Waldon Castle Hotel, Torquay

I spent this Tuesday and Wednesday in Torquay, staying at the Imperial, walking along the coastal path to Daddyhole Plain, up Fleet Street, and along the seafront to Torre Abbey. At one point I looked up and pointed out to Michael where once had stood my great uncle’s hotel. As a child I missed my one chance to visit the Waldon Castle Hotel and have lunch there. I was busy out playing in the fields at my grandparents farm, Mons Hall, in the parish of Dowland in North Devon, and I didn't hear the bell calling me across the fields from the oak woodland where I spent a lot of my time. It must have been about 1961. Not long before my grandfather had made his peace with his younger brother Harry, after a rift lasting at least twenty years.

Harry at school.

My grandfather Frank was the eldest of his family, born in 1893. Then there were the sisters Mabel and Dora, followed by Randle in 1901 and Henry in 1908. Henry's mother died when he was just five years old. Two years later his brother Randle was killed. Henry was raised by his older sisters Mabel and Dora, but they were only 16 and 13 at their mother's death. I guess uncle Harry was educated at Princess Road School in Moss Side, not far from his home at 117, Claremont Road. I guess too that he left school young. I believe he worked as a painter and decorator with his older brother, my grandfather. There are many stories of his inability to rise in the mornings, despite repeated callings and attempts to raise him, as my grandfather waited down below with his loaded handcart outside their home in Bishop Street ready to go to another job.

Harry with his father, sisters, brother and aunt.

Harry married when he was 26 to Mabel Smith in 1934. Their daughter Sylvia Andrea was born in 1943, and always known as Andrea. I have not been able to trace details of another daughter, who I believe was born with Downs Syndrome, and who allegedly died following an accident with boiling water in a home, probably what was then called a mental hospital or lunatic asylum. I have a memory that she was possibly called Cheryl.
I believe Uncle Harry and his wife left Manchester after WWII and moved to the recently liberated island of Jersey, where they had a cafe which they worked hard to build up. I was told that when they left Manchester for war-ravaged Jersey they sold everything, including their wedding gifts from 1934, and that this caused offence to my grandparents.
It must have been about ten years later that uncle Harry and his wife sold up in Jersey and moved to Torquay where they bought the Waldon Castle Hotel. I believe that it was at about this time that they became Harry and June Barrington-Gent. The hyphen slipped into between uncle Harry's second forename – his mother's maiden name – and his surname, and his wife like many adopted her second name, as by now Mabel had become somewhat passé. On my humble side of the family this was seen as a pretentious affectation, no doubt somewhat tinged with jealousy.
My grandfather always kept in contact with his sisters Mabel and Dora. Mabel had a somewhat unhappy marriage, living in London with her husband and five children. I liked her. Dora's marriage did not last long. Her brief married life was spent next door to my grandparents in Bishop Street, Moss Side. I believe after her separation from Uncle Dan that she lived in London and was engaged in shop work, living frugally, saving up for the retirement bungalow that never happened. She would have received her State pension on her sixtieth birthday in 1959, and I suspect that must have been when I met her at my grandparents' home in Manchester. She retired to Torquay near her younger brother no doubt about this time. It must have been in the summer of 1960 or 1961 when I was staying with my grandparents that she engineered a reconciliation between her brothers. I recall we were all on the lawn at Mons Hall, when uncle Harry arrived, no doubt in the Jaguar car that he always preferred, and strode across the lawn straight up to my grandfather and they shook hands, the enmity of the past forgotten.
The invitation to Waldon Castle Hotel must have been subsequent to this reunion. My grandparents must have gone, and other family members, but I cannot remember who. I remember my aunt Dora telling me tales about the Waldon Castle Hotel, such as the time the cook vanished, and they had to rustle up a meal as best they could for all the hotel guests. I think my aunt Dora sometimes helped out at the hotel. To me it sounded much like the fabled Fawlty Towers popular a few years later on television. In 1962 though uncle Harry sold the hotel, but not to another hotelier, it was sold for redevelopment. The fine building was demolished, and the site remained empty for the next twenty years until very boring flats were built on the site. I don't know if this was uncle Harry's decision or fault, but I suspect it was. He always had a reputation in the family for being hard-nosed. There is the story of when my aunt Lyn, his niece, spotted in the window of his bric-à-brac shop in Paignton some family heirlooms that he had placed for sale: the Latin diploma recording the qualification of his namesake and grandfather Dr Henry Gent, and his brass pestle and mortar. Lyn wrote to him asking to buy the objects, but never received a reply, and the items were lost from the family. However, Lyn's two daughters, Grace and Helen, were bridesmaids at the wedding in 1967 of Harry and June's daughter Andrea to Joseph Corcoran.
Uncle Harry may have relinquished ownership of the hotel because of the serious illness of his wife. Auntie June suffered from cancer, and died early in 1965. I believe her death was difficult, in the days before palliative care, and her enjoyment of bottles of sherry at the end of her life can scarcely be denied her. I have visited her grave in the cemetery at Paignton.
I went to Torquay to visit auntie Dora when i was a student at the University of Exeter in about 1969. She lived in rented rooms in a large villa in Torquay, in somewhere like Belgrave Road, I think. We chatted, and she generously gave me then or on another occasion, the many family letters from the 1790s onwards, especially Dr Henry Gent's many letters from Tortola and America in the 1820s. I have a clear memory of her offering me a slice of fruitcake that she sautéed in a little butter. I saw her again, and my aunt Mabel in September 1972 at my grandfather's funeral. In April 1976 she fell from the boarding platform of a bus in Torquay, hitting her head. She died from the injuries on May 1st.
Uncle Harry came once with his nephew, my father's cousin Barry, to visit us in Bideford, and they once stayed there while we were away.
Uncle Harry spent almost thirty years as a widower in Torquay. I believe he enjoyed the Conservative Club and socialised there considerably. He enjoyed visiting his nephew Barry, and was close to Barry's sister Grace who also sadly died quite young. His sister Mabel died in 1990, and he did not long survive her. He died on 14th May 1990, I think just a fortnight after her, aged 82. I attended his funeral at Paignton, with my wife waiting outside in our car, as it was only a week later that our daughter was born. I asked his landlord if I could collect any personal belongings to give his daughter, but he curtly replied that the flat had been already completely cleared and that there was nothing of value there. I was the only member of the family to be present, but I was allowed to give a brief eulogy.

A postcard sent by my great aunt Dora to my grandparents in March 1961.