Tom Cobley was a real man. His grave is a half-hour drive from my house, in the churchyard in the little village of Spreyton, near Okehampton in Devon. That particular Thomas Cobley died in 1844, though there's controversy in that the grave may be that of the real Tom Cobley's nephew, not Uncle Tom himself, who died in 1794 (allegedly buried in an unmarked grave) and who severely disproved of his nephew. There's an excellent pub in the village, renowned for its real ales and good food (I've been often and can vouch for both!), though the landlord, a very fine man of the old guard, is always in severe danger of talking the back legs off you. The pub's called, you might have guessed it, the Tom Cobley Tavern. If you go in spring on a sunshiny day the churchyard is an absolute delight, with a long avenue of tall trees, yet to burst into leaf, the grass underneath bedecked with primroses and celandines.