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Mission Visits the UK - England & Wales, May 2013
Chapter 14th - Ed and Tam Fox 1
Chapter 14th: Saturday Day - Containing yet more discussion about eggs because you haven't gotten enough of THAT yet; Talking with Viv (Tam Fox's mom) and learning about goats and cow creamers; Meeting Ed Fox and discussing the state of reenacting in England; Giving some poorly understood information about Brixham sailing craft that you will want to avoid committing to memory; Checking out the Golden Hinde replica where Ed worked for 10 years; Of Dartmoor and why Two Bridges
"You want to make WHAT?"
has two bridges (it's not quite why you think) and Seeing the ruins of the ancient site of Merrivale, which proved to be much more interesting to your author than he thought it might be.
This morning I came to the lovely breakfast nook overlooking the garden with the idea of again having salmon in scrambled eggs. I explained this to Pete, who is the chef at Villa Marina. He made this with the eggs on one piece of toasted muffin and the salmon on the other. Having never had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs before this trip, I had assumed the way Gareth made them was the normal way, but Pete explained that he wanted to be sure the guests knew they had gotten a good slice of salmon. (I actually wouldn't know a good slice of salmon if it came up and introduced itself to me, but I imagine there are salmon connoisseurs out there that would appreciate this. I can't imagine what their conventions must be like. Other than the fact that they probably spend a lot of time eating salmon and coining absurd words to describe miniscule qualities of various types of salmon. But I digress.)
 Salmon and Eggs the Right Way (But not as delicious IMO) |
 Salmon and Eggs the Wrong Way (But very delicious) |
 Salmon Eggs the Weird Way (But straight from the Salmon) |
Mission with Viv And Pete
I also met Viv who is the mother of Ed Fox's wife Tam. She had been away on Friday to visit an animal display at the Devon County Show. (I hope I got that right.) As it turned out, she was there to see the goats because she had raised goats for 20 years and had won several prizes for her efforts. Unfortunately, she didn't raise them any longer,
"Yeah, I'm wicked cool."
or I might have been able to get you a photo of a prize-winning goat for the Journal.
We talked quite a bit about this, because I like animals and rarely forgo an opportunity to bring up goats in these Journals, whether it makes any sense or not. (Now, for you goat purists out there, I may get bits of this wrong which is my fault, not Viv's. While I am something of a goat enthusiast, I am nothing of a goat expert.)
Viv had raised two kinds of goats. One type were the British Alpines, which are black and white. In fact, she had raised the first British Alpine Female Champion. The other type of goat was an English goat, which was brown with a black dorsal stripe and black legs. (I love the sound of the phrase 'black dorsal stripe'.) If I got the next bit right, there is a recessive genetic gene that sometimes produces a black and white goat from the brown version, possibly in the fourth
Three of Viv's Many, Many Cow Creamers
generation. Several people were trying to develop this particular breed, although Viv seemed to think that was unlikely to succeed.
While she didn't keep goats these days, she did collect cow creamers. This came about because her mom had a pig creamer which was kept on a high shelf at their family home which she was only allowed to see occasionally. So she started collecting cow creamers and now had hundreds, a few of which you see here. (I had no idea there were hundreds of varieties of cow creamers. If you knew that and didn't tell me, shame on you.)
Ed showed up and we climbed into his car and headed off. I tried to get in the driver's seat, not because I wanted to drive, but because even though I have pretty well figured out how to manage the roads and even, to a degree, the roundabouts, the idea of the passenger seat being on the right is just foreign to me. (Literally.)
Ed Fox
For those of you who don't know of Ed Fox, he is a UK-based (obviously) pirate researcher/lecturer/historian/know-it-all. (Truly. That is not meant to be an insult.) He's also someone I have known for over 10 years via various pirate forums. Ed actually goes around lecturing about pirates and sailing and so forth. Before I arrived, he had been busily working on his doctoral thesis.
Ed is actually the reason I got into pirate reenacting at all - albeit indirectly. We used to banter back and forth at a pirate forum called Piratesinfo.com. When I decided to leave Piratesinfo in 2004, Ed suggested I try the Pyracy Pub (where I hang out today and still post). The Pub, as I affectionately call it, is pirate reenactor-focused and I gradually got drawn into the hobby. In 2007 I decided to get a surgeon reenactor outfit (with a lot of help) and head for the pirate event held in Key West in late November. That led to Journals which led to this website and here we are.
On
Photo: Stolen - A sampling of Pirates from the Brixham Pirate Fest
our way to Brixham, our first stop, we talked about reenacting in the UK. Surprisingly, it seems to be more focused on fantasy (movie and media) style pirates than historical reeneacting. In fact, Ed didn't do a lot of pirate reenacting these days. He was somewhat frustrated by the inability to establish a period correct group.
He had last been to the Brixham Pirate Festival. This had once had the distinction of holding the record for the most pirate reenactors ever assembled in one place – something like 1400. The next year, they broke the record with 1700 of them. (Ed did footnote this – 'reeneactor' included all sorts of folks, from those in period accurate gear to people in Jeans with a sash and a pirate hat.)
The year after that, the Hastings Pirate Day took the record by gathering 14,231 pirate reenactors which was more than the town of Brixham could accommodate at one time. Still, the Brixham Buccaneers website proclaims "We held the world record for biggest gathering of pirates in 2010 - 1744!" which is nothing to sneeze at. (Then again, why you would want to sneeze at something I don't know. It all sounds rather icky.)
Looking Across the Harbor at Brixham (See Ed's Old Place?)
Ed had respect for people who could portray fantasy pirates well. He told me of a man who went by the name of Jonty Depp who portrayed Captain Jack Sparrow so well that he sometimes thought the guy in the movies might be the fake. Jonty also portrays other
famous Depp roles like the Mad Hatter, Willie Wonka and Sweeny Todd, apparently to near perfection. Tam later verified this for me. (Not that I would doubt Ed on this point.)
We got to Brixham where Ed used to live and where he worked on a replica of the Golden Hinde, Francis Drake's ship
Two Brixham Trawlers at Dock
. The Brixham shore was quite picturesque, so I took a few pictures of it to add to my series of photos of cities and towns, as you see here.
At the dock were several old Brixham Sailing Trawlers which were part of a fleet of historical Trawlers. Brixham used to have one of the largest fishing fleets in England. It was actually where the Sailing Trawler had been invented. We strolled over to look at three of them which were docked together. Ed explained that two of them were used to train kids to run a sailing vessel.
While standing on the dock, Ed also pointed out his previous dwelling, which as I recall was built in the 1700s. He told me at one point that he had never lived in a house that was less than 100 years old, which sort of fits him when you think about it.
 Historic Brixham Harbor Looking One Way From the Trawler Dock |
 Historic Brixham Harbor Looking Another Way From the Dock |
The Golden Hinde Replica in Brixham
After paying homage to Brixham's heritage ships, we headed back and boarded the Hinde. This reproduction of the Hinde had several features which were clearly not historically accurate like a ship's wheel. When I asked Ed about this, he told me that they had put it there because people expected to find one. I guess you have to keep the tourists happy. (This is a shame in a way, because I would really have liked to get a photo of a whipstaff, which has fascinated me since I wrote about the Pirate Surgeon.) Ed had originally been hired by the owner to bring a more historical aspect to the ship, which had originally contained all sorts of mannikins dressed in velours and similar odd elements.
Ed spent 10 years re-outfitting the ship - adding new displays, writing new signage for different locations, reworking old displays, writing scripts for the audio presentations and several other touches. The ship required painting twice a year,
Ed and His Mast on The Golden Hinde
something Ed handled. As a result he told me he had repainted the ship 20 times. He also had made several objects on this ship like a chip log, backstaff and similar objects for the displays. "If it's made of wood, I can create it," he explained.
One of the largest things he fixed was a mast on the ship that needed to be replaced. As they were removing the rigging, the old mast became unbalanced and
Mission on the Golden Hinde
went over the side of the ship with most of the rigging still attached. "We were all just paralyzed for a bit. Lucky there weren't any small boats alongside the ship." The crew was shaken from their shock when they realized that they had to get the rigging cut off or the mast might go under the ship. Since the Hinde sits on the bottom of the bay at low tide the rigged mast would have torn the bottom of the vessel up pretty badly. It turned out to be a tremendously difficult thing to do. "Imagine what that would have been like in the heat of a battle while you are being fired upon!"
There were two sets of period bathrooms on the Hinde, one aft, for the officers and the other fore. The aft toilet was all well and good because the results floated away from the ship. However, the one fore john resulted in the sides of the ship getting covered in excrement. Ed told me that in one account, they explained how they decided who cleaned the ship off each week (for, as Ed put it, it wasn't fair to make the same man do it every time.) The first man to swear or lie at the beginning of the week was given the task. "I would have gone 'round and stamped on my mate's feet on Mondays to try and get them to holler out." And there you have Ed Fox, ladies and gentlemen.
 The Forward Head at the Prow of the Golden Head for Regular Men |
 The Aft Head for Officers and Reenactors |
Since Ed's work as so much a part of this ship, I took scads of pictures of things and I thought I'd share some of them with you before we move on. First are some examples of Ed's work, sort of before and after.
 Pre-Ed - Mannikin |
 Post-Ed - Backstaff and Such (What did you think I meant?) |
 Post-Ed - Tool Arrangement |
Ed also put together a number of displays explaining the roles of different people on the ship. (He had to do something with all those dopey mannikins he inherited from the original set-up.) Unfortunately the displays were
The Surgeon. Ed Tried to Rush Me Past This by Saying it was 'Rubbish', So I
Naturally Spent the Most Time Studying it. (It was a fair representation.)
all below-deck and fronted with glass so that the photography with my little one-shot camera was a bit dodgy. I apologize for the crappy photography.
You may also notice that the gunner is a woman in these photos. (Ed appears to have tried to hide this fact with the clothing a bit, but it's pretty obvious, even in these awful photos.) If he explained this, I don't remember the explanation, but from years of Haunted House design work, I can tell you that 90% of the mannikins available to the roving public are female because men generally hate shopping and wish that someone would just hand them clothing that is cheap, sturdy and looks good on them without having to go through the bother of sifting through things. In fact, if someone could sneak into my room when I'm not there and just get rid of all the bad clothing and replace it with good clothing, I would be pretty happy. The upshot of this mostly irrelevant aside is that if you go to buy mannikins, there's a really good chance they will be female. I suspect some of these bristle-bottle bearded dummies actually have hourglass shapes under that baggy clothing.
 The Carpenter, Apparently Drunk |
 The First Feminist - the Golden Hinde Gunner |
 The Artist Becomes Part of His Work |
We got
The Austere Beauty of Dartmoor - With Sheep
back in his car and headed off towards some of the many ancient ruins in Dartmoor. Dartmoor was created by the River Dart which we crossed several times by my reckoning. Ed told me that he felt it and surrounding areas presented some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. "If God took a holiday, he would come here."
Dartmoor happened to be where the Hound of Baskervilles was set. "If it were raining instead of sunny, you'd understand why." With this in mind, I kept looking for the outcropping of rock where Watson discovered the damaged bicycle. I spotted it at least 73 times.
Being an engineer, I commented on how wonderful some of the old stone bridges were, so Ed made a point to stop so I could see some. In addition to the roadway bridges, there were splendid old foot path bridges made by placing long, flat stones across the river at points. No one seems to know how old these bridges are. You can see both types of them in the photo below right - the flat stone bridge (with one stone missing is in the middle-ground.
 A Look Into the Forest Containing the River Dart |
 Two Types of Bridges - Cart and Pedestrian |
We passed a splendid-looking old Inn by a place called Two Bridges which originally did not have two bridges. Ed surmised may have been called something in the old tongue such as "Twa bridge." He figures the language may have been bastardized from that into two bridges. I'm going to guess the second one was built to stop the tourists from asking about it. As Ed suggested, "It was very confusing for the tourists."
The Two Bridges Hotel on Dartmoor
When Ed and Tam were dating, she told him how nice she thought the Inn at Two Bridges looked and how much she would like to stay there. Unfortunately, there just wasn't any reason to do so since she lived nearby. So when they got married, they spent a night in the Two Bridges Inn in a room with a Jacuzzi tub.
After spending the day hiking on the moor, they came back for dinner. Being an elegant place, the dinner was quite expensive. When it arrived, Ed, who was now quite famished, was shocked to discover that it adhered to that strange rule of elegance that states that the more expensive something is, the less of it you get. "For 30 quid, I expect more than a 2 ounce steak and three peas!" he said with mock indignity. (I have noticed this in hotels as well. Someone on this trip – it may have been Lee – wryly noted up to a certain price you get everything in included, but go over that price and each of the services become a la carte. "Eventually, I think you pay so much that you get nothing but an empty room.")
After dinner at Two Bridges, Ed and Tam went back to their room, where there was a bottle of champagne. They decided to try out their Jacuzzi tub. They found the water splashed all over the place, the tub was small enough that they felt a bit wedged into it and the plumbing made a grinding noise loud enough to make conversation difficult. So they laughed, gave that whole thing up and went for another walk on the moor.
 One of the (now) Two Bridges at Two Bridges |
 The Second Bridge at Two Bridges (We Were On this One) |
Eventually
Dartmoor Merrivale Walkway and End Circle
Ed pulled his car off the road in a spot that looked remarkably like every other spot on the moor to me. This was an ancient site called Merrivale. We crossed the road and looked down the side of a hill. "Do you see those two long, straight lines of stones?" I looked. There were stones everywhere. With a bit of work, I spotted them. Two fairly straight rows of irregularly-sized rocks sticking out of the ground with larger stones at the end, just as Ed had told me. "That's Merrivale. They figure it's about 3000 years old." I asked him what it was for. "No one knows. It appears to be ceremonial in nature."
We made our way down to the site. Ed told me that there were many of these on the moors, all very similar to each other. Each of them featured a path that went from one end stone to another lined with smaller stones which formed a path between the two cap stones. Ed said that many people felt they might be burial processional paths or something like that, but no one was quite sure.
He then led me over to a round grouping of larger stones, explaining that it was the base of a dwelling. The ones we were looking at were pretty
Dartmoor Merrivale. Circular Dwelling Foundation
dilapidated, but there were more complete sites further inside the moor, some of which had been excavated. This site just happened to be the one closest to the road we were on. "The door of these houses is always on the same side and there is always a cooking area inside." They had even found what were believed to be rat traps built into the walls of some of the more complete structures.
Looking at these photos, you may come to wonder how there could possibly be rats around. Ed explained that this land would have been heavily forested at the time when people lived in these dwellings. I didn't actually get to see a complete rat trap, because the foundations at Merrivale were in such bad shape. Had there been one, and had Lob been with me, that would have been the perfect place to put him for a Lob 'pain and suffering' photo.
 A Close-Up of a Merrivale. Walkway |
 A Stone Vault for an Unknown Purpose |
 Lob, Having Other Plans |
There really was a haunting beauty about this otherworldly, desolate place. I don't know if God would choose it for a vacation spot, but even in the good weather that we seemed to be enjoying, I could see why people would be entranced with it.
 Dartmoor View 1 |
 Dartmoor View 2 |
 Dartmoor View 3 |