by Antony Sluce

Adventures though red Devon and Under sail though south Devon and Dartmoor by Raymond B Cattell

Published by Obelisk Publications, 2 Church Hill, Pinhoe, Exeter

These books are reprints of a book written in the 1930s about Mr Cattell and his friends’ canoeing trips covering the whole of the Devon coast and going as far as possible up most of the rivers. When they reached the navigable limits of the rivers they set off hiking to reach the highest points on Dartmoor or when they were shipwrecked at Lyme Regis to walk home which was near Torbay. The books are very much of their period — no life jackets, their clothing was just their everyday garments (overcoats in a canoe!) and the food needed constantly restocking by calling at farms or village shops.

The canoe which was used for most of the trips was a folding canoe which had a rudder, leeboards, Bermudan mainsail and jib. He made some remarkable sea passages under paddle and sail: 27 miles from Paignton to beyond Totnes on the Dart in a day arriving late for his wife’s house warming party at Dartington. Needless to say that marriage did not last long. His next wife was much more adventurous and did the trip from the Dart via Salcombe, River Avon, River Ernie, Newton Ferrers and up the Tamar to Morwellam.

My parents gave me an elderly folding canoe when I was a boy. We never folded it because the skin had been painted to keep it watertight and it was kept under the arches of Kew Bridge. Cattell’s boat soon had numerous holes in it due to the trips up the rapids on the rivers. They frequently had to beach the canoe to stick on bicycle inner tube patches.

The author is good at capturing the emotions (he became an internationally famous psychologist later) which we all have experienced. For example, being in a small boat, battling a rising wind, with people relaxing on the shore in another world. Many of the scenes he describes have only changed because of the rash of moorings covering the estuaries. I really enjoyed the mixture of walking and sailing described in the books. (You must order them though, as I have not found them in any bookshop and Adventures through red Devon is nearly out of print).