Martin's Mag.

We walked from Allerford, through Bossington and along the coast and Sparkhayes Marsh to Porlock Weir, then back via Porlock. Afterwards fish and chips and bottle of Muskadet in camper at Dunkery Beacon overlooking Exmoor. Sophisticated or what?

We started at Clearwell Caves, ancient iron mines. The woods have “scowls” where iron ore was mined in the iron age (when else?), and the trees grow around stones, like the nearby “Puzzle Woods”.

I first met Jim Brady (not my late, missed, uncle of the same name) in 1982, after seeing his paintings in an exhibition in the foyer of The Old Vic theatre in Bristol. I subsequently bought these pictures of people from the St Paul’s and Montpelier areas of Bristol, where he lived at the time. We kept in touch for a year or two afterwards. I have wondered, from time to time since, what happened to him, but there seems to be no trace of him via Google, etc.  I hope he is still working somewhere.

Ten People by Jim Brady, 1982.

Mr Bert Brummage and Rastaman by Jim Brady, 1982.

John Cabot sailed from Bristol in the caravel Mathew in 1497, to “discover” Newfoundland (unlike all the people who were already there, waiting for him). We were walking down the south bank of the Avon when this ghostly replica, built in Bristol in the 1990s, slipped quietly upstream.

Sailing school in Poole harbour. We were having a picnic on the beach.

Horse in grounds of Muchelney Abbey in Somerset.

A few days at Caerfai Bay, near St David’s on the west Wales coast.

Caerfai Bay

Caerfai Bay

Eco house near Whitesands Bay

Near Whitesands Bay

St Justinian’s lifeboat stations

Newgale beach

Newgale beach