A MAN who was raised in Okehampton has returned to the town for the first time since he left 61 years ago.

Antony Kozlowski was born in Glasgow in 1944, but was brought up in Okehampton from 1945 to 1950, living at the Leaze on Tors Road.

Antony's father, Henryk, was a senior officer with the Polish Naval Resettlement Corps at Okehampton Camp, following his service in the war. After 1949 Henryk worked in a Shell station near the town before moving back to Glasgow in 1953.

Antony recently returned to the town on holiday, and visited places he remembered from his childhood, including the train station, and his childhood home.

He said:?'I attended Miss Chay's Academy, a dame's school in town. I was friends with John Porter and David Matthews who lived on Brandize Park, and Maureen Banfield from Belstone.

'My parents were friendly with a Geoffrey and Babi Tudor who lived outside town. Geoffrey was a 1948 Olympian and, last I heard, was a published author, living in Bude. I used to go walks on the moor with my father and Phyllis Bray.

'I was in two minds about returning to Okehampton. I thought that I would be very sad. However, I feel that I have to turn back a few pages and, if only as a courtesy to my wife Rena, to let her see the places that she's has heard about so often.'

The visit was bitter-sweet for Antony: 'It's been surprisingly difficult, coming back. I wasn't prepared to see the changes they have made to the house I was raised in, to the point it was physically a shock.

'I remember the house being surrounded by beautiful trees and now all that is left is a monkey puzzle tree in the garden. Times move on but it's still surprising.

'I went up onto the moor where I used to walk with Phyllis and my father. That was lovely, it hasn't changed at all. Though it seems higher up than I remember it being. Maybe because I was so much smaller then!

'My father and I used to watch the trains pull away from the station, and we went up there and had a look around. The hill is as steep as I remember!

'The town doesn't seem to have changed that much, certainly it's mostly as I remember it in my mind's eye.

'People do say you should never go back, and they're probably wrong, because it's been nice to see the town again.'