Sally Allen: Reinvigorating Torbay Civic Society and bringing local heritage to life

It has now been over six months since I took over as chair of the Torbay Civic Society and my intention is to reinvigorate the organisation and to recruit as many new members as we can from all age groups.

In any charitable organisation things can become stale over time, no matter how hard you try, so my aim is to attract a new audience to bond with our existing very loyal membership.

Our monthly membership meetings on the last Friday of every month at the Palace Theatre in Paignton, are now gathering momentum as we are arranging interesting speakers from diverse backgrounds to entertain us. To kick us off in September we had Dr Kevin Dixon, who always fascinates with his talks.

Then in October, Susie Colley, chair of the Torquay Chamber of Commerce and the Heart Campaign gave an impassioned update on the critical situation regarding our fight to keep Torbay Hospital’s highly regarded Cardiac Unit open, along with maintaining ‘acute’ status of the hospital along with all the current services. In short, it is working well so why change it.

In November Miranda Allhusen of the National Gardening Scheme, whose president is Alan Titchmarsh and patron is His Majesty King Charles, received an extremely warm reception with a detailed presentation of the history of the scheme and its particular activities in Devon, including the wonderful open gardens all are welcome to visit.

We start the New Year with John Tomkins, celebrating heritage in the English Riviera through film. For those who don’t know, John is an independent film producer based in Torbay. One of his specific interests is using film to bring the past to life in a way that engages modern audiences through visual storytelling. 

John will talk about his film heritage journey and screen examples of heritage films he has worked on, with a focus on the English Riviera/Torbay. As well as directing and producing his own films, such as the films about 1920s Torquay, John recently produced a feature film for the Friends of Devon Archives working with many people across Torbay on the last fifty years of the Torbay Music Scene. He is the Director of the English Riviera film festival and produces films for the Agatha Christie International Festival. So those of you who would like to come along are in for a treat.

In February we celebrate three very remarkable women who helped to change the face of Torbay for the betterment of others. Shelia Hardaway, who was responsible for originally forming the Torbay Civic Society and the Friends of the Pavilion. In the early 1970s Sheila established The Friends of the Pavilion.

She was a formidable adversary of the Council due to her support of many historic properties in and around her immediate area including the Pavilion.

In 1976 she created an all-encompassing group, which she called the Torbay Civic Society, which in 1977 was officially turned into a Registered Charity.

Joan Williams, who was the inspiration behind the founding of the League of Friends Torbay Hospital in 1954, spent her lifetime tirelessly fundraising in support of the hospital. Through decades of dedication, she helped raised millions of pounds to improve care for patients and support staff.

The third remarkable woman is Bridget Day (Tretheway) who was the first chair of the Friends of Rowcroft.  When the hospice first opened its doors back in 1982, there was only enough money in the pot for the hospice to stay open for three months. Only with remarkable fundraising work has the hospice to not only stayed open, but it has developed into one of the leading hospices in the country. 

It is amazing the work that the three of them achieved. They all knew each other well and each was a trailblazer in their own right.

Sadly, both Sheila Hardaway and Joan Williams are no longer with us, but Bridget and Joan’s son, Jontie Williams (and also a member of Friends of the Pavilion since its inception working alongside Sheila) will give us the inside story of how they not only created these highly successful organisations through huge determination, but also how current and future generations have been, and should be, inspired to build on their achievements.

We are unlikely to ever see their like again, so we look forward to celebrating their achievements.

Other projects we are working on include developing a Blue Plaque Heritage Trail App and originating Green Plaques for our wonderful green spaces and gardens in the Bay. Added to this, we are working with Kevin Dixon to develop a competition based on the ‘Dartmoor Letter Box Scheme’ whereby schoolchildren are asked to take a selfie with as many blue plaques as possible to win special badges.

We hope that this will stimulate curiosity and interest from the children and get them out and about and taking an interest in their local heritage.

Stimulating interest in our local history and its future is so important for the community moving forward. We can all learn from mistakes in the past and try to avoid making the same clangers in the future. But we should also celebrate what was good and how we can build on it, and Torbay has so much to celebrate, but so much gets overlooked.

We are currently looking for an Honorary Treasurer, so if you would like to get involved, we would love to hear from you. I promise it will not be too onerous!

Membership is only £10 per annum, and our meetings are open to everyone, and you just pay £4 at the door which includes a cup of coffee.

So, if you have the time, please come along and support your local civic society and make some new friends at the same time.