Our first day in Torquay didn’t begin with paddling in the sea like I thought it would.
It began with a village. A really, really tiny village. But at the same time, it had everything a town would have had?
Enter Babbacombe Model Village, named for the area district of Torquay, and I remember thinking I knew exactly what to expect.
Everything would be in miniature and it would be like a little doll’s house. I’d walk around it in five minutes and get back to Summerdyne to play on the swings and listen to my Bananarama cassette.
I was eight years old. I had no idea what I was about to walk into.
It was the summer of 1989, and the whole of Britain was in the grip of a rare, relentless heatwave that felt almost Mediterranean. The south of England hadn’t seen decent rainfall for weeks. The grass was yellowed, scratchy and crisp. It wasn’t just a little bit burnt. It was scorched and dehydrated. I had never seen anything like it and rarely have in Scotland since then.
And then there were the palm trees. Actual palm trees? I remember staring at them, slightly suspicious.
And then we entered the village. Except… it wasn’t a village. It was a world in miniature and it was the size of a village, spanning four acres. It took us ages to walk around the whole thing, and we spent half a day there.
Everything was shrunk down and full of classic British humour - much of it involving female nudity.
Nice message to send to families with little girls…
A football pitch… with a streaker.A nudist beach… which, at eight years old, was the funniest thing I had ever seen in my life. Schools. Theatres. Houses. Police stations. Hotels. Everything you would expect in a real town, just in miniature.
The closer you looked and the longer you spent, the more you noticed. You spotted things you weren’t meant to notice straight away. Little scenes tucked into corners, tiny stories playing out between buildings. It felt like the place was in on its own joke, and you had to be paying attention to catch it.
We went back the following year at night and everything was lit up. Tiny lights glowing in windows, shadows stretching across miniature streets, the whole place shifting into something softer, almost festive. It was interesting to see the place from a different angle. The surprise element was gone but the village took on another atmosphere.
I believe they still do the illuminated evenings in 2026. I bet it would look great in winter.
Looking back, I think that day stayed with me for a reason. It was my first non-caravan holiday and my first time staying at Summerdyne. I was discovering England properly for the first time - and what a gorgeous part of England to start off with.
Even if the palm trees did confuse me.
