TRUE HEAVEN IN DEVON
I well remember motoring away from Croyde on a gorgeous August afternoon in my little white Nissan Micra – the first car I ever owned – with Trash by Suede playing full blast on the radio, and the smell of the sea pumping in through the windows. We came around the headland and there, stretching out to the right of me, were miles of Demerara sugar sands with the most perfect surf rushing onto the beach, and, not surprisingly, hundreds of surfers.
I had to get to London by seven, but I pulled into a layby, took a note of the name of the place – Saunton Sands - and vowed I would be back.
Surfers’ paradise
Ah well. As you might imagine, given the song on the radio, that was some time ago: 23 years, to be exact. And in those years I had never been back. As John Lennon almost said, life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans. But last November, the chance to go back to this area, touring with our longterm loan Bailey Phoenix 440 caravan, was irresistible.
I had come to Croyde on what passed for my stag do, to try to learn to
