General Discussion
day one
This is the first of a series of daily postings that I propose to make in order to remind myself that I am alive in Dawlish. I am aware that only four or five people look at this website, which is a puzzle to me, but that is not my concern. This is a form of therapy, a way of surviving in a hostile, no not even hostile, but, in terms of people and relationships, art and culture, sterile and barren. There are of course notable exceptions but walking back from Coryton Cove yesterday I was struck by the architecture of the buildings at first floor level. Excellent Regency buildings. What a shame the eye has to drop and settle on 'Lynns Lunch Box' or 'Harrisons Amusements'. How is it that Dawlish has become little more than a satellite coastal town of the Midlands, and that there seems little will to alter this? It is to Birmingham and Wolverhampton what Clacton and Southend are to London.
There are postive signs however: the Dawlish Regeneration Group seems to making progress; on the other hand, the Brewery Tap restaurant is closing; because Dawlish cannot support ONE quality restaurant.
Thats it for today. More tomorrow. I await the first 'if you don't like it sod off' type comment, but rest assured I shall be back tomorrow with more pertinent observations!
Tread in one of Jasmin's turbo doggy-turds. That'll remind you you're still alive. You'll soon disabuse yourself of this notion that Dawlish is 'sterile'.
I once went to an S&M Club in New York's Meat-Packing district, (just west of Tribeca). It was called 'Gay's Creamery'.
Today I went to Coryton Cove wearing no underwear. As I passed by the occasional Sunday tourist, I grinned at them. They grinned back, unaware of my pantie-less secret.
I could feel the ocean breeze blowing up my trouser leg like the desert sirocco. My scrotum felt the cold touch of King Neptune's breath.
On the beach I exposed myself to a passing 'Virgin' train. A vivid counterpoint to the children who were waving at the Driver - mere yards from me. The juxtaposition of my tackle and their innocent waves conjured up a magical Dawlish image.
I spent the afternoon in Charity Shops along the Strand - so many beautiful clothes. It makes me want to spend the rest of my life as a woman.
I don't think its too much of a challenge to spot the genuine one. At least someone else is posting - infantile and a bit pervy though they may be.
Someone said on the radio this morning in connection with another village that 'old people bless them don't exactly bring new life to a village.' The thing is that in Dawlish 50% of the population are under 50, so what are they doing? They can't ALL be down the Lansdowne.
I'm stuck here for another couple of years, in which time I don't expect to see much change. The business interests that control the town are too powerful. Later on this morning I shall wander down to the Strand and be uplifted by the sight of a plethora of tracksuit bottoms, obesity and motorised tricycles. (I don't think a lot of the old folk who use them have lost the use of their legs but I may be wrong.)Accompanied by the sounds of hacking coughs. Inspirational.
Nice to see the Bow Windows being sorted.
Today I went into the library with some dog poo in a plastic bag. Sure enough I got my two pounds.
Then I went down to the Brook where I watched the ducks.
'Quack Quack' they said.
They're amazing, some of them look almost human.
I had a wee in the toilets where the TOurist Information is located. This is brilliant, I could spend a whole day there, alternating between the Tourism information and the Gents loos. I like to loiter around there and have a chat with those coming in.
On of course the 12th April, not the 11th. Its a very nice morning. I am curious to see what happens in Dawlish on May 5th in terms of turnout for the local and general elections, compared to the national average. I wonder whether the general apathy extends to elections; I somehow suspect it does though I may be wrong.
Why is Councillor Chatworthy the only County Councillor NOT to have an email address? Doesn't this say something about Dawlish and IT?
Last night a friend told me that she was walking along near Dawlish Warren and passed a child of about eight who was with her parents. She smiled at the child - as you do - and carried on walking, then heard the child say to her parents 'whats that b**** making faces at me for?'
A pleasant vignette isn't it?
I am horrified at how un pc I am becoming, making all sorts of comments about the way people dress and generally doss about in Dawlish. My car has been pilfered three times since being here, once for the badge - a Vauxhall Corsa!! How sad is that?
With some imagination and money the station and viaduct could be smartened up, Tucks Plot pedestrianised, some more upmarket cafes installed to replace Lynns Lunch Box etc. The place could resemble Exeter Quay and this would give a real buzz to the place, rather than the feeling of morbidity and decline it currently has.
We also need a Tesco Metro. Somerfields is very expensive; this is strange in a town with a large elderly population - unless they are all loaded.
If you think Dawlish has its faults, then try living in Andover, a total dive of a place on the A303.Its 3 times the size of Dawlish and is crowded with London overspill estates and Industrial estates.A total dive of a place.Its also one of the most expensive places in England for petrol.It has no department store either. Give me Dawlish any day.
I think this should be turned into a cemetary. I think it would look nice with crosses.
Perhaps the little girl referred to was worried that she was being groomed by a phaedopile who would take her home and accidentally drown her in the bath.
You seem to be advocating that something nasty should happen to Lynn's Lunch Box.
These things can be arranged, squire.
Meet me by the Bandstand with a hundred notes.
Can't see how you can pedestrianise Tuck's plot,where's the traffic gonna go - via the railway line to Teignmouth? What bugs me is all the traffic continually parking in the Strand.Stop the parking altogether and widen the pavement.That'll make you locals walk more.
Hmmm..so theres a rumour that Somerfield might be sold to Icelandic. Is someone trying to wind me up here? I know I was complaining about the prices in Somerfield, but Icelandic is the other end of the spectrum. Its a really downmarket shop. Surely Dawlish is not spiralling even further into decline?
Its true -
Somerfield is UK's 5th biggest retailer. Also owner of Kwik Save. Shares have been trading below book-value for some time.
Icelandic have reportedly agreed terms with the other potential rival bidder.
Think it's the Coop that wants it. I doubt if Iceland would find Dawlish an ideal location with branches already in NA and Exeter.
The poor strategic location of Dawlish's store would not stop a huge conglomerate from making a corporate acquisition.
Icelandic would be buying Somerfield the company, whose operations extend far beyond Dawlish.
Perhaps it will be converted into a Charity Shop if it does not figure in their plans.
I've got some time to myself today and I need to go into Dawlish. However I feel 'chavved out' today so I am not looking forward to the experience.
Has anyone else noticed that the Gays Creamery side of the Lawn is more upmarket than the Strand side? Why is this? Its like the Chelsea and Battersea of Dawlish with the Brook as the Thames, from a shops point of view anyway.
Though when I say Battersea I'm going back a bit. I'm not sure its the same anymore.
Could they not put signs at the station car park saying 'Chanvs this way' pointing to the Strand and 'more affluent people this way' pointing to Brunswick Place?
Please don't assume I am down on chavs - I actually think providing amusement arcades and fish and chips is insulting to everyone - we need to lift people up, not pander to the lowest common denominator on order to make a quick buck, which is what I suspect some of the local businesses are doing, particularly as they can close for six months of the year and avoid business rates.
(...by the way - what part of Dawlish do you live in. You're not from somewhere common and vulgar like Coronation Avenue are you?)
Woolworths faces break-up demand from major investor
15 April 2005
One of Woolworths' biggest investors called for the group to break itself up yesterday and hand back cash to shareholders, less than 12 hours after Apax Partners dropped its proposed £837m bid for the retailer.
Elliott Associates, a New York-based hedge fund that controls about 7 per cent of the high street retailer, reacted to yesterday's 25 per cent drop in Woolworths' market valuation by urging the board to sell its entertainment subsidiaries and hand back the £109m on its balance sheet
I live on the East Side.
Please don't misunderstand me - I am not a snob. The target of my criticsm is the businesses that are making easy money by attracting the poorer sections of our society to Dawlish. I am also aware of a significant drug and alchohol problem here which I guess is a spin off.
Does anyone know why fish n fins closed down? Does anyone care? What will replace it - a poundshop? This is because yesterday I said Brunswick was more upmarket than the Strand - for how long though? The rot will spread there too - watch this space!
Perhaps the lease has ended...or could be a lack of trade. It was a nice choice but risky ...At the end of the day ...visitors are not going to buy tropical fish or a fish tank, trade would be local sales. I am not getting at anyone in Dawlish ..it's a known fact that you never get high volumn trade from locals (unless you're a pub!) wherever you place a shop ..for example Newton Abbot people seem unhappy with their shops .. Exeter people go to Bristol or Plymouth for Christnas Shopping etc.
This then is a chance for the shop of your dreams in Dawlish .. prove me wrong ! ..so who is brave and going for it ..what should it be selling to pay for all the overheads ?????
(re shops that close in winter, you do not get 6 months free of business rates)
If you are going to re start and you empty the shop of stock three months relief maybe allowed..but best to check with the area Council it differs.
And still going strong. My aim is to get an unbroken run of ten postings, though now I have said that it is guaranteed that someone else will post a new thread just for the sake of it.
Its raining heavily today - there are few sights more depressing than Dawlish in the rain. When we first moved here, people said 'Why on earth have you moved to Dawlish?' We thought it a really nice place and did not understand why this question was asked. Now of course we know - its not the place, but the people and specifically the business interests that keep the place firmly in Chav-land. And councillors seem unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Someone once made the comment 'Teignmouth kept them out' - why hasn't Dawlish?
As I have said before, this is not snobbery, but annoyance at those who are pandering to the lowest common denominator in order to make a quick buck. There are plenty of seaside places elsewhere in the country that cater towards poor taste - Blackpool for example; why do we have to have one here? I'm surprised there isn't a bingo hall.
Looking to move to Ashburton in a year or so - then this discussion board can lie undisturbed. As can Dawlish.
Ashburton in a small community ..you may be seen as an outsider .. one good thing about Dawlish is you can mix with visitors ..Ashburton has none !
I know what it's like to be an outsider .. I once lived in Cornwall ugggggggggg... all they say is 'when you going back !!'
Not sure there are many visitors that I'd want to mix with!
Commiserations re Cornwall - i went to visit a friend who was staying down there for a few months and it felt very parochial.
Ashburton seems OK from the times I've been there and people tell me its a good place to live. I think there are more incomers moving there.
BTW the posting that has interrupted my run is a good example of why I want to leave Dawlish - a pretty sick mind there.
Congrats to M Night S for a nice bit of creativity on this forum. Not sure if it was meant to be supportive or not, but it does express the Dawlish experience very well. By the way, if the webmaster is reading this I'd like to ask if this facility has been publicised. There is never any reference to it in the papers - there should be. The internet is a superb means of communication and internet forums exist for people in all sorts of walks of life, and are often very lively. Why is there no internet cafe in Dawlish? (Thats a rhetorical question.)
What if one did a spot check on every Dawlish resident at 11 am and 9 pm and asked 'what are you doing now?' I wonder what the result would be. Life enhancing activities or not?
I am very lucky at the moment as I have a couple of weeks before I start a new job. I don't know if I'll be writing as frequently as I am now when I start work so I am making the most of it. The great thing about cyber is that the stuff goes out of the house, even if only two people read it. It could feel like flogging a dead horse; it would, if I was concerned with establishing whether there is life in Dawlish. I think I have already settled that one, although there are people around who can see beyond the Carnival and the Ferret/Lansdowne. But we are few and far between and some I guess have given up. There are plenty of compensations here for lack of community.
I'm off to get my daily dose of Actimel.
on the door today ..'Application for a Sandwich Bar'
Blondie is back with us ! ..though you were away spending your winnings on the Grand National ..my horse never even started !
There was a film, the Never Ending Story, in which 'The Nothing' threatened to take over the world.
The Nothing was just that - nothing, emptiness, absence of all light, movement, life, colour.
Luckily some people got a sense of the process beginning in Dawlish and moved quickly to Ashburton, where the Nothing couldn't get them. Phew.
Not to sure about Ashburton,OK I suppose.As a non resident of the area,still prefer Dawlish to anywhere else!On the subject of towns,I detest Paignton,far too common.Torquay alright but parking too expensive.Newton Abbot - nope,don't like it.Not keen on Totnes either.Exmouth is really nice,shame about Babooshka shop though,(my wife's paradise),its gone now hasn't it? Teignmouth & Shaldon are also pleasant resorts.Just to repeat,Paignton is *rap!
Yep....Im back...
My horse didnt win tho.... Bet on the only woman who came in 5th. perhaps that will teach me to rely on the fairer sex.
Won last year with Amberleigh House. Well Chuffed!!!
Thinking about taking out a bet on how soon it will be before the forum turns back to dog muck. I think as soon as mindful gets bored with his postings we will all fall ito ruin again........
Liked his 'Dead people' post very funny.
What's the shortened version of your name????
Your Mum & Dad certainly had a sense of humour - I like it!!
Apparently Dawlish has influenced a number of works of literature. For example :
The Waste Land - TS Eliot
Dead Souls - Gogol
Death in Venice - Thomas Mann
Thats for starters. More to come.
Even after you go off to sulk in Ashboredom, you'll still tune in here, because you can't get away from your fix of Blondie and Solarzoom, you're a junkie.
Obviously its much easier to go 'cold turkey' from Alex beer monologues.
I went for a walk on Dartmoor with a friend today who told me that Dawlish has been this way for as long as he has lived down here ie twenty years. He doesn't think its likely to change. I had an idea that when energy moved into the place it might have a rejuvenating effect but I am beginning to think that its like a black hole - it just dissipates any energy that comes in.
A letter in the Dawlish post today describes some poor behaviour by some young lads under the viaduct. Obviously the behaviour can't be condoned but I can understand their frustration.
The rock group Del Amitri wrote a song about Dawlish -'Nothing Ever Happens.'
As for 'blondie' looking on these boards for an eligible man she might as well look under the rocks in Coryton Cove in hopes of finding the Crown Jewels. No one goes on this site apart from me and a couple of others. I met my partner on the internet though.
What the hell do these retired people do all day?
Nope. Twas in the early days of the internet, through instant messaging. In those days, about six years ago, you didn't get any of this A/S/L stuff, just amiable chat. We talked for six months before we met.
Its been 6 years, you must be feeling a bit bored of each other's flesh by now.
There hasn't been any mention of rumpy-pumpy in your last 13 daily reports, so I presume the fountain has dried up.
Get off your arse and do something about the black hole you are talking about, please mindful please. Don't know anything about you appart from the stuff thats written on this forum and you seem to have a lot of spare time on your hands. so please go and join either one of dawlish's many pressure groups e.g DARE (not that i'm too keen on this one) or the conservation trust. May be you would like to address the youth issue in the town so maybe join one of the existing youth organisations after all the town has Scouts, Girl guides, A.T.C and many youth clubs either with in the church's or in the community center's. please please rather than sitting around moaning about it on the forum use your time to actually do something about it frokm the inside.
Glad at last to get some response, though the only thing I am hurt by is that my postings aren't witty. I try, I try but sometimes the creative juices just don't flow. Must be a blockage somewhere.
There are one or two assumptions that need to be challenged - firstly that I am not involved in actually doing something about the Dawlish Problem. I am. Re youth - yes I work with young people too. My complaining on this site is a form of therapy; an expression of frustration at the apparent lack of concern at the way Dawlish has been allowed to decay. I won't go over the evidence again.
Comments re my sex life are totally off the mark. But I am not going to enlighten anyone there.
OK, if you want something lighter - a kid comes home carrying an armchair under each arm and a sofa strapped to his back. His Dad says 'what did I tell you about accepting suites from strangers?'
EXCUSE ME!!!!
But I was NOT looking for a chap on this site who ever got that from between the lines of what I wrote should work as a spy or something, read it again.
I was just having a laugh at blonds!!!
So please get a grip, I know the type of single men who live in dawlish and I would definatly say NO THANKS!
please dont think all retired people do nothing. I for one lead a very full and ative life ,having aquired a new puppy also i work voluntary for oxfam plus i work some evenings at a holiday park from 6pm to 11.45pm. Iam speaking as a retired female cant speak for the retired male population though
What is this DARE organisation that I have heard about? Who runs it, how long has it been going and whats it for? (I know its Dawlish Against Ruining Everything). Does this mean that there is someone else who thinks Dawlish needs attention? How come DARE is not more widely publicised?
I went to Dorset yesterday, very upmarket, Oliver Letwins constituency. Billy Bragg is apparently hoping to oust him through tactical voting. Wouldn't it be fantastic if he did?
If there was a bad subsidence problem affecting the Grand Cliff Hotel, how come the neighbouring houses aren't affected?
People who moan about me moaning don't really get what these postings are about. Its awareness raising, not moaning. I am also genuinely puzzled as to why this forum is not more widely used. I visit a couple of other national forums and they are very lively - OK, more people but even taking that into account, this one is unusually inactive, particularly when one takes into account the high number of retired people. It takes me five to ten minutes to post on here, which is not long at all. Do people not think it healthy to engage in debate about their local environment? Or does something else stop people bothering?
Anyway I am a very active person, writer and musician amongst other things. I think its a better use of my time to post on here rather than watch trash TV.
I sed to work in the same company as Oliver Letwin. Never met him, though I got on well with Norman Lamont who used to come to my desk for a chat.
Did you 'do' it last night ? With your 'Partner'? How many times?
I agree, about the blokes in dawlish!
If you're wanting to be single for a while this is the place to come, not sure if the blokes in Devon, or just Dawlish. They're also booooorrrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnng.
no offense or anything .............
You could try viagra if you have hydraulics problems, but viagra doesn't work if you simply don't fancy the counterparty anymore - if the 'mind' isn't right, then viagra doesn't overcome it.
Anyone know a place in Dawlish where Senior Citizens can go for wife-swapping?
See you there Blondie and Mindful (....in the 'dark room')
You won't see me. I'm very happy thanks. I know Dawlish is boring but that sounds a bit desperate to me.
A news item on Radio Devon about Dawlish - the closure of the Sally Ann church. It was hard to listen to it without getting depressed. About five people apparently turn up for Sunday service. The reporter described the interior of the building - stacked plastic chairs, an old table and an alter. Some bloke who is sorry to see it go said it was a shame because the building was useful as a repository for unwanted goods. I couldn't help thinking - hmmm, a bit like Dawlish itself.
That together with the relentless rain doesn't make a good start to today. However I am going to Teignmouth later.
Came across this thread from 2005, one of the early ones and started to read it and made me laugh.