"The Hope Archive Group was formed in March 2000 by Des Sleightholme, one time editor of Yachting Monthly, who sadly did not live to see the award of the grant for us to publish a history of our parish of South Huish. We have 20 to 25 members and many supporters in other village organisations.

The book, which we have called "Hope Cove, Galmpton and South Huish – the story of a Devon Parish", was a co-operative effort with most of the writing being undertaken by a core dozen enthusiasts – including vice chairman Phil Worth, secretary Susan Morgan and treasurer David Stribling.

The sea, in the form of fishing, crab pot making, lifeboat coxswains, wreck and rescue and smuggling and coastguards, features largely in the book. But farming and war have not been forgotten. Other chapters explain the role of the two Iron Age forts and reproduce pictures by royal academicians who painted land and seascapes here.

LHI gave us permission to use contingency money to employ an archaeologist to delve into the origins of the parish. His 73-page work and the rough drafts of five maps and six diagrams gave us problems, since the whole book was to be only 180 pages. We had a challenging job cutting that down to a single chapter!

We paid a local journalist/historian, Graham Collyer, as editor to decide the final content and style. After proof reading by members the completed work went to the local printers in Plymouth.

We have meetings every month. We haven’t gained a lot of new members but less active supporters have been very helpful. For instance the local Women’s Institute was wound up here about 20 years ago and one of their members wrote their history for us. We’ve had other meetings with church people, hoteliers and so on"