After the town’s seafront was “flattened”, novelist Phyllida Shrimpton swore she wouldn’t return to Exmouth.
The site of beloved annual childhood holidays in the ’70s and ’80s, where she “learned to love everything about the water”, its controversial regeneration upset both her and her family.
“For a long time I didn’t go – none of us went – because we didn’t like the changes. We wanted to remember it as it was,” recalls Phyllida, who is known for her 2022 domestic drama release, Every Shade Of Happy.
However, writerly curiosity got the better of her, and she decided to pay Exmouth a visit several years after the sting of the changes had subsided.
“I wanted to go back to my childhood in a way, and explore mine and my family’s love for this place,” she explains. “And actually, I could see it for what it is now, in a modern era, and that it has its great benefits.
“Then I started to look at it from both angles – from the point of view of an old fashioned childhood, but actually as a modern childhood as well. And I fell in love with it all over again.”
‘There’s two sides to every story – sometimes more’
For Essex-based Phyllida, the different angles from which to look at something “is huge”.
“There’s always two sides to a story, sometimes more,” she says wryly. “That’s a big part of what I enjoy writing about.”
Her upcoming release, Storyteller By The Sea follows protagonist Melody as she collects objects from the seafront and tries to tell their stories to her brother, Milo, who uses a wheelchair.
But the one story Melody never tells is her own – until her beloved seaside bungalow, Spindrift, comes under threat from developers.
“Melody is the main protagonist but the novel does explore other points of view through her,” explains Phyllida.
“Although there aren’t actual chapters from different protagonists, it explores the world through the eyes of her brother, who’s got a disability. She sees how other people view him, and she’s aware of how the community feel about the regeneration too.
“So it is just one character, but it does show you still that there are two sides to her story, and every other story.”
‘I was in a wheelchair at the age of 12’
Indeed, upon her return to Exmouth, many of the changes Phyllida had initially shunned started to make sense when she reflected on her own experiences with wheelchair use and limited access.
“I found myself in a wheelchair at the age of 12, temporarily,” she reveals. “I was in a road traffic accident, I got run over.
“We went on holiday to Exmouth, and that was my first experience of not being able to join in with everything I loved because I was in a wheelchair,” she continues.
“In the 80s there were no ramps down to the sea, there was nothing really. It was the first summer I was aware that not everybody could access that kind of life.
“I’ve got friends and family who have progressive illnesses and they don’t have the option to just work their way out a wheelchair like I did. So I feel lucky.”
Now sand access wheelchairs, ramps and Sailability services mean that the beach in Exmouth is accessible to all – something that Phyllida hopes that those who oppose regeneration can appreciate.
“I’m hoping that Storyteller By The Sea will open eyes between an old fashioned world that was lovely – if you were mobile – and a modern world which a lot of people see as less lovely and less free, but it is actually more freeing if you’re not mobile,” she explains.
“It comes with good things, this modern world. And I learned a lot by going back and realising that.”
Storyteller By The Sea by Phyllida Shrimpton, published by Head of Zeus, RRP £9.99, will be released on September 14 2023.
