1977. Life Five. Bridport resident

Despite hailing from nearby Yeovil, Somerset, (17 miles N of here), my family and I had always had an affinity with Bridport and West Bay and I had been coming here since being a baby in arms.

My Nan, Daisy Goodland, had a caravan on the West Bay caravan site adjacent to Bridport harbour and Aunty Jean and Uncle Norman also had their own caravan at nearby Burton Freshwater and, as a result, we often had holidays at West Bay.

And with Dad having taken me out on the Peace and Plenty fishing boat when I was a babe in arms, it is reasonable to state that, yes, I’ve had a relationship with Bridport, the Bay and the environs of the area right from birth.

There was also a parallel family connection with Filcombe Farm and Golden Cap when Dad married his new wife, Barbara and yeah, it is as if, subconsciously, while not being intimately involved with the Golden Cap Estate, I’ve, instead, thoroughly adopted Thorncombe Beacon, Golden Cap’s neighbouring cliff and promontory as a proxy, and even even takien the name of the place as a surname for my Beach Thorncombe online avatar ! 🙂

How did I end up in Bridport?

My Uncle Norm initially set me up in a caravan in the grounds of the little village pub on the outskirts of Chilthorne Domer.

My father also lived in the village but I did not contact him.

Instead I worked for Norman, rewiring one of his properties and helping out in his Honda motorcycle franchise in Yeovil.

I also acted as “The management” when he had to recover cars and motorbikes from customers unable to keep up payments on their hire purchase agreements.

Then, in May 1977, Uncle Norm asked me to come down to Bridport.

I actually popped down here in May 1977, originally for just an afternoon, to help my uncle Norm with an eviction … and never went home!

He’d had a problem with a tenant of a flat / shop / workshop premises and wanted me nearby while he cut the tenants padlock off.

He was repossessing the place.

A bit later, while repainting the forced door, I looked up, commented on the first floor flat I’d briefly entered prior and said, “Who lives in there, Uncle Norm?”

“Nobody”, he replied and I instantly found myself saying, “OK”. with a pause followed by “Can I live there then?”

And that was that and in short order, with me moved in and the ground floor soon transformed into a workshop and sales area for the endless supply of part exchanged classic British motorbikes Uncle Norman had stockpiled back in a huge barn in Speckington, Ilchester, (at the very end of the runway used by Military Jump jets 6 days a week), I was now the manager of the hottest little motorbike shop in the whole South West of England!*

I had moved to Bridport … and I would go on to find life-long friendships, a love story, a true family of my own and encounter careers, commercial adventures, fame, fortune and memories that ended up being stranger and even more intriguing and extra-ordinary than any of the fiction I used to read in those sc-fi Astounding Stories or Wonderous Tale magazines I’d grown up reading wide eyed as a little boy!