The closest thing to Devon (I have ever known)

So we booked this holiday, right, and it turns out the place we’re going to, on the edge of Exmoor, has no wifi. To the derision of the children I attempt to put a positive spin on this admittedly worrying situation. We can play board games! Take in the country air! Live in the moment! (Secretly, I have a dongle stashed away. I’m keeping my dongle to myself in case other people try to monopolise it.)

And another thing, it turns out Devon is a bit of hike, which is not proving popular with the nine year old and the four year old. After seven hours on the road my attempts to bring joy to the journey are falling on stony ground. For example, passing a field of sheep I say ‘I know, let's see how many there are!’ and I start counting them. At five I start yawning heavily. I'm snoring before I reach double figures. This is me being funny and rendered funnier still because I’m the one driving and I definitely shouldn’t be asleep. The reaction from the back of the car? There isn't one.

Eventually, we arrive, and Devon is ineffably pretty, all rolling hills and wooded valleys. We are staying in a converted barn on farm owned by a couple who live with their three children and a host of cute animals. We know they’re not real farmers because my girlfriend knows their backstory in bewildering detail. She’s an academic. He’s something in the media. They moved down from London a couple of years ago because they’d had enough of city living and wanted somewhere more wholesome to bring up the kids. She’s never shown this much interest in my life.

‘Oh, down from Londoners’, I say. ‘I know their sort’. And then, in my best West Country accent, ‘GROCKLES!’

We open up the cupboards to see what board games – no wifi! - we have. Instead, there’s a row of DVDs. ‘Ooh, let’s see what we’ve got here’, I say. ‘Hmm, never heard of any of these. Broken, Perrier's Bounty, Piccadilly Jim – ello, someone’s been to the charity shop.’

At this point the woman half of our host couple appears at the door, flanked by three glowing children. They positively radiate wellbeing in a way you don’t often see where we come from. Meanwhile our four year old is taking all the cushions off the sofa and hurling them around the room. Our nine year old is running back into the house, screaming 'midges! Just no! I'm a 21st century girl!’

‘Oh Hello’, I say, ‘we've just been looking at the DVDs. Or the 'straight to DVD's, to give their full name! Amazing what you can find on the 50p shelf!’

‘Actually’, she says, ‘that one’s rather good. Anyway, do enjoy yourselves.’

‘I wonder when we’ll meet him’, I say later. ‘I wonder if he’s someone really famous? Hey, I bet it’s Mark Lamarr.’

‘Mark Lamarr? Why?‘

‘I don’t know, I just have a feeling it might be. Anyway, are you sure she's an academic? I've rather taken against her.’

‘On what grounds? Envy?’

‘Why would I be envious of them?’

‘Their beautiful house? Their own fields and ancient woodland? Their three beautiful well behaved children?’

We have three children.

By evening I am told that - having previously said how much I was looking forward to being offline for a couple of weeks - around 80% of my conversation is now on the topic of dongle coverage, or rather lack thereof. And everyone is shivering because I've opened all the windows in the hope the wind will blow some internet in, to no avail. There is nothing else for it but to venture to an out of the way pub.

On Exmoor, every new vista turns up the beauty dial another couple of notches. If I wasn’t a bit scared of the countryside I’d be really enjoying myself.

‘All this, y'know, beauty, is all very well’, I say, ‘but it isn't very edgy. I think Devon should rebrand itself 'de*Vonne', to be more, y’know urban.’

'Well, there is always the Westward Ho.'

‘True. The only ho in England with an exclamation mark in her name. That’s got to be worth something.’

We arrive at the out of the way pub to find a small group of locals outside sizing us up on arrival. It looks a bit like that pub in that film where everyone and everything stops when you walk in. We wonder if we are doing the right thing. Within half an hour the pub is heaving. Everyone seems to know everyone and most seem to stroll behind the bar to get their own drinks. And, it turns out everyone in Devon is exceptionally friendly. We are welcomed into the fold by the landlord, who singles us out for special attention and introduces us to all and sundry. ‘When you step through the door of this pub you become a member of the family’, he says. ’You can do what you like here, we don’t have any rules. I never call time. If you want to pass out drunk on the floor, that’s fine. We’re not one of those pubs that says you can bring your kids but they have to behave in a certain way. Kids can do what they like here.’ Then, to prove the point, and much to her delight, he invites the nine year old behind the bar to pour her first ever pint. So whatever happens during the rest of the holiday, she’ll be returning with a vastly enhanced CV.

In Manchester I can pass for a reasonably upbeat and friendly sort of guy. Such is the high bar set by Devonshire-ers, down here I'm a regular misanthrope.

Later, the conversation returns to the subject of our elusive host, the Tinseltown Farmer. The more I think about it, the more certain I am it's Mark Lamarr. It just adds up. 'Think about it', I say. ‘He's been out of the public eye for years. He always had a wistful sort of look about him, like he was thinking he'd rather be somewhere else. And wasn't he from down this way anyway?’ I look up his birthplace: Swindon. Bingo.

The next day we are recommended a dairy which sells ice cream made on site from cows milked in front of your eyes by robots (only disappointment can ensue following a description like that). On arrival, having discovered that the ‘robot’ is a big milking machine and not Metal Mickey wearing a straw hat as I’d hoped, I ask the dairy woman for the 'Ferrero Rocher' flavour ice cream, consciously deciding not to refer to her as 'ambassador' or to make any comment whatsover vis a vis being really spoiled by her ice cream, which I initially imagine will come as a relief to her as she must hear all too frequently but then realise that in fact I still have my city head on and actually, this being Devon, the land of happiness and bonhomie, it would in fact have been greeted as a great and fine joke.

Later, we try to visit the famous (ffD – famous for Devon) Tarr Steps and the satnav tries to make us go right through a river. ‘Look’, I say, ‘the road starts again on the other side. It’s quite shallow, we should probably try to cross it. It must be possible, the satnav doesn’t make mistakes like that.’

My girlfriend looks it up. ‘It is officially traversable - but only by horseback. Perhaps the satnav thought we were travelling by horse and cart.’

‘Well’, I say, ‘it is one of the older models’.

I am woken the next morning - having been afforded my now customary ten o’clock holiday lie-in, which is granted strictly on the condition that I remain charming at all times – with dramatic news.

‘I’ve seen him’, says my girlfriend. ‘He’s not Mark Lamarr. He’s someone else’.

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Well, he doesn’t look like Mark Lamarr. He’s in his mid-fifties and he’s bald.’

‘So?’ I say. ‘Mark Lamarr could have let himself go. I need more proof.’

‘Um, OK, he said he hated Elvis.’

Damn.

‘Anyway, I was talking to the boy and he told me his Dad was an Art Director on films.’

‘Sounds about right. I bet he’s a right arrogant so and so.’

Later, he comes over to introduce himself. He is, of course, delightful, like the rest of his lovely family. Self-effacing, friendly and charming, and radiating the kind of contentment I know my restless mind will never find.

Later still, we find his full name in the cottage book, under ‘owner’. ‘Look’, I say, ‘it says his full name here. Oh, it's someone we haven't heard of.’

‘Look him up!’

‘I’m doing it!’ I stand on a chair and lean out of the window as far as I can. ‘OK, I’ve got two bars! Uh oh, I can see her.’

‘Tell me if she's coming over, she might think we're weird’.

We google his name; the first result brings up his IMDB filmography. And to my horror, although I should have really guessed: Perrier’s Bounty, Broken, Piccadilly Jim.

Still, things improved markedly the next day when we hear our hosts have all spent the day in A&E after their 11 year old threw a rock at their nine year old and broke her finger.