On a warm and sunny day 70 years ago the thriving Methodist Sunday school in Salcombe held its anniversary services as usual in the month of May. There was a celebration tea held outdoors when adults joined with the children. During the afternoon the town’s well-loved photographer, Alfred (A E) Fairweather, took group photographs that were then displayed for sale in his Fore Street shop.
Though none of those present that day in May 1939 could have guessed it, they were taking part in the last peacetime anniversary for several years. All was balmy and pleasant in the grounds of the church in Allenhayes Road, opened little more than ten years before, and today the site of Combehaven homes. But far beyond the placid streets of Salcombe Hitler‘s armies were on the march across Europe, his goose-stepping forces ravaging country after country.
The first Anderson shelter had been built in London the previous February, a month later Britain had pledged support for Poland if Hitler invaded it, and since April British young men aged 20 and 21 were conscripted for six months’ military training. War clouds gathered.
Nor would Salcombe, remote as it seemed from all this, escape dark days ahead. Before the war ended, homes and shops in the town would be bombed, killing 17 people, from a baby a few days old to an elderly man of 75.
Meanwhile teacups tinkled, the Methodists enjoyed another Sunday school anniversary and posed for group photographs, just as previous generations had.
Prior to the 1932 uniting of the three main groupings of Methodism, the Salcombe church was of the Wesleyan stream, and before 1927 occupied a site at the eastern end of Island Street. Here each May the children and adults assembled on Sunday school anniversary day for a group photograph taken where Island Street and Island Terrace form a junction with Church Street. Houses on the northern side of Island Terrace have changed little since the earliest photographs were taken.
What has changed over the years is the background on the opposite side. In earlier views a gently sloping foreshore to the Estuary can be seen with yachts moored beyond, while later ones show the boatyard that occupied the site before the present row of modern houses.
And, of course, fashions in dress have undergone many changes over the years. Those were days when, for special events like an anniversary, everyone turned out in Sunday best. All wore a hat, the men sporting mostly homburgs, bowlers, or boaters, though there were one or two in flat caps.
Women in the earliest photographs generally wore the very large hats of their day, many intricately decorated with elaborate flower designs. Children had broad brimmed light summer hats – all the girls and some of the boys – with other boys in school caps.
By 1924, the year when they last assembled in Island Street, many men and children were bareheaded, while the former big hats of the women had entirely disappeared in favour of an inverted round pot shape.
When plans were advanced to move from Island Street and build a new church in Allenhayes Road, for two or three years the group gathered for their photograph in the Park. There Mr Fairweather set up his camera and tripod on the upper slopes, while children and helpers gathered lower down with their backs to Courtenay Street.
The new church opened in 1928 and thereafter Sunday school anniversary teas were held, and group photographs taken, weather permitting, in the church grounds at the side.
From Big Hats to Bare Heads
Salcombe Methodists celebrated Sunday school anniversaries across the years
By John Fairweather-Tall
1924
1925
1939
1939
pre 1924