2014 Review

This year was dominated by three watersheds in our lives: two retirements and a brush with cancer Our photo album is however full of images of the long hot summer: trips to the beach, outings by boat, crabbing expeditions, dens in the wood, model railways, and walks. Most include small people, making the most of the delights of Cornwall in fine weather. It has been wonderful having two grandchildren just up the road in Truro and the other two have visited regularly.

A routine breast examination before last Christmas revealed a nasty lump and in February Kate had it removed. This put on hold any idea of a major adventure holiday in the summer. She had already decided to retire in the summer and taught her ‘last term’ while undergoing radio-therapy. Being her, priority was given to the teaching. She even completed the Race for Life.  She was then persuaded to stay on an extra term and only finally finished a week ago. So, during the Christmas term, there was something of a reprise of lines like ‘This is my last assembly’ and ‘This is my last ever Latin play’ (Nivea et duo pumiliones, since you ask, there being a slight shortage of pumiliones in Truro High).

In lieu of an adventurous summer holiday, we took a river barge trip down the Seine on our own ‘Special Needs Trip’: Jonathan’s aged Mother, his sister who had just had a new hip, Kate recovering from her op and Jonathan (with something very serious like a sore finger). Despite being well-travelled, Felicity had never been to Paris. We were all pretty fit but we liked the idea of demanding extra attention.

Meanwhile, Jonathan too had decided that it was time to retire and stopped work in mid October after eleven years at the Museum. Winning a national award as the Family Friendly Museum of the year was a great final satisfaction. The leaving parties were endless and mostly very silly involving a helicopter making a salute, tugs firing water cannon, being arrested by Darth Vader (no we don’t either) and a final escape in a launch. A fire curtain in the Museum was even re-named the ‘Griffin door’.

We got out in the open air as often as possible. When the rain stopped briefly in the Spring we finished the Tinner’s Way from St Ives to Cape Cornwall past some of Cornwall’s best ancient monuments: almost enough stone circles, quoits, standing stones to satisfy any fogou-hunter. We also did some sailing and canoeing.

Emma is now head of Boarding at Truro High School and so our links with the school will continue even though Kate is no longer teaching there. Wyl is carving out a successful career as a freelance writer.	Claire has been taking a career break to look after Zoe and see Olly into school while Nick has been involved in seeing through some clever bit of legislation for the Ministry of Justice when not catching crabs.

Peter and Rebeka bought a house in what they call Wimbledon, and the rest of us call ‘somewhere in South London’. They continue to jet off on glamorous holidays or for work, bringing Monopoly to the masses and caring for kidneys. Their appearance in Cornwall enabled us to capture a picture of ‘Three Mrs Griffins in a direct line’, an achievement last briefly possible nearly 130 years ago.

As you read this, we are facing our first Christmas as retired people, determined not to say that ‘we are busier than we were when we were working’.  We have many challenges: a mother to move to Truro; a cliff path to walk; some canoeing to do; more sailing (yesss!) and a proper holiday to take.

We leave you with a message of love and hope for the year ahead. There is always a warm welcome for you in Cornwall (if we are here).

Much love, Kate and Jonathan	Now, remind me, which of these is which; and which is whose?

If all of this does not satisfy you then there are even more photos here

One of us retired on Friday and is now coping with the shock of being able to make a list of things that need doing under various headings ranging from urgent a long way down to nice to have. 

The send-off was prolonged with several different parties. The climax was the last exit which turned into a party for all the Museum Volunteers and staff with some very pretty speeches and general silliness.

Two highlights: the 'silent' speech from the staff team which consisted of placards with the words:
So long and thanks for all the ... Fun ... Grammar lesson's (sic) ... Now nows ... Can do ... Love of bureaucracy ... Guffawing ... Opera ... LDC (Lemon drizzle cake as supplied by Mrs G) ... JG Tips (tea on Friday afternoons). Well, it is good to be remembered for something.

The other highlight was the re-naming of the sally port as the Griffin Door, complete with logo.

Now, back to that list.

The Selmeston Puzzle

One inherits a miscellaneous collection of papers from one's ancestors. Some, like birth certificates and carefully-catalogued photograph albums, are self explanatory. Others are not. This puzzle is in the second category.

In amongst my father's many papers were five items which clearly came to him from previous generations: three albums of cartes de visite, sadly not catalogued; an occasional book with various slightly mawkish bons mots and, inserted loosely into the occasional book was a small 5.5 inch x 3.5 inch booklet for the re-opening of Selmeston Church, Sussex, on 10 October 1867.

This puzzle concerns the service sheet and simply asks 'why'?

The occasional book contains a date of 1854 and a series of initials which places it pretty firmly in the Hodgson family of Yarborough, Lincolnshire, one of whom was a great-great grandfather, Henry Edwin Hodgson (1832 - 1866) who married Caroline Dunham (1833 - 1920). The Hodgsons were a farming family and Caroline was a local Yarborough girl.

A look at the Selmeston church website suggest that the church was pretty derelict prior to 1867 and was restored through the energy of the local priest William Parish (b1833 and lived in St Marylebone, London).

Quite by chance, we found ourselves in the next-door village this weekend and took time out to visit the church (just off the A27 east of Lewes, near Alfriston) and to meet the current priest and some of the congregation.

The church is charming with a number of delightful features including a 16th century inscribed tomb and a 17th century brass to a 'painefull preacher' (they may have meant 'painstaking').

We searched in vain amongst the Caldicotts, Mockfords and Mocketts. There was no sign anywhere of Hodgsons or Dunhams, or even a Farbridge. We were left with a blank.

Why would my family have, and have stored, this service sheet for an event with which, as far as one can tell, they had no connection at all?

The mystery continues. Unless you can help.

The Tinners' Way - part 5

The Boslow stone

A brilliant early May bank holiday and the company of two wonderful old friends encouraged us to finish the last section of our walk: and what a finish it was.

Parking where the track crosses the Pendeen road, we made our way once more up towards Carn Kenidjack, passing the inscribed Boslow stone with its cross and vague inscriptions.

From the top of the carn, the azure blue sea tempted us onwards but not before we had visited the Tregeseal stone circle, carefully counting its nineteen stones and performing suitable rites.

Approaching the end of our journey, we were faced with a series of tracks and minor roads with wonderful names like No Go Hill and Truthwall Lane, heading ever onwards towards the sea. Ancient Celtic field shapes lay all around us, their boundaries marked by massive stones no doubt put their by the various giants who inhabited this land in years gone by.

The Crowns mine engine house

Skirting Botallack, it was impossible to deny the lure of the Crowns Mine, perched on the cliff edge and looking much more secure than it did in the great storms. Half-remembered images from Hammond Innes' Killer Mine and memories of Folk at the Count House - Brenda Wooton and John the Fish - came to mind.

A picnic on Carn Kenidjack, overlooking Porth Ledden seemed a fitting end to our trek. Cape Cornwall lay in front of us with the Brisons offshore. In the distance, the Longships were dark spots in the blue and Wolf Rock could just be made out in the haze.

Above Porth Ledden

Below us was what has been described as 'the best-defended early harbour in Cornwall' with a cliff castle on both sides. If so, then this asks questions about the nature of the Tinners' Way itself. Was it all west-east traffic with tin being carried from the St Just area to the safer beaches of St Ives and Lelant, or was there a counter-flow to this little haven?

The four central Kenidjack holed stones

We made our way back up the Kenidjack valley, through Nancherrow and Tregeseal, briefly stopping to greet some charming local residents, before standing once more at Tregeseal stone circle.

We had missed the holed stones on the way down the hill and set off in what looked like the right direction. Ignoring the protective gorse, we eventually found the five holed stones: miniature versions of the Men-an-Tol, their purpose quite unclear. A modern hand was too large to pass through any of the holes. The only thing that can be said for them is that they broadly face south and are near a stone circle and several barrows. Could the holes have indicated something at mid-summer when the sun shone through the holes?

It was a short walk back to the car and the journey home, glowing with satisfaction at having completed the Tinners' Way, surely one of the most important trackways in Penwith, if only for the number and variety of monuments, ancient and industrial. It does not take much imagination to conjure up images of belching chimneys and the noise and bustle of mining in this area 150 years ago. And yet those miners seem to have respected the ancient stones that marked the routes they followed.

Nowhere is this more marked than around the Ding Dong mine where quoits, a stone circle, several standing stones and the Men-an-Tol have all survived apparently unscathed. The valley in Peru which contains the Urubamba river, the fortress of Ollyantaytambo and Machu Picchu was called the Sacred Valley by the Incas. If Cornwall has a similar valley then we had just walked through it: from Chun Castle to Kenidjack castle on the coast.

The Tinners' Way is highly recommended for anyone who wants to see Cornwall's wildness at its best and to contemplate thousands of years of history in the process.

A mere 6.9 miles in wonderful sunshine. There are more photos here and a map here.

The Tinners' Way - part 4

Carn Kenidjack

The surprise of a wonderful sunny Sunday encouraged us to make an early start to fill in a bit more of the Tinners' Way.

We started where we left off last time, at the foot of Carn Downs and headed towards Bosullow Trehyllys Iron Age settlement which is well worth a detour and a future visit. Excavated between 1925 - 1930 it is a wild version of Chysauster or Carn Euny with several very obvious houses and rooms. According to the Great Author, there may even be an above-ground fogou here but we searched in vain.

Chun Castle

The morning mist was clearing as we walked up the side of Chun hill to admire the castle: an Iron Age staging post or place or safe keeping for the tin en route from the Cape Cornwall area to St Ives or Marazion.

Having admired the fortifications and noted how the later barbican favoured the left-handed attacker, we crossed the short distance to Chun Quoit, the best-preserved in Penwith. From here, it was a short walk across Woon Gumpus common to the road. This bowl, like that around the Men-an-tol is filled with ancient remains.

Local residents

Crossing the road we greeted some unlikely Penwith residents who would be more at home in the High Andes, and admired a small barrow just off the main path which still had its cist intact.

From here we headed past the Boslow stone and out onto the moor. Although we should have been turning round, the lure of Carn Kenidjack was just too strong and we climbed this for our cup of coffee and snack. Where better could there be: a beautiful blue sky with a crisp sky, a blue sea dotted with white patches, St Just village nestling around its church, a stone circle in plain view and in the far distance, a white skirt around the Longships. But those joys are for a future walk.

Chun Quoit

We turned and headed back along the southern arm of the Tinners' Way, past the Boswens standing stone with it modern aircraft aerial, skirting the foot of Chun Castle and back to the meet the Madron at Bosullow. Seen from this direction, the main route to St Ives is obvious: straight on past the Men-an-tol towards the Men Scryfa.

We returned along the northern coast road - whoever painted the Gunnard's Head bright yellow should be made to re-paint it - once again marvelling at the Celtic field boundaries.

A mere 4.8 miles. The map is here and there are more pictures here.

Droppings

The Lego's gone, the Playmobil
Is cluttered safe away
And all the toys, those playful joys,
Must wait another day.

Our guests have gone, they're far away
They've left us on our own
With quiet rooms, dull afternoons,
We're empty, all alone.

But 'neath the sofa, on the rug
We find they've left some gear.
A sock or two, a Lego piece
And other items dear.

To pack these up and send them back
Is slamming the front door
On memories - that ghostly fizz -
Of guests that we adore.

Much better then to set aside
These relics of the week
Against that time, that happy time
They're back on Mylor creek.

The Tinner's Way - part 3

Men Scryfa with the Ding Dong mine
in the background

Another six months has passed and, on a bright sunny winter's day, we grabbed a welcome lull between storms, thunderstorms and high winds and set out to discover a few more miles of the Tinner's Way. This time we were 'walking backwards', unwinding ourselves as we had not quite made the road on our last visit.

We started just further on from the Men-an-tol studio and walked off across sodden ground along a path-turned-stream with the great 'sacred valley' on our right, following what was obviously once a drove road between two massive Cornish hedges. Below us, in the sunlight we could see the Men-an-tol itself - with some noisy visitors - the Ding Dong mine and the Men Scryfa. To our left and right there were bright blue lines of sea.

We followed the path to the Men Scryfa itself and paid homage to Ryalvran with a reading from the Great Work, describing his death. There is something wonderful about the commemoration of fight which took place in such a far-off corner of the kingdom nearly 1,500 years ago. It is fitting that the loser is remembered and we do not even know the name of the victor. Who would not fight to protect this wonderful landscape?

Watch Croft

Onwards up the hill northwards leaving the rocky outcrop of Carn Galver on the right, we turned left and climbed to the top of Watch Croft, Penwith's highest point at a lung-bursting, altitude-sickness-inspiring 252m (852ft); another of our High Spots of Cornwall. Here we sat down for a well-earned late sandwich before exploring the excitement that is the Watch Croft menhir.

The Pendeen lighthouse and coast twinkled in the sunlight, its mine chimneys peppering the cliff top like so many warning bollards. Within easy reach were three fogous and Chun Castle beckoned for our next outing.

There must be a path somewhere here

An easy downhill route took us back to a lane and so back to our car as the temperature began to drop and the sun looked as if it wanted to settle down on Scilly, just over the horizon.

A mere 2.7 miles. The map is here and there are more pictures here.

We could not resist the drive along one of the great roads of the country: the coast road to St Ives, twisting and turning past ancient farmsteads and fields, imagining D H Lawrence walking these roads.