Tony Beard’s talk on Dart moor.
Ipplepen Village Hall 6th February 2012
Having been born and bred on a farm in Widecombe he was able to give a most entertaining description of life as a Devon farmer.
He spoke to an audience of about 80 people of finding artefacts in the fields and how it had influenced his life. He had with him a box containing many of the smaller objects such as arrowheads which form part of his collection of prehistoric flint implements found on the farm over the years.
He also spoke of the great storm of October 1638 in which 4 people lost their lives and which caused great damage to the Church.
As he the Hon. Secretary of the Widecombe & District Local History Group he was able to tell the audience the history of how the group had developed over the years.
He also spoke about how he became involved in “Show business” speaking to all sorts of groups and how he started broadcasting.
After a break for refreshments he answered many questions from the audience, whilst he acknowledged that some of his opinions could be considered controversial, he suggested that many of the old customs, such as “sway ling” for instance, had many benefits over more modern methods because these old methods had been in use for hundreds of years & had proved to be successful.
Click here to read a full report of the evening.
