Some of you will need to read what I’m about to tell you with your hands over your eyes. It’s shameful to admit in these parts, although everyone from the inside can tell straight away in any case, but the terrible truth I have to confess is that I’m not Cornish. Nor are my parents, and neither were their parents. My children were both born in Cornwall, but I’m not certain whether either of them believe they’re truthfully Cornish, their mother originally coming from Lancashire. I’ve lived here since I was nine years old, and while I’m generally accepted as being “local,” there are still those who regard me suspiciously and assume I’m from London or somewhere; “London or somewhere” being a cover all for anywhere east of Exeter. People from “London or somewhere,” often tell me I sound like a Westcountry boy, while people from Cornwall usually assume I’m from “London or somewhere.” I’ve never lived in London, nor have I spent more than a couple of consecutive nights there at any time in my life before. People who can trace their lineage back through the generations of the far flung home that clings reluctantly by a short thread of land to the rest of the kingdom hold their Cornish nationality with a warm and loving pride. Try telling a Cornishman he’s English and you might get a funny look in response. My Dad was born in neighbouring Devon, but that’s generally considered to be one step away from being a convicted criminal in these parts.
Ali on the other hand is Cornish. Her elderly parents are both as Cornish as you like and so were their parents. Her paternal grandfather was a tin miner at East Pool Mine, now a National Trust property at the back of the Morrison’s car park. You can’t get more Cornish than that (I don’t mean Morrison’s car park). In all of her sixty years she has never lived more than about three miles away from Redruth. We still have dreams of moving down to Portugal for a few years to escape the long, wet winters and the creaking joints as we get older, but other than that she’d never live anywhere else. It wouldn’t even cross her mind to. One morning while we were away in the New Forest I returned to the van to find her, eyes moistened, cheeks red and watching a performance of “Cornwall My Home” on her phone. We'd only been across the border for five days.
I remember school trips to other parts of the country. My Dad was a teacher and regularly led groups of ten and eleven year olds on boating expeditions to the Norfolk Broads on the other side of the country. I went with them once or twice, always amazed at the open mouthed expressions on the faces of some of those youngsters as we crossed the Tamar and headed into the suburbs of Plymouth. Many of them had never been this far before, never visited a big city with so many houses filling the horizon; in fact a number of them hadn’t even seen the other side of Truro, just a handful of miles from the village they lived in. Some people say you don’t need to go anywhere else when you live in Cornwall, but I disagree. We live in a fantastic place, but it’s not the only fantastic place – your own photos prove that. The Norfolk Broads are pretty special too for that matter. Good photography for us togs in East Anglia too with those huge skies and lonely windmills.
A few weeks ago on a Monday morning I decided that a trip to Holywell Bay was long overdue. Lee and I had stood here in the drizzle for an hour in February before giving up and going home early, and apart from that I hadn’t visited since the previous summer. It’s a beach that always asks me when I arrive “Why don’t you come here more often? I’ve got huge rolling dunes, a river running across the sand, a big tidal range that offers countless patterns on the beach at low water, and I’ve got a pair of matching sea stacks that beg to be photographed. I think I’ve laid on a pretty good bounty for you seascape togs. What more do you want?” “Well, a few less people wandering around, leaving footprints everywhere and generally getting in the way,” is my usual response, but it’s a pretty lame one and really just a matter of timing and placement. It’s a fantastic beach. I really should spend more time here.
Ali, it transpired, Cornish through and through had never been here at all. “What. Never?” I asked incredulously as I drove the van along the Newquay road towards the turn off. “I don’t think so. I’ll know for sure when we get there. Mum and Dad weren’t bothered about the beach when we were kids. They used to take us to Porthtowan and then Dad would go home and come back to collect us later.” Her father is famously oblivious to the beauty of the natural word. I always ask her what “Fither” would say if he were faced by the beautiful vista we’ve just arrived at on our adventures. “Nothing to see here,” she returns with a flawless impression based on a lifetime of observation. Stand him on top of a lonely mountain in the Western Highlands on a clear day and he’d complain that he couldn’t see anything interesting to look at. He is the one person you'd believe really wasn't joking if you were standing with him at the summit of the Pap of Glencoe and he were to say "they want to put a car park up here with a café and toilets over there in the corner." We often say that in jest as a form of compliment to the beauty of a location, but he'd actually mean it. I often scratch my head in confusion. It takes all sorts.
I was still scratching my head after lunch when we marched over the dunes and Ali looked at the sea stacks for the first time. “Nope. Not been here before.” “But you’ve been an adult for more than forty years; you could have come here yourself. It’s only fifteen miles from home.” She shrugged, but at the same time agreed it was somewhere we’d come to again. “I’ve been to Crantock,” she offered as if it were some form of mitigation. We walked up onto the headland and traced the coastal path to Polly Joke, where we paddled at the edge of the cold sea before making the circle back over the common towards the dunes. It had been an excellent afternoon, and the step count requirement had been more than fulfilled.
Later on, after a cup of tea back at the van I pulled the camera bag and tripod from the cab and headed back towards the beach. The sky was beginning to clear and the tide was halfway out, each minute revealing a little more of the perfect untouched sand. More than a few visitors from “London or somewhere” were in attendance. “Are you local? Can you tell me where the Holy Well is?” asked a man who seemed at least to be aware of the notion of the golden hour. “Over that way,” I pointed vaguely. “But you can only access it at low tide.” In truth I realised I wasn’t absolutely certain where it was; I was just here to chase the light. The Holy Well was surely only for tourists and Poldark fans wasn’t it?
Gradually the light shifted and a diffused sun bathed the sky in soft yellow, as Holywell Bay reminded me why I almost always leave with a smile on my face. In fact the only time I didn’t come away with a shot worth sharing was on that dreary February afternoon when we repaired to the van for mugs of hot chocolate. Still I struggled to come to terms with the notion that this was Ali’s first ever visit here, despite living within half an hour’s drive for all of her life. And then I remembered all those places on the map that I’ve not been to; especially on the Lizard and the Roseland, so close to Falmouth where I grew up and raised a family of my own. All nearby, yet all still unexplored. It’s so easy to overlook the places on your doorstep, even when they’re as gobsmackingly beautiful as the ones near where we live. A good job we’ve got time on our hands to make some amends then.
