Don’t tell everyone but it is an amazing place to live. It’s astoundingly beautiful and community spirit can readily be found, but behind the tourist lens there are plenty of practical and social challenges of living and working in a rural area. There’s a specific kind of community engagement that’s required in places like Devon.
I’m particularly interested in history, social history, the stories of the everyday that tell us so much about how people lived and the times they lived in. I’ve spent hours in research on various places and people and enjoy a Hidden Histories project that brings to light stories that can be forgotten. I can do this anywhere, but I’ve added this section to my website to let you know that I have a good working knowledge of Devon and Dartmoor stories, history and landscape from many years of working with it and living in it.
When I’m looking at local history it’s also important to me to see how places like Devon or Dartmoor connect with the rest of the world. To resist the cosy, inward looking view of local history and remember its part in world affairs especially as a coastal area with many rivers. My lens is sharpened in this way as I’m in a mixed-heritage family and led some ground breaking work with mixed-heritage families with Blazing Tales.
An area of specialist knowledge for me is John Heathcoat of Tiverton and his legacy.
Services:
Examples of work, about the moor, it’s stories and people
Chasing Crockern, MCCG phone ins, Ashburn River Fest, Tors Fest etc
Mixed-heritage work Exe and Haldon
200 Tiverton – add film
Museums and heritage centres around Devon inc. RAMM, Bovey Tracey – wray valley,
