Ian Handford

Born in England on June 12th 1930 Sheila was always known to Torquinians as Mrs Sheila A James Hardaway. Having survived the blitz in London she then moved to New York and finally San Francisco in her career in the financial world. It was now in 1961 that she met and married James Hardaway and by 19...

Having established The Severn Wildfowl Trust at Slimbridge Peter was a regular broadcaster on the BBC Children's programme "Nature Parliament". He also constantly painted and eventually was commissioned to undertake portrait drawings of HRH Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret before the 1948...

Bruce Henley Halford became a Torquay hotelier, although born at Hampton in Arden on May 18th 1931. His parents Philip and Robina owned a small hotel in Bournemouth while Philip managed the locally based Pickfords removal service there. Eventually, the family moved to Wellswood, Torquay and Philip b...

Young Clifford Reginald Redcliffe Cooksley was the only child of Charles and Kate Cooksley of 22 Princess Street, Babbacombe Torquay. Unlike their relatives (Palmer family at No 12) they did not have a Morrison Bomb Shelter in the Second World War and generally took refuge in the garden shelter at N...

Born at Lyonsdown, Hertfordshire on March 20th 1889, Lionel Greenstreet seemingly had the sea in his blood, being the son of a Master Mariner. Then, having obtained his Master’s Certificate in 1911, he achieved a Royal Navy commission in 1914 and had the chance to join Shackleton’s South...

This feature commences with Richard Carte, father of Rupert and a partner in Rudall, Carte and Company with Blanche, his wife. Richard had adopted the "D'Oyly" from his mother's maiden name, perhaps wishing to have an accent on his name as a showman. Critics later called him a "calcul...

THIS feature commences with Richard Carte, father of Rupert and a partner in Rudall, Carte and Company with Blanche his wife Richard had adopted the ‘D'Oyly’ from his mother’s maiden name perhaps wishing to have an accent on his name as a showman. Critics later called him a ‘...

Agatha Christie the “Queen of Crime” needs no introduction. My feature concentrates only on the personal, not commercial side of her producing hundreds of novels, short stories, plays and written works, that have been said to have been published in forty languages. Today her books are th...

Henry Augustus Garrett, born in 1859 was by the age of twenty being appointed assistant surveyor to Bournemouth Council. Yet by 1890, he would move to Torquay after being appointed Harbour Engineer and Surveyor. He now discovered his adopted town was very ripe for expansion having earned a reputatio...

The saga of trying to establish a blue plaque at Villa Rosa in Trumlands Road, Torquay, in honour of the Irish playwright Sean O'Casey started in 1986. The Civic Society successfully completed the task when unveiling not one but two plaques in 2012. But then another anomaly we learned was that a fri...