Monday 1 October 2012

I'm in Torquay...

...and just to prove it, here's three pictures I took this afternoon. It's not quite the same as the harbour at Portree...!!




5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Richard Torquay looks great, how was your drive down? We head off early Saturday, weather looks favourable, we are going down in one day then breaking the return trip into two, with a stay at the wonderful Dinwoodie lodge just outside Lockerbie, regards,
Nick

Richard Dorrell said...

Hi Nick, Journey fine, if a bit wet in places, but no floods and no traffic jams. Weather here sunshine and heavy showers. Hope you have a good trip on Saturday. See you when you get back.

Worcestershire Turnip said...

Nice pictures and it looks a nice place. I haven't been there since I was a child (and that's a long time ago) so I can't really remember much about it. We rarely went to Devon as my mother always claimed she was unwell every time she went, which I'm sure was a co-incidence. There were never any problems going to Cornwall!

Richard Dorrell said...

Hi Pete, My shiny pictures don't tell the whole tale. Like many towns today, Torquay has plenty of empty shops and run-down private buildings. There are several language schools here, bringing in huge numbers of youngsters who wander round in large groups, and a large number of people live here on Social Security benefit. I wouldn't want to be in the town centre on a Friday night... I fear it might be the same in the larger Cornish towns these days too. I'll stick with Skye!

drgeo said...


It was while staying in Torquay at the Gleneagles Hotel with the Python team in 1971, that John Cleese found inspiration (and the setting, although not the actual film location) for the popular sitcom Fawlty Towers (1975, 1979).[43] Incidents during the Pythons' stay are said to include the owner, Donald Sinclair, having thrown Eric Idle's suitcase out of the window thinking it was a bomb. Cleese later described the eccentric owner as, "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met", although Mr. Sinclair's widow has since said her husband was totally misrepresented in the comedy.

Torquay was the home of the writer Agatha Christie, who lived most of her life there. The town contains an "Agatha Christie Mile", a tour with plaques, dedicated to her life and work. In 2010 Banksy painted a mural on the wall of the Grosvenor Hotel in Belgrave Road. The mural shows a child drawing a robot, and uses the vent of an extractor fan as the head of the robot.