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April 2023 April 2023

CHAGFORD OPEN AIR POOL They, all three, are all very doubtful abut climate change and are sure that
mankind is responsible for it and that we should be doing a lot more to prevent it.
This is not all, as we saw on television last night, pollution is not only the cause of
“I came down here in 1985 and fell in love with the place!”. Sue Sutherland gazed climate change, it is a severe health hazard not only to mankind but to all living
over the pool on a balmy August day. She did not need to put into words her love things. Paul Whitehouse’s program, Our Troubled Rivers, on Sunday evening, in
of Chagford Pool as it was there for all to see and summed up the spirit of the which he placed great empathies on how we were destroying the natural
place. environments of our streams and rivers, particularly our own chalk water courses.
Set in wonderful rolling Devon hills on the very edge of Dartmoor, the pool has There must be something
been enjoyed by generations as a place to come, relax, have a gentle swim and happy and hopeful to write
chat with friends. about and I am sorry for all the
doom and gloom. Perhaps on
When I arrived, she was still there… Pam a lighter note I ought to say
Pidgeon, now well in her seventies, was what Old Bob, a very early
manning the entrance kiosk. I first met workmate of mine said. Old
Pam in 2007 when I was on a quest to Bob didn’t believe in engines
swim a mile in every UK lido. Pam must be used to drive machines and
something of a local institution as she has vehicles, “What about ‘orses
served behind the tea shed counter for he would say’? He had grown
almost thirty five years. I loved this place up at a time when shire horses
which fuelled my determination to come were the mainstay of the aid to the farming workforce.
back one day.
He did ride a bicycle but even when three speed models came in Bob couldn’t
The pool was opened 1934 and dug out get the ’ang of it. I remember as a youngster of ten, I was coming up to the
by hand by local residents on land given to the village by the wealthy Hayter- allotments, where he lived in an estate cottage and he happened to be up at
Hames family on condition that if it ceased to be used as a public swimming pool, the roadside and ‘e saw me coming and yelled out “Stay where e be tis a car
the land would revert back to the family. Pam’s dad was one of a gang of local cumin”. The car was about one hundred yards away so I crossed the road
people who dug out the pool all those years ago.
anyway. He was furious and told my father what I had done and my father was
The Hayter-Hames were not being furious with me.
entirely philanthropic as they were at
the time having trouble with local Later on, some eight years later, I worked on the farm with Old Bob, as in those
days, to go to agricultural college you had to have had two years practical,
youths swimming in their beloved River farming experience before you were accepted. I received a lot of help from him
Teign where they enjoyed their fishing. as well as a lot of criticism. He certainly taught me how to use a hand hoe. One
To solve the problem it was decided to day eight of us were sent to hoe a ten acre field. There were no herbicides used
build the pool on the site of an old on kale then, so it was all manual hoeing. Soon one by one all the others were
duck pond by Rushford Mill just on the taken away to other jobs, leaving Old Bob and myself to complete the field. At
outskirts of the town. There was a leat that point he came over to me and showed me the “proper way” to hoe. We
running from the river carrying water to continued until the field was completed. I can’t remember how long it took or
work the wheel at the mill and this was how much was left for us to do but we didn’t finish the field that day. However I
diverted to fill the pool by damming. did learn how to hoe by hand effectively. There is always something you can
The basic principle is still carried on learn from an older member of the community.
today with pipes taking the water from
the stream and depositing it into the pool. At this point I will say goodbye and sign off.
There have been many changes over the years with major refurbishments in the God bless you all. Ted
1970s and again in 2000. The original mud bottom was replaced many years ago
by a concrete base and today the pool is filtered with a minimum amount of

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