TASTERS FROM WEST CORNWALL IN THE 20TH CENTURY
1. Penwith From the Sea: Reminiscences of a Fishery Officer. Glyn Richards
At times along our patrol, we stop and open the large hydraulic door in the stern
to launch our RIB, the auxiliary boat. With two fishery officers aboard, it can
intercept the various vessels, inspect their gear and catch. After centuries of
freedom, fishermen have objected strongly to this relatively recent policing of their
workplace, to being boarded, and to their catch and gear being inspected for any
contravention. It is understandable that they sometimes feel this way, and I can
relate especially to the older fishermen who have seen such large changes. To make
matters worse, our jursidiction in Cornish waters applied mainly to British Nationals
operating vessels from Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands, and
so at times anger, drawn from frustration, would be shown: ‘Why don’t you go and
chase the Spanish or French and leave us alone?’
2. A Migrant Worker from St. Just. Ron Hogg.
The treatment of the copper was a job that was given to women and boys. The copper
ore was first broken up by women known as balmaidens, then it was re-sorted and made
into fine gravel, after which it was ‘jigged’ or cleaned by shaking in a sieve under
water, a job given to boys. The balmaidens’ job was little different from forty
years earlier, when the Revd Buller described them as ‘females toiling, like slaves,
from morn to night, to gain a hard earned pittance’, and explained that while some
were forced to work because of poverty at home, others did so ‘to gratify their vanity,
and display their goodly figure in a costly dress on the approaching holiday’. Non-mining
people considered these women to be disreputable and there was a saying that the
language the balmaidens used was as black as their aprons were white. In fact the
balmaidens only wore their clean, starched white aprons for walking out or photographs.
Working with tin and copper ore was a messy business and their working costume consisted
of protective leg, arm and hand covering and a Hessian ‘towser’ or apron.
3. Zennor Farmers, Some Old Codgers. Jean Nankervis (Arthur Mann speaking – Ed.)
We used horses for ploughing and tilling the fields until 1960. We had our first
tractor in 1939 but used that for other work, like disc harrowing and pulling the
wagons. They didn’t plough so deep then as they do now. This is why the fields
didn’t get so weedy in those days; not like now when you get more weeds because of
tractors ploughing so deep.
All the artificial manure used was sown by hand. There were no fertilizer spreaders
when we came to Trewey. We had a pan with 2 handles with a piece of rope fastened
to each one and then looped around your neck. And we sewed the seed the same way.
You had to walk in a straight line at the same pace and throw out the seed, first
to one side and then the other, with exactly the same swing. If you went faster or
slower, or threw the seed further it would come up in stripes and all your neighbours
would see it. The seed mustn’t be thicker or thinner in any one place. In the spring
time you did a lot of it for days on end. Our neck and shoulders used to get rather
sore.
4. Corpus Christi Fair Ann Altree
In the early 1950s I used to go to Corpus-Christi Fair with my mother, father and
of course Grandpa, who was then 80 years old. As we walked from the end of Tolver
Road, each side was packed with stalls, fortune tellers and cheapjacks selling their
wares. Some people used to get food bargains from them, but others did not do so
well. At night the road was lit by the many lights on the stalls. When you entered
the gates of the Recreation Ground, it was full of people, stalls, rides and sideshows.
Situated around the perimeter were the showmen’s caravans; they were very elaborate.
I was lucky to go inside one of these in Redruth; it was beautiful.
In front of the caravans were the sideshows. Like my grandfather, I was not keen
on the rides but loved the stalls and sideshows. I remember going into the Hall of
Mirrors; in some you looked very short and fat while the next mirror you looked into
you might be very tall and then everyone had a good laugh as you looked at yourself
and other people. After this, we would go and see the Snake Lady, who sat in the
centre of the tent in a large glass box, with the snakes – which were slithering
all over her body.
5. A Woman’s Place? Madron Village Life 1918-1958 Jenny Dearlove
By 1939 … there were over 5,000 Womens’ Institutes in England and Wales, offering
members the chance to participate in country rallies, produce markets, music and
drama and above all to learn a surprising range of useful skills to a high standard.
During World War II, WIs were particularly busy with their famous jam-making as well
as with other schemes of salvaging waste paper, scrap metal, rags and bones; they
also helped in the collection of plants for drugs (e.g. deadly nightshade, foxgloves,
nettles, dandelion roots, broom, burdock, elder, rosehips and herbs), the rearing
of rabbits and pigs for meat, and in collecting moleskins and live frogs. The Fruit
Preservation Scheme produced 36 tons (80,640 lbs) of jam from waste fruit in Cornwall
alone, though it was noted that some institutes were more diligent than others; Madron
WI filled ‘only’ 800 jars!.
‘Make do and Mend’ was the catchphrase as all shop-bought articles were rationed.
WIs were encouraged to set up children’s shoe – and clothing – exchanges to save
clothing coupons; alternatively clothes could be made from worn adult garments or
you could ‘combine two worn garments to make something fresh, and bring old-fashioned
clothes up to date’. War meant privation and invention.
6. Wheal Betsy Cottage: An Arts & Crafts House in Newlyn Pamela Lomax
It was on Chywoone Hill that the artist Thomas Cooper Gotch and his wife Caroline
Burland Yates built Wheal Betsy in 1910. Although almost invisible from the hill,
Wheal Betsy is situated in a commanding position with a bird’s eye view of the bustling
and busy fishing port of Newlyn and panoramic views of St Michael’s Mount and Mount’s
Bay. On that first visit in 1996 we turned sharp right near the top of the hill,
past the garage and right again into the forecourt of the house. This small forecourt
is dominated by the east-facing porch of the house which welcomes the rising sun
as well as its visitors; in fact the grey granite house with slate-hung elevations
and horizontal white-painted casement windows made of many panes of leaded glass
stands squarely on the four compass points. The most dramatic feature of Wheal Betsy
is its broad overhanging eaves and hipped random slate roof, broken by the two tall
brick chimney stacks that run straight up and out half way down the slope of the
roof. Originally they would have been covered in roughcast with lead cresting and
dumpy louvered chimney pots fitted with a variety of cowls and deflectors to improve
the draw.
Wheat Betsy was built in the Arts and Crafts style of the early part of the short-lived
international movement that started in England and is associated with the beginnings
of Modernism and twentieth century values. Its wide influence included the design
of domestic buildings and their interiors. In architecture it was a reaction to the
ugliness of the industrial revolution and it sought to create beautiful houses through
craftsmanship, traditional building methods and the use of natural materials.
7. Early Motoring in West Penwith Margaret Perry
… S. Hicks & Son of Truro claim to have sold the first motor-car in Cornwall in May
1900. Samuel Hicks took over an established coach-building firm in River Street
in 1876 and the firm continued in business until 1976. They had started dealing in
Humber bicycles when cycling became popular and when Humber pioneered the manufacture
of motorised vehicles Samuel Hicks placed his first order for a car with that firm:
the Humber Phaeton 3 ½ hp took two and a half days to complete the 270 mile journey
from Coventry to Truro, William Hicks having travelled to Coventry to accompany the
engineer delivering the car. He taught William to drive during the journey, and in
his turn, William taught the purchaser of the car, a Mr Powell.
Following the arrival of the motor-car garages sprang up like mushrooms. At first
they had a number of descriptive names including motor stable or shed, but gradually
the term ‘garage’ was used to describe a place where cars were kept. In time the
term became used to describe the whole package, the workshop aspect and the hiring
and sale of cars. These early garages developed from other businesses: posting establishments,
blacksmiths, cycle shops and coach builders.
