On this day in Wembury — 14 January 1947

A dramatic case of arson came before Plympton Magistrates when Norman Roy Booth, aged 23, of 1 Watergate Cottages, Wembury, was committed for trial at the Devon Assizes. He was accused of setting fire to straw ricks at both Train Farm and Spirewell Farm, Wembury, on Guy Fawkes Night, 5 November the previous year.

Evidence was given by Mr. F. C. Rowland, owner of Train Farm, who had been attending a Parish Council meeting in Plymstock when he received a telephone call at 9.30 p.m. to say one of his ricks was ablaze. The National Fire Service was unable to extinguish the flames due to a lack of water, and the rick—about 12 tons of oaten straw worth £50—was completely destroyed. Later that night, Mr. B. R. Clifton of Spirewell Farm found one of his own ricks, containing three and a half tons of barley straw worth £14, also alight.

Police Inspector L. T. Burgess led the prosecution. Booth allegedly confessed, saying he had been out walking, struck a match against one rick, watched it blaze up, and then did the same to the other, adding, “I must have been mad; I don’t know what made me.”

The case drew wide attention in rural South Devon, coming at a time when post-war farms still relied on rick-stored straw, and such fires were both financially and emotionally devastating to smallholders.

Source: Western Morning News, 15 January 1947 (reporting events of 14 January 1947).