Storyboard

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Well, I worked at a garage, and one of the drivers came in, and I said I wanted to go somewhere different and he said “oh I'll give you a place”, and he just give me the address, and I wrote to the lady, and we came down to stay, and we loved it, so we came year after year. We came for about 40 years.

I think Ilfracombe's a beautiful place to live, the scenery is fantastic, the people are really friendly and nice and to be honest I wouldn't want to live anywhere else!

It's easy going lifestyle, no pressure, no big town atmosphere, very friendly, warm, inviting town.

You know, when people sometimes or maybe quite often, run Ilfracombe down, they can't have been up on the top of Hillsborough or the Torrs and looked you know, out at sea, and seen what a beautiful place it is.

Well, when we brought Sharon, she said “when I grow up I'm going to live in Ilfracombe”, so when she married Jeff she said “I'll take you to a place you'll love”, so she brought him down here and he fell in love with it you see.

Lets put it this way, I wouldn't live anywhere else. I can't put my finger on what it is, but it's just a lovely place to live.

Ilfracombe's just a nice place, I just love Ilfracombe.

"Are there any improvement?" Yes, lots, lots and lots.

“Are there any improvements you think could be made?” Not really, there's the place is as it is, there's holiday season and a quiet season, and I don’t think there’s any improvements that need to be made.

I think there's certain parts of the town that could do with a bit of improvement. For example, I think the high street, you get one end where all the shops are occupied – fine – then you get another little but where they become vacant, and it just makes the town... not sort of flow, if you know what I mean. 

of course it would be nice to have the high street back the way it used to be, but I think it's sort of fairly general these days that high streets aren’t what they used to be because of all the out of town shopping that people do. So the high street is a little bit sad, but I guess like I say, that's fairly general.

We are actually having Wetherspoons built now down on the front, which is fantastic because the Collinwood hotel was a bit of an eyesore. The council are now, or have demolished the bus station in ilfracombe which was another really bad part of Ilfracombe and that's all being done, so I think, you know, they're doing their best to bring the town up to a certain standard.

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Up North you've got Angel of the North and down here we've got Verity.

NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS

when we first heard that Verity was coming which was in the North Devon Journal, the councillors were saying Damien Hirst – that no one had really heard of – was going to possibly put this large bronze statue down on the pier, there was a sort of debate on that and the actual artist impressions we saw in the local papers were quite gruesome and a lot of people didn't like it at all. There were petitions to stop it, councillors had rows and got upset

“What do you think of Verity?” I haven't really got any views on that, it doesn't affect us and I think it looks hideous on the harbour, I think it actually ruins the view of the harbour.

I wasn’t always so keen, before she came I thought she was gonna be a monstrosity. it's not as gruesome as I thought, and she's not as big or as ugly as I thought shed be, in fact I think she's quite beautiful.

One side she looks lovely, but when you go to the other side... I think it's in the wrong place, I don't think it should be on the harbour. I think they should put something ore in keeping with the harbour, you know, like fishing and things like that. I mean, you can't say “well, I hate it”, I don't hate it but as I say I think it could be put in a different place.

When I’m doing my job as an estate agent I’m out around with people and it's quite interesting when you're in some properties that look down onto the harbour how amazing she actually looks.

She stands there on the pier with her sword aloft, looking as though she's guarding Ilfracombe. There is a legend that during the Napoleonic war, the French fleet tried to invade Ilfracombe and the men were all away fighting, and the women got their red petticoats, put them around their shoulders and paraded around the hills, Capstone and Lantern Hill and the seafront looking as if they were soldiers, and frightened the French fleet away, and I just think Verity is carrying on the tradition of Betsy Gammon and her ladies, and she's there looking after us, and I think she's wonderful.

I was in America last year in a pub, as you do, and we've been talking about Verity to some friends we'd met on holiday, and the barman in the bar was doing an art degree and he knew all about Damien Hirst , and these people said to him “Patsy, she knows Verity because she comes from the town where she is”, and he could just not believe that I come from the town where Verity was and where Damien Hirst lives, so I thought that was quite interesting. So it is a world, well-known all over the world about Verity, so yeah, I think it's great.

I mean, since we've had Verity it's brought a lot of visitors to the town, and also we've got several nice smart shops since he's opened his nice restaurant and his art shop, and we've got several art shops open now, and along the harbour the shops are becoming a little bit more upmarket.

There's some beautiful art galleries, there's a lot of art galleries. A lot of them, I’m not... but I do have a look. It's worth going and having a look round because I’m surprised how nice some of the things are. There's even one at the side of the lifeboat shop, and some of the figures in it are beautiful, really beautiful.

people think we're just a fish and chips town, but there is a good variety now of different restaurants, which oh well adds to the flavour of the place. I don't think we're going to become a Padstow or anything, we're not going into Rick Stein-ville or anything.

And the little aquarium on the pier, it must have made such a difference to them because they would have been closed all winter and you can go down there any day during the winter and there are people there having coffee outside if it's a fine enough day, the aquarium seems to be always open so it's brilliant seeing all the people about, even on the coldest, maybe not the wettest day, but the coldest wildest day there's always people out and about, it's really good.

A lot of people I’m sure down the front can only say “thank goodness for Verity”. 

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