Dawlish off season

I hired from Exeter Library a copy of the brilliant 1987, John le Carre tv series A Perfect Spy. My mission today is a very simple one: to visit Dawlish and locate the 'bed and breakfast/guest house' which was run by Mrs Dubber (Peggy Ashcroft) and in which Pym stayed when he was on the run from the Jack Brotherhood and the secret service.

First Great Western has admittedly done a fantatic job in introducing many, many very cheap "Cheap Day Returns" in the Western region. Today, on the automatic ticket machine in the small lobby of Exeter St David's station, I punch in "Dawlish" and find that it's only £3 return.

Alas, the train itself is not a Network South East, London Waterloo-Paignton train (or an Inter City 125 with decent, traditional style carriages) but a 2 car diesel unit (DMU) which is filthy. This is the same sort that operates on the Barnstaple route with all its splendid scenery. Yet, it obviously hasn't been cleaned for a long time and the windows are barely transparent.

In the tv series A Perfect Spy, Magnus Pym (the brilliant Peter Egan) gets the night-sleeper train to Exeter and then he's seen arriving in Dawlish on one of those red, double-decker 1980s vintage Devon General buses. Curiously - in what counts as film/tv licence - his bus arrives from the Torquay direction.

Pym gets off right by the central birdlife lakes in the middle of town and walks onto the beach, the one where he used to play football with his father, the notorious Ricky Pym (played by the late Ray McInally).

He then walks up towards the western end of the promenade where he finds the bed and breakfast run by Mrs Dubber. Easy enough. Job done.

In the station itself, there a curious cafe called Geronimo's, a sort of Red Indian-themed little cafe specialising in All Day Breakfasts, etc. I partook of the All Day Breakfast - very nice indeed, only £2.99 (plus £1 for a pot of tea), sort of bacon, hash browns, fried egg, baked beans, mushrooms, etc. Geronimo's itself, as to be expected from the name, is full of all sorts of American Indian memorabilia such as bows and arrows, models of chiefs, most of it authentic and all for sale.

Dawlish itself is a delightfuly, surprisingly big town that reaches some way back up the valley of the tiny stream - "Dawlish water"? It's full of Regency villas on its western slopes, many let out for long-term holiday accommodation.

Apart from that, the only notable thing to happen was when I was walking along the high street, towards the library, eating an ice cream cone (with flake) that I'd bought a few minutes before. There was a strange scratch and whack around my head from behind and before I knew it my ice cream had gone, whisked away by a fucking cheeky seagull that just swooped down and stole it. The sheer nerve of it.