The completion of another successful classic car rally brings thoughts of motor cars of the past and how they affected the parish.

            One of the earliest to appear, in the early 1920s, was recalled by Dorothy Bone in a talk she gave in 1986 at the age of 83: ".....at that time a few cars were coming along and the first car that came was a Colonel from Pentilly Castle, near Calstock. He came down for the otter hunting......his missuss  had a great hat with stuff all tied round. And of course the kids were all excited There's a car coming, someone shouted and they all rushed down and Freddy Brown got under the car and broke his leg.

            So, that was not only one of the first cars, but also one of the first traffic accidents!

            It was after the First World War, that the motor vehicle began to replace the horse, a very gradual change, which did not fully affect the farms until after the Second World War. The ubiquitous Model T Ford began to appear then, and one of the first was obtained by Arthur Irish who bought one in Kingsbridge and, although he had never driven before, managed to get it home himself.

            Anthony Luscombe replaced the horse-drawn wagonette, which he had used to convey passengers, with a Model T Ford in 1922. It had a van body, was licensed as a Goods and Hackney Carriage and carried six passengers. He ran a more conventional taxi service in the thirties again driving a Model T Ford. He was succeeded by Bob Frith and then George Putt. Sadly, both George and his wife were killed by a falling tree, whilst driving it.

            Other makes of car began to appear and became much more common and the blacksmith, Bill Damarell, with fewer horses to attend to, opened a petrol pump outside his smithy and became a car mechanic. He then built a garage on the bridge in 1932.

            By 1934, the walnut tree opposite the King's Arms (now the Fisherman's Rest) was felled, to facilitate traffic flow as traffic through the village, which was becoming a problem and the Parish Council approached the County about a bypass in 1935. It was built 55 years later, when the traffic jams had become horrific and the experimental traffic light system had failed to solve the problem.

            It would take a very special car nowadays for people to rush out to see it, as they did in the 1920s.

            The Parish Project Group's photographic archive has many pictures of vehicles and two of them are included with this article.

 

Anthony Luscombe, at the wheel of his Model T Ford taxi, with Bob Frith (Parish Clerk and Verger) and Stanley Sibley.

 

The Lakeman family with their open tourer, (H.S. Lakeman ran the firm of building contractors which built many houses in the village and rebuilt the bomb-damaged church.)