Kevin Pyne, of Lake Street, Dartmouth, writes:

I have been away high in the French Alps, in fact in Alp d’huZes.

It was stunning. I have a love of cycle racing which has grown through my ever cycling son Jo.

Alp d’huZes is a place that I have always wanted to go because of its connections with the tour de France. In February it was covered in snow, but that just enhanced its beauty somehow.

And my locally bought boots never let it in, even though we had upwards of forty centimetres one night

Then after a week of eating outside in the sun at pavement cafes we flew back into grey wet windy winter Bristol.

I have given much thought to how much I like sitting outside our own local cafes and how I like what Europe has given us – for they are surely the equal of any that I have sat at on the continent.

There were free modern buses, and I began to wonder if a gondola style lift that ran from town into the higher mountain wouldn’t be feasible here in our town (as I have thought since my early twenties) between the park and ride and the now unused TIC

Needless to say the first thing I did when I got home was to buy a Dartmouth Chronicle – after all how do you break a half century habit?

And there, yet again, it would seem that we are at war or trying to settle old scores or ride roughshod over others while we get into post committee huddles to try and destroy what others would try to do.

So I asked myself: ‘What does Dartmouth have to offer the world traveller that is better by its uniqueness or beauty then anywhere else’.

My conclusion was ‘not that much as it is all obtainable in one form or another anywhere in Europe and in five or six inlets on this very coast’.

Its strengths are, in fact, its kindly, industrious, friendly, welcoming people who will give freely of their time – and its visionaries who try to do their best in spite of the District getting in the way and even charging for land that is ours and held in common by us.

We are, as a best friend of mine says, ‘a village trying to be a town’ and when we learn this we will be better for it.

But for me just to say ‘I come from Dartmouth’ makes me smile and be proud to say it !

Sometimes I think that the things we do well in Dartmouth we do almost in spite of Dartmouth.

When someone comes along who has a good idea or a fresh approach then we should give them a chance if it won’t actually harm us or our precious local environment .

Look at the Flavel – and boy was I, for one, wrong over that project!

I had already thought much of this through as our aircraft lost altitude and we came down through the driving rain and the man with all of our lives in his hands deliberately side swiped the wind and then thumped hard down onto the runway.

Personally, I wouldn’t be that put out or heartbroken if no aircraft save the air ambulance ever came to Dartmouth again as we would pick up and think of something else.

However, I suspect that I am in the minority and so as long as it does not coincide with any water born formal and proper regatta events then I will just have to put up with it, because that’s how a democracy is proven to work.

Oh and I swam every day in a heated pool while on holiday and by the end of the week my broken old body was back up to 20 lengths so I really can’t wait to pop into our new pool with, presumably, my OAPs season ticket .

And I would very much like to thank those who are making it at last, after a half a century, become possible.