WATCHET has a tradition of producing wonderful and eccentric characters and with the recent passing of Fred Bacon, the ‘Watchet Piper’, the town has said goodbye to a special and unique man.

For someone who was in many ways a very private person, he was incredibly well known, not just by the locals but also to the many visitors who were captivated by his dry sense of humour and storytelling and, most of all, by his playing of the bagpipes, usually by the lighthouse on the West Pier.

As a bagpiper, Fred was self-taught and in the early days would practise in the remote woods alongside the Mineral Line to spare the ears of his neighbours until he was good enough to play in public.

Fred’s home, for as long as I can remember, was a cottage in the cobbled alleyway of old Watchet behind the Market House Museum which for a number of years he shared with his sister. He was born in 1939. His father Jack, and mother Mabel, were both well known in the town and at the time lived in Severn Terrace.

In 1955, Fred moved to the cottage in Market Street that was to be his home for the vast majority of his life.

Chatting and sharing memories with Ben and Tanya Allen, who until recently ran the well-known Pebbles Tavern, Tanya told me how they became close friends with Fred.

They shared many fond memories of Watchet’s lone piper, including the painstaking process of learning new tunes and what became an annual ritual of heralding in the New Year at Pebbles.

“We used to chat to him when he was going for a stroll towards the lighthouse. One day, he was talking about his fitness and challenged Ben - a much younger man - to a press-up competition. He bragged of doing 25 press-ups daily. Ben took up the challenge... and lost!”

Tanya added: “I used to call him ‘Mr Streaky’, and he would humorously tell me off. He wrote me a poem, which I still have, about the demise of my cat.”

Many locals will remember the dramatic events of a baby being rescued from the harbour. Tanya recalls: “Fred was one of the first people to turn up when Sam Cooper’s pushchair was blown into the harbour.

“He ran from his house, mid-shave with half a face of shaving foam still on, and helped to pull up the rope attached to the pushchair which was very heavy.

“He was one of the unsung heroes that day as we would have struggled without him.”

Fred’s early years were spent first as an apprentice at the Watchet paper mill and as a National Service soldier in the Shropshire Light Infantry, spending two years in Germany.

On his return to Watchet, after a couple of jobs, he found settled employment with the Hydrographic Office in Taunton and remained there until he retired.

Fred made many friends in Watchet and was always happy to talk to visitors who come to Watchet, always with a tale to tell, often well-embellished as his good friend photographer Terry Walker was keen to observe.

He was a tall, fit-looking man, always well turned out. There is a delightful little video of Fred sitting on a favourite bench, looking into the distance and singing a favourite song (he had a rather nice voice) written by his good friend Hans-Peter Wagener, a close neighbour.

My own personal memory - and shared with many others - will be of him at the end of the pier playing his beloved bagpipes.

I have one very specific recollection and Terry Walker has captured it perfectly in his photograph. When, as it does, a sea mist descends over the harbour and the water seems motionless and the gulls fall silent, there is what appears to be a spectral figure, a piper tall and erect, the iconic red lighthouse in the background just visible through the gloom and the swirl of the pipes seeming to transcend the centuries.

For memories like this, Fred will be remembered with great affection. Watchet has lost one of its greatest characters.

 A funeral service will be held at St Decuman’s Church on Friday 24 June at 12 noon.