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Many years ago, my son and I went on a holiday with my mum and dad.  God am I talking years ago, it must be well over 25 because my son is 27 now and he was just over a year when we went.

Well we went to a place and there was a river, with weirs which lead to the open sea.  I can remember my young baby son, giggling in his pushchair at the birds who were fighting over who was going sit on the pushchair and help themselves to his ice cream.

The birds seem so tame and so gentle, yes they fought amongst themselves to see who was going to get the privilege but they were so gentle around a little boy.

Anyway across this river was a little shop where you could buy food to feed the ducks and naturally granddad went and purchased a large bag of food and my young son thoroughly enjoyed himself.

For the life of me I could never remember the name of the place we were at as I always wanted to return, to photograph this picturesque place.

Well there we were travelling around during our holiday;  doing the sights and sitting on the benches along the front, just like the old-uns do, when we got talking to another couple and they were on holiday and doing the same and they spoke of this little place called Dawlish and how beautiful it was and how picturesque and peaceful it was.  They then started to speak of how the river run into the sea and about the weirs and that was it, finally after 25 years the name of the place was mentioned and I noted it down.

That was it, it was on our agenda for the next day, we planned our day out, Exmouth then onto  Teignmouth and finally stopping on the way back at Dawlish.

As I started to walk to the River nothing had changed, yes there was new cafe’s and shops but the weirs and the river were just as beautiful as I remembered them all those years ago.

And that place with no name now has a name I will never forget – Dawlish.