Fitz in the community - Ep. 8 - Barnstaple & Torbay

Fitz travels to Barnstaple to talk rugby, learn all about an exciting life in the fun fair in Torbay and sits down with the Plymouth Military Wives Choir.

Listen here or on Spotify, Amazon music or Google Play, or read the full transcript of this podcast below:

0:00:06 - Fitz
Fitz in the community. Welcome back to Devon. If you've just joined us. This particular podcast is brought to you courtesy of Clear Sky Publishing, at the heart of Devon. Now listen also at the heart of Devon, sport. My particular passion rugby. Today we're going to concentrate Barnstaple Rugby Rugby Club. I'm hoping to get round the entire county and visit as many rugby clubs and football clubs as possible. Just trying to get the spirit of what makes our community great. But today, as I mentioned, Barnstaple Rugby Club. It's been there a long time, as has our first guest. I'm not being rude. He will tell you in his own words let's join Trevor. Trevor Shaddock.

0:00:49 - Trevor Shaddock
I'm now a life member and a committee member and a dog's body. There's a lot of running around still.

0:00:56 - Fitz
Dog's bodies. They keep clubs going!

0:00:59 - Trevor Shaddock
That's right, yeah. I guess I joined the club when I was still at school, in the last year of school, so that was when I was probably 15. Then I was lucky enough to have to be able to play to quite a decent age, so I suppose I was in my late 30s, perhaps middle 30s, when I stopped playing proper rugby.

0:01:22 - Fitz
May I ask how old you are now?

0:01:26 - Trevor Shaddock
Only 77. When I met the wife, she came down and worked in the kitchen. In those days the wives and girlfriends used to do all the meals for the players. Then along came the children and they used to be involved or hanging around the club all the time when we were down there. When they were old enough, we had the junior section set up. So they've come through all the junior sections as well and again the wife was still doing the meals. And what have you? Then they became Colts players and moved for the Colts to the senior sides as well, and then we got grandchildren that's playing at Newton Abbot as well. So all in all, we're involved in the club and always have been for many, many years.

0:02:13 - Fitz
I know you got links with Newton Abbot. I was over there a couple of weeks ago with Mr Charles Bourne, the West away Warriors.

0:02:20 - Trevor Shaddock
, Charles, my eldest son, Mark, is the chairman there. His firm SA Safety is sponsoring today here. A lot of the Barnstaple Committee and supporters are down here enjoying his hospitality as well.

0:02:34 - Fitz
How on earth have you managed to get through the weather? How is your pitch? Because it's sodden everywhere in Devon.

0:02:41 - Trevor Shaddock
That's right. But to get it in perspective, it is a rugby pitch rather than some people's there. It's their living and you see all the extensive flood in the farmland and houses. That gets it back into perspective for a start. But our pitch is pretty good, draining really. I think every rugby pitch in the West Country suffered from the deluges we've had, but ours is holding up better than most. I mean, we've got a very good ground crew. We spend a lot of time and a lot of money I've got to say as well on equipment to keep our pitches really really well, and I think we're the envy of a lot of clubs who come to us to see our pitch still playable when others are caught off.

0:03:27 - Fitz
All ages, all genders. You've got an amazing team set up.

0:03:31 - Trevor Shaddock
Yes, we have. Yeah, We've got a vibrant junior section that goes on from under sevens right up to to. They get the Colts ages through the Colts and then into senior rugby as well. We run three senior sides. We've got our second team as well and our third team, which started off as a vets side, but you've got a nice mix now of vets and some of the younger players as well, all in leagues of their own or merit tables of their own right. So every game now is a meaningful game rather than perhaps it was more friendly games a few years ago. But now the league structure is such that it goes right down to our third team and of course, we've got the Colts as well. Who's our future players for us?

0:04:15 - Fitz
Yeah, and are you playing anytime soon?

0:04:19 - Guest
No maybe not All right. Or me.

0:04:21 - Trevor Shaddock
Yeah, yeah, up in my head I am, but I know you can't do that these days. Not my age, I'm sure.

0:04:27 - Fitz
What did you do in Barnstaple? I don't know your background.

0:04:30 - Trevor Shaddock
I was in the fire service. I ended up divisional commander in North Division, did 32 years in the fire service and then when I retired I got even more involved with the rugby club and that's been my second job, if you like, unpaid, I'll quickly add. But what we do run is we call ourselves the Tuesday Volunteers and we've got a band of predominantly retired people but with all the skills that you need to run a rugby club and maintain it. Our Tuesday Volunteers meet up on a Tuesday, no less, in the morning. We have a list of all the work that we've got to do and it comes from emptying the rubbish bins, sweeping out the stands, to doing pat testing on the electrical equipment and building and carpentry work and, of course, doing the grounds work as well.

Yeah, gradually the band has been increasing and not going to be anything from 15 to 18 people down there on a Tuesday morning, all enjoying a bit of banter. As you know from your days of services, a bit of banter keeps us all together Coffee, and one of the wives of one of our volunteers, would you believe, makes pasties for us every day, prepares it all on a Monday and she gets up early on Tuesday morning to bake those pasties for us, and they come down smelling lovely. That's Christine for you. Christine, we love you. Yep, we do it's best pasties in the South West, I've got to say. Brilliant.

0:06:06 - Fitz
Well, my thanks to Trevor and to Barnstaple Rugby Club and good luck with the rest of the season. Now I've nipped over Paignton and and I'm on the seafront. As I'm hoping you can hear in the background, it is bitterly cold, beautiful day. The sea is fairly rough and rubbly out there at the moment and I'm parked just on the Asplenade here just behind the old theatre, and I've come over to see a friend of mine, Simon , a familiar name to many, many, many people. He's the owner of the Anderton and Roland Fairground. More on that in a few moments time.

But the festival theatre here, well, it brings back some incredible memories. It was the very first stage I ever walked on to. I was called at the last minute to come down and host a charity event. I seem to remember it was for the Salvation Army, an incredible group of people and the guest star that day, one Larry Grayson. He had just moved to Torquay and the rest is history. Because he suddenly realised that, yeah, the summer is absolutely wonderful in the bay but the winters are very cold, pretty hard and fairly lonely. And today I'm just looking up and down the sea front. The sunshine is absolutely stunning, but there are one, two, three, four, five people along the entire sea front, and it is bitterly cold. Sadly, Larry didn't last that long in the bay before he moved back up country. But let's look on a positive side. A man who's also invested on this sea front is Simon .

0:07:55 - Simon Deveille
The family has been associated with Torbay since 1854, that's when we were established. Not me personally don't look at me like that.

0:08:02 - Fitz
I say you're looking remarkable for 1854. Didn't you have the very first car in the bay?

0:08:08 - Simon Deveille
Yes, a Victoria Benz. I think it was in the 1880s and when the fare came to town then it led to the procession, and when they opened on the harbour side at Torquay they set a special marquee up and charged everybody a penny to go and see it.

0:08:27 - Fitz
Ever since, somewhere, there has been a living here.

0:08:30 - Simon Deveille
Yes, that's correct, that's very true, and myself now I'm a resident of Torbay, as my father and my son, and we run the funfairs as we have always done, but also we've branched out a little bit and we have other businesses in Torbay as well.

0:08:52 - Fitz
How's it going? I've got to ask because again it's got to be seasonal.

0:08:55 - Simon Deveille
It's very seasonal, yes, as you witnessed earlier on the wind and no people about, but we provide a service. In the afternoons and the weekends. People come down to the park, the GeoPlay park, but it's like all businesses Fitz. You have your peaks and troughs and you know. You just have to take the line through the middle and keep smiling.

0:09:15 - Fitz
You don't travel anymore. Have your sons taken over the business?

0:09:19 - Simon Devey
Yes, my other son, George, now has taken over the running of the fairground side of the business, the Anderton Rollins Fair. Although saying that I'm not so much involved, I'm technically still the owner. I do a lot of background work, a lot of meetings and all that sort of thing. But the actual jumping on the back of a dodging car or spinning the waltzer cars, I don't do that anymore Fitz.

0:09:45 - Fitz
Weren't you born in one of the caravans?

0:09:47 - Simon Devey
No, I was born in Exeter in the hospital In the maternity ward. I was one of the first children born in the maternity ward at Gladstone Road at Hevitree. But my father was born in a caravan and he was born at the Newton Abbott Cheese and Onion Fair in 1937.

0:10:06 - Fitz
Whoa, there was a Newton Abbott Cheese and Onion Fair?

0:10:11 - Simon Devey
I think the Charter still runs and I think the Towns still celebrate the Cheese and Onion. It was a festival in September when at the end of the summer all the festivals were coming together and that was the origins of the Cheese and Onion Fair. But years ago there was a pleasure fair, a fun fair, there as well.

0:10:31 - Fitz
Good grief, never knew that, but of course long since gone. But could it be resurrected? What an amazing piece of history. Can you point to one particular part of I don't know the history of the fairground and say that was the golden era? I mean, I remember going, oh, I remember seeing you in North Devon. I remember seeing you in Exeter, way before I knew you. When I say you the Anderton and Roland name, but surely there are so few sites these days.

0:11:04 - Simon Devey
Sites are a big problem and what's caused a lot of problem with the sites is the motor car and we're very fortunate in Torbay that the traditional fairground sites are the public grounds of the greens on the seafronts, the Torre Abbey, meadows and the Paignton Green and indeed lots of the big events. There is an area for the fun fairs. But many years ago Fitz when we were young car parks were free and then all of a sudden we started to charge for car parking and that gave a huge revenue to the local councils. And of course, where the, where the car parks were just wasteland, all of a sudden they become a business revenue for the local authority and that then if we wanted the car park then we had to pay very heavy for it and that obviously at that time then that sort of went against the balance of the profits of running the fair, so we'd lose a lot of sites and, of course, trying to get to these sites you now got to use not tens, probably hundreds, if not thousands of pounds with a diesel.

Yes, that's very true, but we are going green Fitz, believe it or not. Yes, the generators are purposely built with lower emissions. All the lighting effects on the rides now are LED and so very little amperage. So where we used to have the great big old diesel generators Now, a lot of these generators now are a lot smaller and keeping as much of it as green as possible.

0:12:36 - Fitz
It's just not going to work, is it?

0:12:38 - Simon Devey
I can't imagine it. Well, you see, it's funny when you think about it, when you look back on the history of the funfairs. Years and years ago it was all horse drawn, and then the steam engines come in and they had this magical idea of putting an electrical dynamo on the front, connecting a belt up, and then provide electricity, and they went from steam engines to diesel lorries. Now, who's to say now that we're not going to go? All the funfairs will go? Battery operated, electric in the future.

0:13:06 - Fitz
I suppose so. Do you still have equipment in the family archives of that age? Obviously, the steam engines have gone. Actually, you do still have a, what do you call it?

0:13:16 - Simon Devey
We do indeed known as the Anderson Rowland Grand Organ and that is on display at the Dingles Fairground Museum at Lifton in Devon. The perch inspired my great-grandfather in 1906 at an exhibition in Paris and he actually paid the costly sum of 2000 gold sovereigns.

0:13:33 - Fitz
Oh.

Wow, that was a lot of money.

0:13:40 - Simon Devey
Yes, indeed, yes, it was. And they purchased their first fairground ride and they went to a lot of the big fairs and, of course, not amplified music like it is now. It was organ music and the organ that they had on this particular ride wasn't very good, so they wanted the biggest, most powerful organ they could possibly buy and that's what they did. They went to Paris at a French manufacturer called Meringue and they built this organ and they had it shipped to England and we've still got it in our family now.

0:14:09 - Fitz
Have you ever written this down? Is there a book? Is there a record of what your family has done, achieved and seen?

0:14:15 - Simon Devey
Yes, yes, In 2004 we celebrated our 150th year and we commissioned a book writer who had vast knowledge of the fairground industry and he compiled the book Anderon Rowland, Illusion or Reality. And it's a 250 page book, documented history of the fun fair.

0:14:37 - Fitz
So why is Anderton and and Rowland and not e?

0:14:41 - Simon Devey
The Anderton and Rowland. The original name was Haslam. They took on stage names. So Professor Anderton, being the father, was the magician on the stage. His son, Arthur Haslam, took on the name Captain Rowland. He was the famous lion tamer in the cage with the animals. So you can imagine this Victorian scene with the magician on the stage. All of a sudden, at the interval it comes back the big cages there, the lions and tigers, and you've got the ringmaster in there and he was known as Captain Rowland, the famous lion tamer.

0:15:12 - Fitz
Yes.

0:15:13 - Simon Devey
Well, professor Anderton real name was, as I said, was Haslam. He had a daughter called Martha and she married the son of French immigrants and his name was George Devey. And then, of course, the Devaise, captain Rowland and the rest of the family went out of the business, but the Devey's side, the son-in-law then, if that's the word, the son-in-law of Professor Anderton and carried the business on. But we're talking not recently. We're talking that was 1890s, 1900s, so well over 100 years.

0:15:43 - Fitz
Listen, Simon. Thank you for talking to us today. What's next in your schedule today? I know the phone keeps buzzing. You're a very busy man down here.

0:15:51 - Simon Devey
We're getting everything ready for the season fits and Torbay the major holiday destination in Devon in my opinion. Of course others would disagree but it's very beautiful and we've got a lot of staff working today and I'm going to go back out on the sea fronts and see all the staff. But it's terrible weather conditions and I feel terrible that I'm in here having a coffee with you in this lovely Palace Hotel and the boys are out there all working, so it's two degrees outside at the moment.

0:16:18 - Fitz
My thanks once again to the very warm Simon Devey on a cold day. Now sticking with Torbay, a little later on, at the end of this month, we have the Military Wives Choir appearing at the Little Theatre. More on that in a few moments time. Let's go and meet the ladies and the musical director, Rob Young. He well, he thinks he's in charge. Have a listen to this Now. Come on, pay attention. Come on, you at the back.

0:16:52 - Rob Young
Let's just mix up and do this. Mixed up, yeah, yeah, do it. This is really interesting.

0:17:00 - Fitz
Rob, what are you doing?

0:17:02 - Rob Young
They're all going to stand in different places, not in their voice parts.

Okay so they're out of comfort zone in a way, but all first, sopranos, second and altos are normally in their groups, and so the balance is very much in those three sections. Done now just got them to stand next to somebody they don't normally sing next to and particularly in a different voice part. So you've got a second soprano standing next to a first, second standing next to an alto, and it means they've got to know their part. But the balance then is just beautifully evenly spread. So the sound is really phenomenal. We did this before Christmas just as an experiment, and they all loved it. They're a bit nervous, some of them thinking, oh my God, do I actually know what I'm singing? Yes, they did, and the sound was really spectacular.

0:17:45 - Rob Young
So I'm really... anyways see what you think.

0:17:52 - Rob Young
Everybody next to somebody. They don't normally sing with yes, in particularly different voice parts. Lovely, lovely, Right then.

0:18:02 - Diane Ecclund
I'm Diane Ecclund. I am currently the choir lead of the Plymouth Military Wives Choir.

0:18:08 - Fitz
Big job.

0:18:09 - Diane Ecclund
It's quite a big job and I didn't realise when I undertook it how big a job it is. But it just was dealing with ladies.

0:18:16 - Fitz
How many ladies do you have in the choir? I have worked with them in the past, but they seem to double, especially in the summer.

0:18:25 - Diane Ecclund
We currently have 47 paying members in the choir, some on a break, so generally we have around 50, 53-ish in the choir at any one time and generally we take between 24 and 30 ladies out to an event, which gives us a great sound. Most ladies from Devon, mainly Plymouth, but Tavistock, Horrorbridge and those sorts of areas

Yes, I was ex-WRAF, a career that I loved and I got to do loads of different things. I served seven years. It was very enjoyable and it set me up for my life and my career is going forward.

0:19:05 - Fitz
Okay, well, I know that as a group, you are now performing throughout Devon. You're certainly going to Torquay.

0:19:11 - Diane Ecclund
 We are going to Torquay, yes At the end of January, January the 27th, 7.30 at the Little Theatre. What an amazing building that is and that atmosphere. It's very quirky and it's just lovely. Great facilities and it's got lots of car parking as well, which I'm sure is a blessing for them.

0:19:31 - Fitz
Can anybody join the Military Wives Choir? What is the stipulation? I assume either ex-service or married to.

0:19:38 - Diane Ecclund
You can join the Military Wives Choir by being related in some way to the military, so you could be the wife or partner of someone who's serving. You could be a veteran, you could be a mum of someone who's serving, and you could also be a daughter of someone who's serving, or even a retired person, so you could be the wife of a retired person as well.

0:20:02 - Fitz
The original programme. I remember it very well. Lorraine Smith was possibly the last member of that starring role on television which launched the choir, and she's still with you.

0:20:14 - Diane Ecclund
Lorraine's still here. She's still living and breathing and singing with us with her beautiful voice and personality. And she's the eldest member. Not in years as in elderly, but in years, as in how many years she's done with the choir. She's one of the first ladies to take it on.

0:20:30 - Fitz
Lovely. Lorraine is the oldest.

0:20:33 - Fitz
What are you going to be running through first?

0:20:35 - Diane Ecclund
So we're going to be running through our repertoire for the Little Theatre event. We'll be going through some of our old repertoire and singing some new repertoire. Got a couple of songs there that we haven't sung for a little while.

0:20:49 - Fitz
Shall we go through and listen to you warming up? Yeah. Is that all right?

0:20:52 - Diane Ecclund
I think that would be wonderful.

0:20:53 - Fitz
On the gate. When I came in, the security asked if I was joining tonight. No, listen to my voice, not good.

0:21:03 - Diane Ecclund
I do think that would be a stretch too fast in. It's a ladies choir, it's the military wives, it's in the name. You know, Fitz.

0:21:10 - Fitz
Don't tell me, tell the bloke with a gun.

0:21:14 - Diane Ecclund
Yeah, don't argue with him though.

0:21:16 - Fitz
If you mention her name three times Lorraine she appears. Lorraine, I didn't realise you were going to be here.

0:21:22 - Lorraine
Hello Fitz, fancy seeing you here.

0:21:25 - Fitz
You've just been called in the interview the oldest member of the choir.

0:21:30 - Lorraine
The longest standing, I think, yes, the longest standing. I think. Actually there are five or four, or five ladies that started off with the Gareth Malone choir still in this choir.

0:21:45 - Fitz
Take me back to those days because you suddenly appeared on television. You became an international television star. You cut records. It's never changed you, I'm very glad to say.

0:21:54 - Lorraine
Absolutely no. Feet, firmly on the ground. It's just been incredible. We started off as a support group, really when the members were in Afghan back in 2011. It's the greatest support group that has ever ever been created for military women and of course, it's grown now. It's grown to a vast number. I think there are over 70 choirs now, over 2,000 members. There was just never that support from military women. Prior to the choir, you'd have a coffee morning once a week with a load of screaming children or Choirs just brought so much from military women and continues to do so, and long may it continue. I mean, we're in our 13th year, going into our 13th year yeah.

0:22:50 - Fitz
Yes, 2012. When did you have the number one? 2011. 2011 right.

0:22:55 - Lorraine
Yeah, we had Christmas number one that year, in 2011. And, of course, it's just continued to grow and expand and it's just amazing, it's just fabulous, fabulous.

0:23:08 - Fitz
When you sat down that Christmas poking your sprouts around the plate, did you ever think hang on, that's me singing there.

0:23:14 - Lorraine
I didn't actually get to sit down for my Christmas dinner that year because we were actually in here and we were over in the canteen over the road with Sky News who did the countdown to the Christmas number one, and all of the ladies that were involved were at that countdown. We had the news broken to us that we were indeed the Christmas number one for 2011 in the UK official charts, so there was a lot of celebratory drinks and by the time I got home I fell asleep and didn't actually get round to either cooking or eating the Christmas dinner.

0:23:58 - Fitz
And you're just doing a little bit of a rehearsal tonight for Torquay.

0:24:01 - Lorraine
We're doing a rehearsal for the Torquay gig on the 27th of January at the Little Theatre. I think we've got about 23 or 24 pieces that we're performing, so that's a big rehearsal. But of course it's all about the rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal and just get it right on the night.

0:24:23 - Fitz
Thank you once again. It's a bit great to see you.

0:24:25 - Lorraine
It's really lovely to see you, my old mucker, and look forward to seeing you again soon.

0:24:30 - Fitz
The wonderful Lorraine Smith from the Military Wives Choir. And that evening, once again, will be held at the Little Theatre on the 27th of January at 7.30. Well, that's it for another week. Thank you for joining me. Fitz in the Community, brought to you courtesy of Clear Sky Publishing. We'll be out and about once again very soon.