one from away john moat (who himself emigrated to Hartland 18

I’LL PUT RESURGENCE ON THE MAP. Hartland is the capital of the parish of Hartland which occupies Hartland Point. The most reliable research suggests that U.D.I. was pronounced sometime early in the 11th Century, since which time, judging by the occasional report from over the border, the rest of the Island, England and that, has generally gone down hill.

The border runs from Clovelly Cross in the North, looks East to the dark interior o f Woolfardisworthy, and fetches up in the South against the parish ofWelcombe and a mile or so short of the electrifying border with Cornwall. Welcombe or Welsh Combe was originally a deployment centre for the coracle-hordes of Welsh saints who in the Dark Age immediately preceding this present one harried the Hartland Coast unmercifully. The fact that any of them landed in one piece proves they had God on their side.

Hartland Point is the salient on the front between England and not the sea but the Atlantic. No armistice, and very seldom a lull in the action. The Wrecker Coast. Padstow Bay to Harton Light — A watery grave by day or night. And a thorough one. Parson Hawker of neighbouring Morwenstow, one of those ‘from Away’ with fancy ideas, liked to give wrecked mariners a Christian burial. After the wreck and the storm he’d go searching the razor-ranks at the foot of the cliffs, and he’d take a bucket for what he termed ‘the gobbets’. He was thorough too.

The Harvest of the Sea. For Hartland th a t’s not the incidentals of fish, crab and laver — i t ’s what came ashore before the oil, the plastic and the aerosol tin. No word for it I ’m prepared to utter. Enough to say that when the dOor in the Southwest suddenly blows open and the sky starts moving over the parish like a frayed sack dragged through the yard, and the woods start to run for it, and the whole world keeps its head down as if its come under fire, then an old sense quickens in the Devon-red blood, a kind o f readiness, a listening for the rent and splinter of wood down on the rocks. The years are poor. But one day the sail will be back, sixty and more ships full-rigged, taking the tide, over the bar from Appledore and Bideford. Meantime the men keep the skill in their feet —one of the best cliffrescue teams in the country.

Voreigners, th a t’s ‘Volk from Away’, tend to think that people from Hartland don’t speak to one another with words. They use a sound which, according to mood, is like a contented beehive or the run of shillet down the cliff-face on a dry day. Of all speech in the land i t ’s nearest to that used by the King —or it is if the king you refer to is a pure Saxon. Its the sweetest tune I know. And there’s no one but he makes a fool of himself if he tries to take off the Devonshire accent. It doesn’t exist. Or if it does it varies not from parish to parish, but from farm to farm.

The farms? Oo’ll mind the varms? Us’ll tell ’e who— Tney as ’as learned their two times two. Brimacombe Vanstone Jeffery Beer Niver was a time when noane of us was yur. Better count the names on yur vinger and thumb— Let other volk knaw where us be vrum: Beckland Putshole Fatticott Down Exmansworthy and Fire Beacon. The truth, though, is that while the names are constant and abiding, I fancy there is the odd backwater in the blood.

years ago) The authentic shape is broad as a bale and short in the leg —that way one can stay rooted in the storm-force 10. But there is the lanky to o ; there is the short and wirey with eyes blue and glimmering like the levantine sea; and there are tall men bent in the nose with the pale iceberg eyes. So not everyone from the longship was drowned. And of the Phoenician traders there may have been the one who made it ashore out of sight in the next cove. To have survived the sea they would have needed to be strong. And then to have survived on land, they must have shown they’d something to o f fe r , . . . to the women, yes clearly, but also to the men. A natural selection, and the stock of survival.

Hartland, ‘Furthest from Railways’ and, thank God, away from the main road. It doesn’t escape the common stress, the second-home malaise, the urban-drift of the young. The old harvest of the sea has been replaced by the two fat months of summer when the ‘visitors’ are about. To be local and fifty is to have seen this world, the entire world, come to an end — the market, the Chronicle, all the old crafts. And yet how come these youngsters? Upholsterer, small-holder, leatherworker, boat builder, cabinet-maker. People making a life. And Resurgence quite properly set next-door to the forge —three smiths, four apprentices.

Besides which, where man lives in the shadow of the elements i t ’s harder for him to plie his total mischief. Here he was never that much in control. So each September when the big winds have blown, and gone in league with the Autumn tides to cast the leavings of summer, and when the high white clouds from the North-west give way to a sky of unbelievable depth —then stand down to Knapp or Shipload or Damehole and find nothing has changed.

HARTLAND POINT

If one’s gramfer weren’t born in the parish one can never belong. Which may or may not be true. But it is true that wind and sea are a terrible forge - stop here for ten years and there’s little hope you’ll belong anywhere else.

So what change for Resurgence^ You remember my mentioning those Welsh Saints? Well, one of them, Nectan, got himself adopted local patron saint. That’s no mean feat for someone from Away. Mind you, it can only mean that Hartland has never produced a saint of its own. But then I doubt it would want to. ** /