking fees are voluntary: ‘In aid
of church, village green and play area'. Down at sea level,
Maceley Cove is perfect and pretty but crowded; dive boats swarm below
Prawle Point itself where rusting chunks of the Demetrios, the ship
famously wrecked here in 1992, reveal themselves as the tide recedes.
Above, in the revamped look-out station, Coastwatch volunteers show
endless visitors round with a patient courtesy. And the walk back
through the lanes to the village is not the traffic-free stroll it once
was. The Pig's Nose Inn offers refuge. Peter and Lesley Webber
bought the place on an impulse seven years ago after a London-based
career in the music business. But Peter was born in these parts and
Prawle has been a sort of homecoming; Lesley, a
life-and-soul-of-the-party type, has obviously found her own niche here
too. And they've brought the music with them – big-name bands now
regularly play in the 200-seat hall next door. Over dinner in
the pub (chef Carlo's scallops in ginger cream are sensational) we
slowly understand what it is that has happened to Prawle these last 30
years. And the answer is, truthfully, not much. We'd almost expected
not to recognise the village, to find its spirit damaged by the influx
of incomers and weekenders and money. But it feels no different, a
wacky, happy-go-lucky little place, in countryside which is busier but
as fabulous to look at as ever. And then we wandered across
the road to ‘our field'. Tents have gone all high-tech now but little
else has changed. Even the farmer's name on the field gate was the
same, and the hand-scrawled list of rules seemed familiar. Especially
the last item: ‘If you wish to be noisy please camp on another site'.
No, this one was fine. All we ever wanted was peace and we, the
would-be hippies, found it here at Prawle. Others have found it too,
but hey, that's cool, man.
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