Exmoor Lockdown Diary 87 - Remembering Chris Wilson of Bath Place Records
What did you say??? Chris Wilson the day we were rescued by the RNLI in Cornwall
Posts on social media tell me that my old friend Chris Wilson died six years ago - and as many people who see these posts will remember him, I am going to repeat the obituary I wrote about Chris at the time.
Many Somerset people of a certain age and over will remember Chris as the owner of the amazing and iconic Bath Place Records - an institution its day - the sort of record shop where a million dreams were made and spun.
I could have done with some of his dry humour and wit - and his boundless and unfettered common-sense - during this lockdown. And so too could many other folk…
One of the region’s best known jazz musicians has died in Exeter, aged 84. Chris Wilson was not only renowned for the Big Bands which he organised and managed in Devon, but also for running two truly iconic record stores in the region during the era when such institutions became meccas of modern culture.
The Left Bank record shop on Paris Street in Exeter and also Bath Place Records in Taunton were legendary during the late 1960s and 70s.
Born in Kuala Lumpur in 1930, son of a Federal Malay State district officer, Chris had a colonial upbringing. This was cruelly punctuated at the age of four by a serious accident which left him with an unbendable knee. This required him to wear an orthotic shoe for the rest of his life. Not that the disability ever clouded his existence in any way.
In 1940 the Wilson family fled their Malaysian home catching the final convoy to leave Malaysia. Unfortunately this came under attack and their ship was forced to return to the port she’d just left. Chris’s father sent his family to Australia and was later taken prisoner, spending the remainder of the war in a POW camp.
In due course the mother landed a job at Australia’s leading public school Geelong Grammar, where - as a day boy - Chris was bullied unmercifully. In later life he would look back on this harrowing time with nothing more than a wry smile - not much in life ever seemed to unsettle his steely sense of humour.
When Chris eventually returned to England he was sent to Repton where he played cricket and swam for the school. After this he went to Cambridge to study modern languages.
Then followed several jobs in the business world, culminating as export manager for a whisky company. He hated it and eventually left. But not before marrying Josephine in 1956 - the couple had three children: Steven, Catherine and Antony.
A decade later Chris moved to Exeter where he helped his brother Richard run the Left Bank record shop. In the early 1970s he decided to set up on his own and founded Bath Place Records in Taunton, having married his second wife, Sue, with whom he had two children, James and Anna.
After a marriage break up and the sale of his business, Chris moved to West Somerset where he had many friends, one of the closest of whom was this newspaper’s editor-at-large, Martin Hesp: “I knew Chris for more than 40 years and shall miss his unique humour and intellectually waspish company,” said Martin.
“He joined me on quite a few of my newspaper walks where I always mentioned him in dispatches as the ‘well known Exeter jazz trumpeter’, which he hated. Once, in Cornwall shortly after he’d had a major heart operation, we had to be rescued by the RNLI because he became exhausted - but it said a great deal about Chris that he would even think of attempting such a walk at such a time.”
In later years Chris entered one of the happiest periods of his life, living with partner Karen in Exeter - visiting his beloved Pembrokeshire often - and teaching singing as well as running various jazz bands.
There’s no way we can walk all the way back… Just before we were given a lift in an RNLI back breaking RIB just weeks after Chris had a major heart operation. What a laugh we had about that one…!
And here is one of those newspaper walks - reproduced here exactly how I wrote it almost 20 years ago…
Otterton - Budleigh Salterton - Ladram Bay
Feeling lazy after the Christmas break? Perhaps the house is a mess, the sales need attending to and the garden needs a good tidying after months of neglect. There are a thousand excuses you can find to avoid a guilty glance at those walking boots gathering dust in the corner. Well here's a hike that takes no hostages, a stroll that knocks all those feeble excuses well and truly into touch. It's easy to get to, there's a serene and beautiful river, an estuary teeming with bird-life, terracotta coloured sea-cliffs affording panoramic views and a picture-perfect English village just to round things off.
Budleigh Salterton was part of one of Chris Wilson’s favourite walks…
The circular walk that takes you down river from Otterton to the sea at Budleigh Salterton and then north-east along the coast to Ladram Bay, before returning across the hill, is as consummate a perambulation as any you'll find on our well endowed peninsula. All this and it's just 20 minutes out of Exeter.
A pal of mine, Chris Wilson, who lives in the city suggested this walk saying it was one of his favourites.
The village of Otterton would win plenty of points in a Comely Communities of England Contest but, as you'll be seeing more of the place later, turn your back on the delights of its pretty main-street and cross the river.
Mind you, whether you'll be able to resist the old mill or not will be a real test of your resolve because organic flour is still ground there and used in a bakery on the premises to create the most delicious bread I've eaten in years. The smell of it is enough to halt the most well fed of ramblers firmly in his tracks.
Across the neighbouring bridge a footpath follows the River Otter as it heads south through a series of classic water-meadows on its way to the sea. You get the feeling that the cows grazing here eat well and the Friesians looked in fine-fettle as we passed, which is more than I can say for the sheep which lay dead on its back in midstream. Rarely have I seen a more bloated and hideous looking corpse and could only wonder at all the e-coli and salmonella which must have been swimming jauntily off to the seaside.
A few hundred yards downstream an angler looked forlornly at his empty landing net and it was clear to us that all sensible fish had either scarpered for the day, or perished in sheep soup. Later we passed the little aqueduct which brings a rushing stream across from East Budleigh on legs.
Why anyone went to all the trouble to elevate this stream I have no idea, but my guess is that long ago the flat valley bottom was nothing but a marsh and this was part of the drainage scheme. Anyway, I like aqueducts - there's something pleasingly heroic about the way in which they do a job which nature would never dream of, i.e. allow a river to fly. Soon after this we catch our first unmistakable whiff of saltings and estuarine aromas. Within a trice the mood of the river changes and, as we cross the road bridge which leads to South Farm, we can see how the serene waterway - which until now has spoken of gentle rural England, of Tales By the Riverbank, of Ratty and Mole and Toad - suddenly transforms itself into something marine, salt flavoured and wild.
The River Otter reaches the sea
On we go past the sign that says something about this being a Nature Reserve, and down the east side of the estuary along a path which takes us just above a copse. Beyond this there are excellent views of the saltings and the sea and we came across the hide from which the public are free to view the incredible bird-life of the estuary.
I, for one, would happily have remained for an hour or two wader-watching but my guide, Exeter based jazz trumpeter Chris Wilson, was off to Danger Point, Black Head, Brandy Head, Crab Ledge and Chiselbury Bay and there was little I could do to stop him as he sang and hummed with happy abandon along the tops of the big red cliffs.
And what cliffs they are! Some cliffs look as if they've been cliffs all their rocky lives long. They are professional cliffs; rough, tough cliffs that you might have a crack at climbing, or at least, cliffs that go about their business with granite resolve. But the cliffs along this stretch of East Devon's coast are different. They are reluctant cliffs that look as if they shouldn't be cliffs at all. They are the bosom of rural England laid bare. So bare that they have turned red with the embarrassment of finding their naked flanks exposed to the sea.
You can see them stretching east to Sidmouth and just beyond where they stop abruptly, gladly giving up the job of being cliffs, and handing over to the far more cliff-like chalk. The path does a gentle roller-coaster number along the very edge of the fields, and always in front of you is High Peak.
It has the biggest red cliffs of all and towers above the great curve of the coast with its Alpine look-alike peak covered in conifers.
The rocks at Ladram Bay
On a blustery day the thought of ascending this monster could cause some alarm, but do not fear - this hike turns inland just before it reaches Devon's answer to the Jura. In fact I turned left before I even reached Ladram Bay which lies just below the big hill, as I was somewhat saddened by the enormity of the caravan park where, 30 years ago I happily holidayed with mum, dad and my brothers in the days when campsites were not the size of small towns.
We took the bridleway up past Monks Wall and from there it was a short walk down into lovely little Otterton which has a stream running down through its picturesque mainstreet. And that was that. The perfect mix of countryside and sea, guaranteed to reinvigorate the most stale of hikers.
So pleased was Chris Wilson that he broke into a chorus of loud and resounding oratorio startling several flocks of birds, but what did I care? He had supplied me with a wonderful walk which I'll happily do again sometime.
Fact File Basic Hike: Down the Otter from Otterton to the sea near Budleigh Salterton and then east along the cliffs to Ladram Bay, returning over the hill back to the village. Recommended Map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 30. Distance and going - 6 miles easy going. Food and Drink - good little restaurant at the Old Mill, Otterton, as well as village pub.
