One executive driven to extreme measures to get a phone signal on holiday

Just back from a week in South Devon – and yes, not bad, thanks. Rain stopped play for only one day so I count that as an above average British staycation.

We stayed in an artisan cottage – ok, former RAF house – in the South Hams near Salcombe, a locale favoured by the South West London boating brigade and former England rugby union manager Clive Woodward. (More about Clive later.) For anybody who doesn’t know the area, you bomb along the Devon Expressway until you’re in the shadow of Dartmoor and then turn south, navigating miles of the narrowest, twistiest lanes in Britain until you hit the sea. It’s a spot famous for its weird micro climate, sub-tropical fauna and a leisure dress code (washed-out pinks and nautical blues) about as strict as that of The Room at Lloyd’s.

But the South Hams is also notable for one other reason: it’s an area where the mobile signal becomes incredibly unpredictable or even non-existent – and that’s something which now poses a major problem for the British businessman on holiday.

It was during our first morning on the beach that I first saw them: lone middle-aged men wandering slowly around the sand holding Blackberries and mobiles up to the sky like modern divining rods. Indeed, for all intents and purposes, they resembled members of a Star Trek landing party scanning the atmosphere for life signs.

Slowly and deliberately, the paced in bare feet and shorts along the shoreline, oblivious to the chilly water washing over their toes. Sandcastles were trodden on, picnics disturbed, as these men, focusing solely on the signal indicator of their PDAs, tracked back and forth in a classic search pattern, gradually heading back towards the dunes and the car park.

And should they actually manage to gain a bar or two, oh joy of joys! How their faces lit up as the emails poured into their inboxes and they settled down on a sea-weedy rock to work through the unread messages, the cries of their children and spouses unheeded.

All over the beaches of the South Hams you saw them – some clambering up rocks to precarious perches; some out on boats; some hanging out of restaurant windows; others strolling up hilly tracks  to find a summit and that all-elusive signal. On the road where we were staying, I even saw one portly middle-aged fellow sitting on a roadside bench with his laptop and dongle, receiving is latest instructions from base, no doubt.

And Clive Woodward? I saw him in the Winking Prawn restaurant at North Sands, all jeans and casual checked shirt. He was marching back and forth across the wooden decking at the front of the eatery, mobile phone pressed to his ear. And you know what? Clive Woodward had no problem getting a signal at all. What a guy.

Written by Adrian Beeby