This Cornish thing…

There are a dozen posts I need to write and a zillion emails to reply to and a whole book to edit and three and a half more to write and – OH STOP IT BRAIN!

Happy New Year!

I'm a little bit frazzled. This loss of routine is taking its toll, but I'm not here to moan, or in fact write any of the posts I've had knocking around in my head for weeks. I'm here to talk about Cornwall. Why? Because I just have to tell you about what it means to me.

It's because I wrote a Split Worlds story today set in a Cornish tin mine, Dolcoath, a couple of miles away from where I grew up and I felt moved to write more about it here. In researching the details for the story, I've reignited my homesickness, and remembered just how important that place is to me. I felt like sharing that with you, I hope you don't mind.

Once upon a time in the far south west of England

I was born just outside a tiny fishing village in the far south west of Cornwall, not a huge distance away from Land's End. I lived in Helston for the first five years, then moved to Camborne, both towns heavily influenced by Cornwall's mining history.

I saw the ruined engine houses every day, Camborne in particular is steeped in mining and when I was at primary school the last working mine in Cornwall, South Crofty, was still open there. My best friend's father worked down in the pit there and I remember seeing him come home with that black dust worked so deep under his nails he'd never get them clean again.

My primary school had four "houses" named after local mines: South Crofty, Wheal Jane, Dolcoath and Cook's Kitchen (which was blue and the best!) and one of my brightest primary school memories was a history trip around our own town learning about Richard Trevithick's achievements (born just outside Camborne and schooled there) and the stories behind the town's civic buildings. There's a statue of Trevithick outside of Camborne Library, one of the most important places in my early childhood, and I remember standing and gazing up at him.

Whilst my family has a long tradition of military service and no direct connection to mining, learning so much about it at school and seeing it all around me as I grew up gave me a deep respect for the miners, and a love of the county's history.

The sea, the sea!

Almost all my childhood summers were spent at the coast, it was ten minutes away by car. What a rich place to grow an imagination. Countless things to find and excavate in rock pools and sand dunes, the sea to fear and love in equal measure, to swim in on the hottest days and admire on the stormiest from a safe distance.

And the cliffs… it's the cliffs I miss the most. How many hours of my life have I spent on top of one, gazing out over the endless sea? When I feel troubled, and can remember to do so, closing my eyes and imagining being back there, the eternal granite solid beneath my feet, the raging waves battering at the base of the cliffs, makes me feel grounded.

© Copyright David Hawgood and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence

I love Cornwall's strength. The way it hunkers down and weathers all the storms the Atlantic throws at it. You see it in the trees on clifftop roads, you see it in the squat granite walled cottages. The cottage in the story "The Unwoven Heart" in From Dark Places is one of these. Its people are strong and have survived incredible hardships. I'd allude to the strength of granite here, if it wasn't such an awful cliché.

Cornish myths and legends

I sometimes wonder if my imagination would be poorer had I grown up elsewhere. There are so many legends that delighted me as a child – and still do actually. One of my favourites was the explanation of the huge boulders at the top of Carn Brea where we used to walk a lot. Legend speaks of a giant of Carn Brea who had a falling out with the giant of St Agnes, the rocks are the evidence of their throwing stones at each other as they argued. Even though I knew about ice age deposits, I could see those giants so clearly as I stood on top of the boulders.

Another favourite of mine is the stone at St Michael's Mount (a truly magical place). If you lie against it and press an ear to the rock, you can hear the giant's heartbeat who is imprisoned beneath it. Then there's Tregeagle and Dozmary pool, the Buccas and the fishermen, and the Knockers in the mines. Those last two were woven into the latest Split Worlds story. You can read it here if you like, I hope I've done the mining life some justice in it.