Bideford

People see things happen, like their friends die, and they blame the local unpopular person.

I mean, in 1682, you've got the Bideford witches, Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles, Susannah Edwards.

They're accused of breastfeeding magpies alongside causing people to die.

So what you don't see is, you know, you just don't see him appearing as much as he does in the European cases.

Oh, that's evil.

[laughs] But, uh, moving on, we are going to listen to your friend and mine, our lovely Blackpool piper, Tom Collins, is gonna come to you with some of the news from Bideford.

Hi, guys.

Nice to be back with you on Chanter and Banter.

Yeah, we're just back from the, the Bideford Massed Pipes and Drums.

What a fantastic weekend it was from the, the 11th of September onwards.

After the, the World Championships we still have a, a couple of, um, competitions down south, Chatsworth being one of them.

But this is a, a big event in the diary to... just for all bands to chill, to mingle, and have a drink together, socialize together, and just play pipes [laughs] together pretty much.

It's really lovely to be on the go.

I've been to Exeter and Biddeford and Ipswich and now here.

And going to Ports is one of my favourite things.

Right, we're still walking around the harbour.

Today's episode is part of our special mini-series exploring Britain's remarkable heritage harbours.

Over recent weeks we've travelled to Exeter, Biddeford and Ramsgate, discovering the places where Britain's maritime past still survives as part of everyday life.

Today we've arrived in another of those extraordinary places, Ipswich.

Now, if I told you that one English port could claim links with the Anglo-Saxon kings, the Hanseatic trading network, the circumnavigation of the globe, the founding of English America, and one of Britain's busiest modern commercial estuaries, you might not guess Ipswich.

I don't have much information on that.

I believe it was Biddeford or he's going to Biddeford this weekend or something or another.

Either way, we will fill you in on what Tom has been up to in the next episode in two weeks time because we're now officially making as much of an effort as we can to do fortnightly episodes.

I'm not going to promise fortnightly episodes, but we are doing everything in our power to give you guys fortnightly episodes.

Before that fleet could sail, Raleigh and Grenville were called off to a task even more pressing than the relief of the Virginia plantation.

Yet notwithstanding the prospect of a Spanish invasion, White persuaded Raleigh to send out two small vessels with which White himself sailed from Bideford on the 25th of April 1588.

The sailors, however, fell into the snare so often fatal to the explorers of that age.

In the words of a later writer, whose vigorous language seemed to have been borrowed from some contemporary chronicler, the captains, being more intent on a gainful voyage than the relief of the colony, ran in chase of prizes till at last one of them, meeting two ships of war, was, after a bloody fight, overcome, boarded, and rifled.