I belong to a group on Facebook called Westward Ho! History Group and post there today reminded me of an event back in the late sixties that would be amusing to relate.
Back then I used to augment my teenage earnings with doing a 2-3 hour paper route on Sundays. I used to do a paper route six days a week already for the Northam Newspaper Agent before school and Saturdays too. Somehow I ended up doing the Sunday one too for this guy on a scooter and sidecar. Anyway, the post in the group was of a guy at a garage on Nelson Road and I thought I recognized him.
Somebody else posted that they too did a paper route on Sundays with this guy and somebody else said he still picks up golf balls on the burrows, plays snooker and table tennis apparently despite being 80 years old now. It was the table tennis that jogged my memory because that must be how I too ended up playing, it was the same guy that ran the club in Bideford. Ended up playing on a team that played in a league, we used to go around to different places and towns and play our games. We were young and I don’t recall ever winning any games against the older more experienced opponents though.
Where is this going you ask? Well, I was on the Bideford quay late one evening waiting for the doubledecker bus to take me home to Westward Ho! after table tennis at the club. Because of it’s location you could see the bus coming along the other side of the river and over the bridge etc. I watched it almost get over the bridge then it stopped with the other cars and traffic on the bridge, and then they all started backing up! I waited wondering what to do next then a bus inspector came along the quay to the bus stop where I was waiting and he said they had to get another bus out of the depot to take me home because the bridge has fallen down! Eventually a bus came and I went home. My Father was waiting up for me in his dressing gown and met me at the door. Rather irately he asked why I was so late. I said the bridge had fallen down and had to wait for them to get another bus. He didn’t believe me and said I could have come up with a better excuse than that. Next day of course it was all over the news and my excuse became a perfect example of truth is stranger than fiction.