DEREK BALES

CATALOGUE

RECORDING

SUMMARY

BORN: Norwich, Norfolk, 1933

LIVED: Brushford, Dulverton

RECORDING MADE: 2000

RECORDING LENGTH: 1 hour 3 minutes

Derek Bales lives in Norfolk, and has a different relationship with Exmoor.

In 1952, aged 18, he joined the army for his national service, finding the first weeks an ordeal. Then, in August, the Lynmouth flood disaster happened and they were posted to Brushford, near Dulverton, to help with the emergency. Camping by the Carnarvon Arms Hotel they undertook an assortment of tasks, clearing rivers, shifting stones and helping with the harvest. With his rural background he was better equipped to be useful than many of his colleagues and in those two weeks he went from being a raw recruit to someone with confidence in what he was doing.

Some years later, he tracked down the family he'd helped with the harvest and became a regular visitor with them. He has come back once or twice a year ever since. With an abiding interest in the time of the flood disaster and the wartime history of the area, he says he can't imagine never having known Dulverton.

Photograph provided by Derek Bales, showing him revisiting the site of the flood at Dulverton, 1962.