We have found at least three-coins cemented into the interior wall of the holiday cottage – 71 Mount Pleasant Road, Brixham – I use the term “cottage” loosely as this is a second-floor dwelling situated up a flight of crumbling cement steps. Yes – the road is narrow and strwn with double-yellow lines – so after we drove the four-hour journey from London – we found we could not park our car anywhere near the place we had paid to rent for a week. Gee had to park the car about a mile away and we had to shift our luggage up and down the hill – only to find all the shops were shut and there was nowhere to purchase food. Scaffolding and broken glass scattered liberally throughout the garden made things easier – as the garden became off-limits due to a lack of safety. It seems the owners actively prevent bad reviews from being added to holiday regulating websites – but they have no control over this blog.
Administrative matters aside – I notice the above “interior” wall looks as if it used to be an “external” wall – as it looks weather-beaten and worn. Furthermore, in the UK, builders often leave a coin featuring the year any renovations were carried-out as a form of “good luck”. Usually, we find these coins under floor-boards, carpets, and lino, etc. Sometimes they are lodged between wooden joints or under various structures. In this wall, the coins seem cemented on the outside of the wall. There is a 1966 half-penny, and a 1960 three-penny. When I was first at school in the early 1970s – these coins were still in use. The old half-penny would today possess the buying power of £5 – whilst the three-penny bit could buy about £30s worth of goods. This was before the UK joined the EEC (1.1.1973). Prior to this, a British pound was comprised of 240 pence – afterwards it was deliberately devalued to just “100” pence. What a disgrace all this was!
I subsequently spied this coin – which I remember is a one-penny piece from 1914. This was the year that WWI began – and millions of people were yet to die on the battlefield. I suspect that this penny traversed through the pockets of many men who ended up in the trenches. An interesting piece of UK history affixed to a peculiar wall in Brixham! When I was young, these coins were still in circulation. When we moved into a Council House (built by German POWs during WWI) in Tiverton, Devon, in the 1970s, these coins were everywhere under the lino. As a child, it was like finding treasure!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 