TED LETHABY

CATALOGUE

RECORDING

SUMMARY

BORN: Countisbury, Devon, 1925

LIVED: Countisbury

RECORDING MADE: 2001

RECORDING LENGTH: 2 hours 25 minutes

Ted Lethaby's parents rented a cottage in Countisbury from the Halliday family. When he left school he worked at Wilsham Farm and then on the buses. He was on the Lynmouth-Minehead run at the time of the flood and helped ferry people to safety, driving a 100 mile detour to get from Lynmouth to Lynton.

Then he became the AA man, patrolling a patch from Lynmouth to Porlock in a motorbike and sidecar, and later a Land Rover. Repairs were carried out on the spot and if he needed a spare part he would go to the garage for it. Every day, twice a day, he stood by the phone box so his office could get in touch with him.

Now retired, he keeps an eye on the church and looks after Foreland lighthouse, where his wife was brought up. He says Exmoor was beautiful long before the National Park took over, it was his father and grandfather, and their forebears, who kept it so.

Ted Lethaby died in July 2011.

Photograph by Mark J. Rattenbury