THE RIVER DART
A journey through Devon from sea to source
The very word ‘Dart’ is thought to be derived from the early English for the oak or the place of oaks.Her forests and woodlands reflect this, from the incredibleWistman’sWood on the moor, then flowing down through Holne and Hembury Woods, and the many wooded banks and hillsides with their pied flycatchers, goshawks, hairstreaks and high brown fritillaries; all the way to the sea cliffs. These and the other wild places have somehow survived the millennia (clinging to inaccessibility) or have evolved slowly to cope with the hand of man; shaped and adapted by the Dart’s peoples to support and maintain the lifestyles and farming practices in this part of the world. These ancient methods of husbandry and agriculture have left room for the animal and plant inhabitants, but now, with outside pressures and global challenges, even these places and their wildlife are facing change. Many of the Dart’s quieter meanders now shelter some of the last isolated and threatened colonies of our wildlife – a chain of ‘reserves’ all linked together by the oaken Dart.
All rivers have their own inherent narrative, but often we have stories of our own to tell about them. I grew up with my father’s memories of his evacuation from London to Dartmouth and his boyhood adventures on the Dart during the war …
“So it was decided to have a second evacuation. One never knew where you were going – bit like being sent down to prison after a trial. Hundreds of kids milling around railway stations – label around neck, siblings or best friends could stay together;mine was a close friend, Peter Lee. Rucksack, haversack and gas mask.This time we were given a carrier bag in which was a half-pound slab of chocolate, a can of bully beef and some dry biscuits, but we were forbidden to eat any of it – emergency – but it never came, and I don’t know where it went eventually. Imagine a big oily Great Western Railway steam train pulling a large train packed full of young kids, thank God no German aircraft found us.We ended up in Kingswear opposite Dartmouth, where the train ends.
“My pal and I were posted to a rather fine three-storey house with a large garden. It was up on the hill above Dartmouth near the road that goes down to Old Mill Creek.The lane was lined with cider orchards which we scrumped. Old Mill Creek was a slightly spooky thick wooded muddy backwater leading out to the Dart, many days were spent exploring the area.
“The house was owned by a couple; he was a maths lecturer at the Naval College. They had already lost one son in a submarine in the war and seemed rather solemn and distant to us.We lived with a lovely couple of girls, Gladys and May, I think; the maid in full black and white laced uniform and the cook in a brown uniform, only about eighteen and twenty-one, but they doted on us and we could do no wrong.
“Once mum came down on a short visit – I guess it saved money if only one came. We took a rowing boat out and rowed up river towards Totnes.Mum was always fun, like a friend really, and when halfway a seagull let rip all over Mum we laughed and giggled for the rest of the trip and the event entered family mythology to be retold with giggles for years after.When Mum and Dad came down for their summer holiday, I became very excited long before and crossed the river to wait impatiently at the station for an hour, watching, unwavering, the bend up the river around which the train would appear.
“The time of Dunkirk etc made Dartmouth very busy.The river filled with naval ships of all sizes and nations – French, Dutch, British – plus many small one-shack diesel French fishing boats, and of course the small town overflowed with the sailors, and us little evacuees running in and out getting in everyone’s way and loving every bit of it. Two activities I remember well, but I’m sure there were more.We scrounged fish heads from the fish monger and put a string through the eyes then lowered it down off the jetties to fish for crabs, big competition, and it used up a lot of time in between gazing at the river. Second, we collected ‘souvenirs’, like most wartime kids. In London it had been bits of shrapnel from guns and bombs which had rained down on the streets, sometimes a bullet or two in a brass case, all had street trade value. In Dartmouth it was really begging from the sailors, few would resist appealing little snotty-nosed scruffs – they’d all seen horrors, and emotion was seldom far below the surface. Badges, buttons, coins, pictures, cap bands.
“When not down by the harbour, we were in the woods near Old Mill Creek, scrumping apples and later collecting sweet chestnuts and roasting them in illicit fires.
“Some early naval commandoes, probably not called that then, commandeered French fishing boats, gave them a machine gun or two and each night would disappear to do naughty things on the French coast.They wore mixed clothing; old duffle coats and leather sea boots, and armed with all sorts, from big knives to tommy guns, automatics etc. Absolute piratanical – a small boy’s delight, Boys’ Own adventure. They were our favourites, and we pestered them mercilessly, but they put up with us, even giving us a very illegal view of the inside of the boat and a quick sail.
“In contrast, the girls bought a huge bowl of Devonshire cream every Friday for tea and we gorged on a huge cream and strawberry jam feast – first time for me …”
Peter Jackson
I knew that the Dart ended her forty-seven mile journey in ‘my father’s estuary’, flowing between Dartmouth and Kingswear before entering the sea, and that she originated somewhere on the Dartmoor wilds, but where did she go after pouring off those moorland flanks?
A brief day trip in 1999 on a freezing mid-winter’s day, suffering with the side effects of a doctor’s back medicine didn’t help.Wistman’sWood briefly revealed its unique beauty and magic, but the Dart was only the briefest of glimpses tumbling along the valley bottom. I had already immersed myself inTed Hughes’Dart-based poetry; then cameAlice Oswald’s prize-winning ‘Dart’ poem to entice me further. Richard Long’s Dartmoor ramblings, Seth Lakeman’s ballads, Chris Chapman’s photographs and maybe even Widgery’s watercolours all seemed to gradually demand for my own engagement with the Dart.
And what did I learn after my brief few years exploring and scribbling up and down that watercourse? I could see why a small London boy would find comfort and adventure in this paradise, removed from the horrors of war and the city, but I also discovered that this Eden, the Dart, is not just extraordinarily beautiful, but that it is a meandering string of jewels – a chain of very special plant and animal communities, many that are now extremely limited in their habitats and distribution.A haven of biodiversity,with moorland and blanket bog, valley mire, acid grassland, ancient woodland, gorges, flower meadows, mudflats and salt marsh.
Ring ouzel, high brown fritillary, southern damselfly, bog hoverfly, marsh fritillary, Dartford warbler, southern marsh orchid, goshawk, salmon, spotted heath orchid, lamprey, marsh violet, hen harrier, sea trout, otter, osprey, eel grass, cornish moneywort, blue ground beetle, nightjar, small-leafed lime, wood warbler, greater horseshoe bat, red grouse, alder buckthorn, keeled skimmer, wood ant, goosander, cirl bunting.
Kurt Jackson, 2010
