After seeing 'the poppies' at The Tower of London, I wrote this poem - A'Every Last One of Them'
Every Last One of Them
by
Anne Forrest
Yes, there were queues, but as I advanced, I knew what was around the corner, over the top; I knew I was heading home that night.
And when I saw the one-off tribute of red and red and red, I gasped at that awful, glorious sight.
The great Tower of London, its ruins, its moat – a most fitting host to show off our dead.
I found no hardship in the queue. Just prosperous people anxious to see their benefactors standing in the bloody sea, some lying in the shallows…
Every last one of them: all eight-hundred-and-eighty-eight thousand, two-hundred-and-forty-six, in waves of crimson.
Looking up at me, listening to the many tongues, the poppies watch the elderly, the young, the able footed, the feeble minded.
All of us they watched.
I felt no discomfort in the queue. I was cool under the grey sky, then warm as the sun shone down hard on the flowers, petals glinting, and in the breeze, swaying gently. Quiet, but for thousands of soft sounds from the grateful. And the click of picture takers.
From every angle - from between the heads of men, of women, of little children, of teenagers, of veterans, I could see the poppies flowing; I could see the blood-red cascade falling into the moat.
In my queue I stood and saw the shouldered youngsters: most will never know of indescribable home-sickness, of unimaginable fear and noise, of sodden sand-bags and trenches, of barbed wire fences: of rotting toes…
Most will not know of killing a fellow-man in the name of War, in the name Peace.
It was a two-way exchange – the knowing looking down, the puzzled gazing up.
Looking through the ornate Tower Bridge wall, it was all there as I watched. And the poppies watched back unblinking. Later they would glow in the night’s illumination.
There they lay, the dead heroes – this time artificially arranged.
And there they will stay awhile.
Reminding us.
Lest we forget.
__________
© Anne Forrest Nov 7th 2014
Every Last One of Them
by
Anne Forrest
Yes, there were queues, but as I advanced, I knew what was around the corner, over the top; I knew I was heading home that night.
And when I saw the one-off tribute of red and red and red, I gasped at that awful, glorious sight.
The great Tower of London, its ruins, its moat – a most fitting host to show off our dead.
I found no hardship in the queue. Just prosperous people anxious to see their benefactors standing in the bloody sea, some lying in the shallows…
Every last one of them: all eight-hundred-and-eighty-eight thousand, two-hundred-and-forty-six, in waves of crimson.
Looking up at me, listening to the many tongues, the poppies watch the elderly, the young, the able footed, the feeble minded.
All of us they watched.
I felt no discomfort in the queue. I was cool under the grey sky, then warm as the sun shone down hard on the flowers, petals glinting, and in the breeze, swaying gently. Quiet, but for thousands of soft sounds from the grateful. And the click of picture takers.
From every angle - from between the heads of men, of women, of little children, of teenagers, of veterans, I could see the poppies flowing; I could see the blood-red cascade falling into the moat.
In my queue I stood and saw the shouldered youngsters: most will never know of indescribable home-sickness, of unimaginable fear and noise, of sodden sand-bags and trenches, of barbed wire fences: of rotting toes…
Most will not know of killing a fellow-man in the name of War, in the name Peace.
It was a two-way exchange – the knowing looking down, the puzzled gazing up.
Looking through the ornate Tower Bridge wall, it was all there as I watched. And the poppies watched back unblinking. Later they would glow in the night’s illumination.
There they lay, the dead heroes – this time artificially arranged.
And there they will stay awhile.
Reminding us.
Lest we forget.
__________
© Anne Forrest Nov 7th 2014
'Two Minutes' the winning poem in the North Wales heat, Lamorna Childhood Memories, and
Short extract from Timothy Crumble.
Short extract from Timothy Crumble.
My entry in the John Tripp Award for the Spoken Word copyright Anne Forrest
Two Minutes
Black coats and poppies,
bloodspecks in the November gloom -
dull-bright;
Dukes and Government ram-rod stiff.
Grateful applause fired at the sight of heroes;
even the infants clap
and follow with puzzled eyes
the chair-wheeled
dressed for battle - poor sods.
The band makes its goose-pimple music
rousing and raking up the memories
to catch like black fear in the throat -
choking on sandy dust and dank clay.
So scared
as the symbols clash -
"Mam!"
Alive with names (easy to carve, after),
phoenix-like from its grand, blood carpet of
wreaths, blazing and
beconing from city to city
and to a village green…
No procession here of Gentlemen and Boys -
No high-held cross to lead
the Reverend Pugh in his funereal voice.
Intoning; exhorting in English,
and The Lord's Prayer
in Welsh.
Silence; millions of minutes by two,
billions of greying thoughts colour the fall of
petals floating and drifting
down, down.
Everything stops, except the stream
running and chattering like gunfire
in the quiet.
Do they know that we think of them for
two minutes?
They who will not grow old - do they know?
From their boneyard
can they feel the glow from
the red flower?
Breathing again, watching her laboured ritual,
I wonder who will place poppies for Iolo
and Huw
when Mrs Edwards has gone
*
Copyright Anne Forrest
____________________________________________________________________
Two Minutes
Black coats and poppies,
bloodspecks in the November gloom -
dull-bright;
Dukes and Government ram-rod stiff.
Grateful applause fired at the sight of heroes;
even the infants clap
and follow with puzzled eyes
the chair-wheeled
dressed for battle - poor sods.
The band makes its goose-pimple music
rousing and raking up the memories
to catch like black fear in the throat -
choking on sandy dust and dank clay.
So scared
as the symbols clash -
"Mam!"
Alive with names (easy to carve, after),
phoenix-like from its grand, blood carpet of
wreaths, blazing and
beconing from city to city
and to a village green…
No procession here of Gentlemen and Boys -
No high-held cross to lead
the Reverend Pugh in his funereal voice.
Intoning; exhorting in English,
and The Lord's Prayer
in Welsh.
Silence; millions of minutes by two,
billions of greying thoughts colour the fall of
petals floating and drifting
down, down.
Everything stops, except the stream
running and chattering like gunfire
in the quiet.
Do they know that we think of them for
two minutes?
They who will not grow old - do they know?
From their boneyard
can they feel the glow from
the red flower?
Breathing again, watching her laboured ritual,
I wonder who will place poppies for Iolo
and Huw
when Mrs Edwards has gone
*
Copyright Anne Forrest
____________________________________________________________________
The Lamorna Inn – The Wink and (a small part of ) Childhood Memories in Lamorna
Landlords of The Wink c1880s: The Williams’ (with daughter, Suzie, later Suzie Mitchell), Licensee Mr John Ley (1901)Mr & Mrs Nick Jory (about 1920s-30s), Mr & Mrs Eddy with daughters, Marjory and Babs (who came from South Africa and eventually returned there), Morgan & Penny Humphrey( mid1930s/40s), Tom snr & Emily Bailey (1940s/50s), Tommy jnr & Hilda Bailey(1950s/60s), Jack & Peggy Hill(1960s/70s), Bob & Di Drennan (1970-2013), Lindsey Brooks & Lee Saiche (2013- ).
Judy Russell née Humphrey talked to Anne Forrest 2014. Judy had many photographs which helped to illustrate the idyllic childhood spent in Lamorna. Her friend of many years, Ann Tucker née Bailey also contributed. Both their parents and Ann’s grandparents were landlords of the Wink during the 1930s/60s.
Anne Forrest quotes: “I apologise for any faults in recording these memories, and for any unacknowledged ‘borrowing’.” Quote borrowed from the booklet, ‘Mousehole’ 1970, by Nettie M. Pender.
*
Penny Law, a London fashion designer, and her brother, the artist, Denys Law, had holidayed with their mother, May (Maisie), also a painter, in Lamorna since they were children, sometime camping up at Castellack. When Penny was a young woman staying in the Green Bungalow near My Rosary, she had occasion to walk up to the Lamorna Inn (the Wink) and beg some hot water: she was cold and needed a hot-water bottle for her bed. The landlord, Morgan Humphrey was pleased to oblige with the water required, and as things took their course, in 1936 they became married! Morgan Humphrey had been in the Lamorna Inn since the Eddy’s left for South Africa. The Eddy’s took over after the death of Mr Nick Jory in 1932 (before the Jory’s time a Mr John Ley was the licensee, and before that, Mr & Mrs Williams and their daughter, Suzie, later Suzie Mitchell, reigned).
It was Good Friday, 15th April 1938. The Lamorna Wink was busy with regulars and walkers who had trodden the paths to Lamorna in the Good Friday age-old tradition: the landlord, Morgan Humphrey behind the bar suddenly announced, ‘I’ve just had the news – my wife’s had twin daughters, help yourselves!’ and sped off to Penzance where is wife, Penny, had given birth to twin girls. Unfortunately only one infant survived, three-and-a-half-pound, Judy, who was brought home to live in the Wink with her parents: her sister, Susan was born three years later.
The Wink had a six-day opening licence, closed on a Sunday. Judy Humphrey grew up in the Wink for the first part of her life, after which, until she was about fifteen, she lived in Little Aubawn (now Trenant) and Rose Cotage next door to Nantewas, Lamorna. Her Uncle Denys and Aunt Joyce were regular visitors, Joyce often helping behind the bar: eventually Denys Law moved to Lamorna with his second wife, Ann, daughter Pebby, and Charles; his small Nantewas studio, was across the lane from the Wink, where he painted and sold his work. Judy remembered, ‘In 1947 we had a very bad winter, we were snowed-in and Uncle Denys was the only person in Lamorna to have chains on his car, so did everybody’s shopping for them…’ ‘My Uncle Denys was a lovely man; he was a wonderful photographer as well as a good painter, our families spent lots of time together.’ ‘In her past life, my mother was a fashion designer and my Aunt Jackie was a cutter-outer. My sister and I had lovely smocked summer dresses, swim suits made of parachute material, and once, had winter coats made from army blankets.’
In the early 1940s, Morgan Humphrey suffered a back injury and was paralysed for life. Judy explained, ‘My father missed his step one night in the Cove coming off coastguard duty; recuperating, he lay outside The Wink with us in the sunshine, reclining in a bed.’
As a young child, Judy played on the Wink forefront and in the garden at the back; as she grew older the whole of the Lamorna valley from the woods to the Cove became her playground: ‘We had the whole of Lamorna to play in, few places were fenced off,’ said Judy, ‘As children, we wandered all over the valley, visiting all and sundry, resulting in us getting to know many of our interesting, older Lamorna neighbours, including some of the artists. We watched them work all over the valley – Lamorna Birch painting on the beach and rocks… ’ May (Maisie) Law, Judy’s grandmother and friend of Mrs Birch, had often stayed at Flagstaff Cottage with the Birch’s. When she was a little girl, Lamorna Birch presented Judy with three miniatures for her dolls’ house – Birch’s miniatures also hang in Queen Mary’s Dolls House. Judy’s watercolours are of local scenes with St Michael’s Mount in the background. The two smaller ones being 2”x1¾” and the largest, 3”x2”.
In the mid 1940s, Monica Baldwin, niece of Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), thrice Prime Minister of the UK, came to live in Lamorna. Miss Baldwin had recently withdrawn from her enclosed Order and convent life after twenty-eight years: ‘She didn’t know what stockings were, and knew nothing of the modern world!’ said Judy. The ex-nun found The Magazine, in Lamorna, and Judy Humphrey, who was ‘in and out of people’s homes in the valley’, found Miss Baldwin: Judy often spent more time with adults than with children. She regularly visited Miss Baldwin at The Magazine, then a one-up one-down dwelling at the Cove. As a child, Judy was intrigued by the ground floor room which, instead of being wallpapered, was hung in silky taffeta, the design on which showed a pretty, bluebell wood. Miss Baldwin explained and pointed out that fairies lived in this bluebell wood, and that out at sea from the Cove, Carn Dhu was their fairy castle. One time, the fairies left for Judy, a tiny, silver spoon; another time, a small snuff-box. Judy said: ‘Miss Baldwin could be seen walking around Lamorna with her cat, Wizzy-Boo, wrapped about her neck.’
When Monica Baldwin left Lamorna, Frankie Freeth and her father moved into The Magazine and enlarged it. Judy said: ‘Frankie and her father taught me to swim properly.’ ‘They had an Apricot Poodle who had seven pups.’ The Freeths moved later to Oriental Cottage and once, jackdaws built a nest in the chimney and caused a fire in the house: ‘I had to climb up and help clear it’, Judy said, ‘It was a bad fire, and Frankie nearly died.’
Judy’s bosom friend was Ann Bailey, who lived with her parents at The Hut (to the right of The Wink), after Tom snr and Emily moved to The Wink. ‘You can imagine the fun we had. Once we followed the artist, Miss Moss (Marlowe Moss) who always dressed like a little jockey - she was so small, with an Eton Crop haircut, and a pulled-down pork-pie hat, to the cove where she went swimming. We wanted to see if she had breasts…she did, right down to here…! She was a lovely person, was so nice to us children, never told us off when Ann and Susan crept up and filched biscuits from her studio kitchen.’
Ann said she and Susan remembered pinching grapes from Mr Sampson Hosking, and because they had ruined most of the bunches by taking a few grapes from each, had to pay 2/6d to compensate. They spoke about Miss Minnie Strick (who used to ring out the Communion bell at the Church Day School), and how they laid a beautifully tied posy of wild flowers on her doorstep attached to a long piece of string. When Miss Strick opened the door to their knocking and bent to pick it up, the hiding pair tugged the string and the flowers shot away…
‘I wasn’t too keen on being asked to help with the washing-up’ Judy confessed, ‘I often used to say I needed to go to the toilet, which was up the garden, and said I would take the Bible with me to read… once ensconced I sat day-dreaming out of the open door, and from my throne, sometimes saw Estelle Hosking picking flowers on the distant slope…’
‘Then there were the Woodcutters as we called them, they were forestry workers - tree fellers: two or three families, hippies, I suppose you would’ve called them. They were pacifists, vegetarians and nudists. Sid and Jean Rushton built their wooden hut among the bracken above Carn Barges, their children were called Heath, Heather and Rain.’ Another couple, Ray and Biddy Perry (later, artist, Biddy Pickard) lived with their children, ‘Niggy’, Greta and Peter in a log-cabin near the old football field. The Woodcutters swam in privacy by the large rock round towards Carn Dhu, ‘We call it Woodcutter’s Rock to this day.’
Both Judy and Ann remembered familiar names and the children they shared Lamorna with: the Ladners, Smalls, Hoskings, Mitchells, Gardiners, Paynes, the Penrose and Prisk family, to mention a few. Wandering over the rocks and exploring the coast paths to the east and west of the Cove made for a happy playtime. ‘At the Cove, we swam and dived off the quay, using the granite blocks jutting out at different levels, moving up a block as we got bigger!’ ‘Just above the quay where the track led to the coastguard hut, the wall formed a triangular shape and there lodged large stones and boulders embedded in sand, ‘That’s where we played ‘gardens’, planting flowers and shells in the sandy soil… We also played in the rock pools around the cliffs towards Carn Barges’ When dusk fell and it was time to go home, Lamorna children had to be called from all corners of the valley, Judy and Ann explained: ‘Our mothers had an individual way of calling us in – a horn for one family, a bell for another; the Baileys blew a hooter and the Ladners, a whistle! One by one we dispersed homewards to the sound of ‘our call’’
‘To a child’s mind, we both felt that the valley seemed to be split in two, ‘them and us’, the children getting together though at the Youth Club and when there was a carnival or fancy dress…’ Judy said, ‘My mother arranged many tea parties for us children and the evacuees…’ ‘There wasn’t a lot for youngsters to do in the valley, so my mother then started a Youth Club in her two-up two-down Rose Cottage, it became so popular that a Nissan Hut was built among the trees, near the Church Room (now Village Hall) to host it, and other village events. ‘The Hut cost money so we all saved up to pay for it, someone collected it from Troon, members built it – it had red Marley tiles. We held whist drives, euchre drives, beetle drives, all sorts – people came from miles away…’ Pen Humphrey was also instrumental in getting the school bus to come to Lamorna to pick up the children: ‘Previously, we had to walk up Rocky Lane to catch it.’
Judy and Ann said Lamorna was always ahead of its time – it attracted bohemians – but like many other places, had regular visitors of necessity: the onion seller, knife sharpener, the peddler-man, the scrap-man, Joe Pollard with his horse’n’cart selling vegetables. Tramps came, and an organ grinder...
‘There’s something very unlucky about Lamorna…’ they said. ‘Plenty of unfortunate things happened here…’ They spoke of one house ‘near the turn’ and the legend that the male of that house always lost his life at sea…. Ann remembered once that a tragedy happened up at Borah Chapel resulting in a local man’s death: ‘My grandfather was a bearer at the funeral – after the burial he came out of the cemetery and dropped dead, himself!! I’ll never forget it – it was January 4th, my ninth birthday…’
Judy remarked, ‘Good Friday was always a reminder of the day I was born in 1938. As the years went on, my memory of Good Fridays was one of hoards of people milling about the place.’ Ann Bailey said she remembered it as a day ‘when folk came to Lamorna to pick daffodils and enjoy a saffron bun tea… there was a cottage at the Cove which served Teas, it was painted blue, it had blue tables, cloths and chairs outside, and the toilet door was painted blue, too…’
In 1945, when she was eight years old, Judy’s father, Morgan, died and her mother eventually left the Wink but stayed in Lamorna. ‘We lived in Little Aubawn, swapping homes with Tom snr and Emily Bailey who moved to the Wink after us.’ Just before Christmas in 1953, Judy’s widowed mother, Pen, and her two teenage daughters, Judy and Susan, left Lamorna to live in Penzance.
Ann Bailey said: ‘Before my parents, Tommy and Hilda became landlords at The Wink (they took over after my grandparents Tom snr and Emily left), my father, Tommy used to grow flowers on the cliffs; he’d pick them and trawl them up in a wheelbarrow. The flowers were sent by train to Covent Garden.’ Ann’s father, Tommy Bailey was a market gardener at Boskenna and taught Derek Tangye at Minack how to bunch violets. Her mother, Hilda, worked for Jeannie Tangye in the house – ‘they were lovely people’, she said. ‘Once my parents were installed at The Wink, my father started the camping in the garden there.’ During her time in Lamorna, Ann Bailey lived in the now demolished 3-roomed wooden building on the right of The Wink. Ann moved to live in Newlyn but worked behind the bar at The Lamorna Wink for many years including the time that Bob and Di Drennan were landlords.
In 1981 after Denys Law died, his studio, Nantewas, was empty. Ann arranged to move in temporarily as she’d decided to let her Newlyn house and decamp to Lamorna. She said, ‘I white-washed the walls, including the spiders and their webs. I worked and ate at The Wink, and went to Lily Cottage to the Gardiners, where Keith and Christine allowed me to wash and bathe.’
__________
Anne Forrest 2014
Landlords of The Wink c1880s: The Williams’ (with daughter, Suzie, later Suzie Mitchell), Licensee Mr John Ley (1901)Mr & Mrs Nick Jory (about 1920s-30s), Mr & Mrs Eddy with daughters, Marjory and Babs (who came from South Africa and eventually returned there), Morgan & Penny Humphrey( mid1930s/40s), Tom snr & Emily Bailey (1940s/50s), Tommy jnr & Hilda Bailey(1950s/60s), Jack & Peggy Hill(1960s/70s), Bob & Di Drennan (1970-2013), Lindsey Brooks & Lee Saiche (2013- ).
Judy Russell née Humphrey talked to Anne Forrest 2014. Judy had many photographs which helped to illustrate the idyllic childhood spent in Lamorna. Her friend of many years, Ann Tucker née Bailey also contributed. Both their parents and Ann’s grandparents were landlords of the Wink during the 1930s/60s.
Anne Forrest quotes: “I apologise for any faults in recording these memories, and for any unacknowledged ‘borrowing’.” Quote borrowed from the booklet, ‘Mousehole’ 1970, by Nettie M. Pender.
*
Penny Law, a London fashion designer, and her brother, the artist, Denys Law, had holidayed with their mother, May (Maisie), also a painter, in Lamorna since they were children, sometime camping up at Castellack. When Penny was a young woman staying in the Green Bungalow near My Rosary, she had occasion to walk up to the Lamorna Inn (the Wink) and beg some hot water: she was cold and needed a hot-water bottle for her bed. The landlord, Morgan Humphrey was pleased to oblige with the water required, and as things took their course, in 1936 they became married! Morgan Humphrey had been in the Lamorna Inn since the Eddy’s left for South Africa. The Eddy’s took over after the death of Mr Nick Jory in 1932 (before the Jory’s time a Mr John Ley was the licensee, and before that, Mr & Mrs Williams and their daughter, Suzie, later Suzie Mitchell, reigned).
It was Good Friday, 15th April 1938. The Lamorna Wink was busy with regulars and walkers who had trodden the paths to Lamorna in the Good Friday age-old tradition: the landlord, Morgan Humphrey behind the bar suddenly announced, ‘I’ve just had the news – my wife’s had twin daughters, help yourselves!’ and sped off to Penzance where is wife, Penny, had given birth to twin girls. Unfortunately only one infant survived, three-and-a-half-pound, Judy, who was brought home to live in the Wink with her parents: her sister, Susan was born three years later.
The Wink had a six-day opening licence, closed on a Sunday. Judy Humphrey grew up in the Wink for the first part of her life, after which, until she was about fifteen, she lived in Little Aubawn (now Trenant) and Rose Cotage next door to Nantewas, Lamorna. Her Uncle Denys and Aunt Joyce were regular visitors, Joyce often helping behind the bar: eventually Denys Law moved to Lamorna with his second wife, Ann, daughter Pebby, and Charles; his small Nantewas studio, was across the lane from the Wink, where he painted and sold his work. Judy remembered, ‘In 1947 we had a very bad winter, we were snowed-in and Uncle Denys was the only person in Lamorna to have chains on his car, so did everybody’s shopping for them…’ ‘My Uncle Denys was a lovely man; he was a wonderful photographer as well as a good painter, our families spent lots of time together.’ ‘In her past life, my mother was a fashion designer and my Aunt Jackie was a cutter-outer. My sister and I had lovely smocked summer dresses, swim suits made of parachute material, and once, had winter coats made from army blankets.’
In the early 1940s, Morgan Humphrey suffered a back injury and was paralysed for life. Judy explained, ‘My father missed his step one night in the Cove coming off coastguard duty; recuperating, he lay outside The Wink with us in the sunshine, reclining in a bed.’
As a young child, Judy played on the Wink forefront and in the garden at the back; as she grew older the whole of the Lamorna valley from the woods to the Cove became her playground: ‘We had the whole of Lamorna to play in, few places were fenced off,’ said Judy, ‘As children, we wandered all over the valley, visiting all and sundry, resulting in us getting to know many of our interesting, older Lamorna neighbours, including some of the artists. We watched them work all over the valley – Lamorna Birch painting on the beach and rocks… ’ May (Maisie) Law, Judy’s grandmother and friend of Mrs Birch, had often stayed at Flagstaff Cottage with the Birch’s. When she was a little girl, Lamorna Birch presented Judy with three miniatures for her dolls’ house – Birch’s miniatures also hang in Queen Mary’s Dolls House. Judy’s watercolours are of local scenes with St Michael’s Mount in the background. The two smaller ones being 2”x1¾” and the largest, 3”x2”.
In the mid 1940s, Monica Baldwin, niece of Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), thrice Prime Minister of the UK, came to live in Lamorna. Miss Baldwin had recently withdrawn from her enclosed Order and convent life after twenty-eight years: ‘She didn’t know what stockings were, and knew nothing of the modern world!’ said Judy. The ex-nun found The Magazine, in Lamorna, and Judy Humphrey, who was ‘in and out of people’s homes in the valley’, found Miss Baldwin: Judy often spent more time with adults than with children. She regularly visited Miss Baldwin at The Magazine, then a one-up one-down dwelling at the Cove. As a child, Judy was intrigued by the ground floor room which, instead of being wallpapered, was hung in silky taffeta, the design on which showed a pretty, bluebell wood. Miss Baldwin explained and pointed out that fairies lived in this bluebell wood, and that out at sea from the Cove, Carn Dhu was their fairy castle. One time, the fairies left for Judy, a tiny, silver spoon; another time, a small snuff-box. Judy said: ‘Miss Baldwin could be seen walking around Lamorna with her cat, Wizzy-Boo, wrapped about her neck.’
When Monica Baldwin left Lamorna, Frankie Freeth and her father moved into The Magazine and enlarged it. Judy said: ‘Frankie and her father taught me to swim properly.’ ‘They had an Apricot Poodle who had seven pups.’ The Freeths moved later to Oriental Cottage and once, jackdaws built a nest in the chimney and caused a fire in the house: ‘I had to climb up and help clear it’, Judy said, ‘It was a bad fire, and Frankie nearly died.’
Judy’s bosom friend was Ann Bailey, who lived with her parents at The Hut (to the right of The Wink), after Tom snr and Emily moved to The Wink. ‘You can imagine the fun we had. Once we followed the artist, Miss Moss (Marlowe Moss) who always dressed like a little jockey - she was so small, with an Eton Crop haircut, and a pulled-down pork-pie hat, to the cove where she went swimming. We wanted to see if she had breasts…she did, right down to here…! She was a lovely person, was so nice to us children, never told us off when Ann and Susan crept up and filched biscuits from her studio kitchen.’
Ann said she and Susan remembered pinching grapes from Mr Sampson Hosking, and because they had ruined most of the bunches by taking a few grapes from each, had to pay 2/6d to compensate. They spoke about Miss Minnie Strick (who used to ring out the Communion bell at the Church Day School), and how they laid a beautifully tied posy of wild flowers on her doorstep attached to a long piece of string. When Miss Strick opened the door to their knocking and bent to pick it up, the hiding pair tugged the string and the flowers shot away…
‘I wasn’t too keen on being asked to help with the washing-up’ Judy confessed, ‘I often used to say I needed to go to the toilet, which was up the garden, and said I would take the Bible with me to read… once ensconced I sat day-dreaming out of the open door, and from my throne, sometimes saw Estelle Hosking picking flowers on the distant slope…’
‘Then there were the Woodcutters as we called them, they were forestry workers - tree fellers: two or three families, hippies, I suppose you would’ve called them. They were pacifists, vegetarians and nudists. Sid and Jean Rushton built their wooden hut among the bracken above Carn Barges, their children were called Heath, Heather and Rain.’ Another couple, Ray and Biddy Perry (later, artist, Biddy Pickard) lived with their children, ‘Niggy’, Greta and Peter in a log-cabin near the old football field. The Woodcutters swam in privacy by the large rock round towards Carn Dhu, ‘We call it Woodcutter’s Rock to this day.’
Both Judy and Ann remembered familiar names and the children they shared Lamorna with: the Ladners, Smalls, Hoskings, Mitchells, Gardiners, Paynes, the Penrose and Prisk family, to mention a few. Wandering over the rocks and exploring the coast paths to the east and west of the Cove made for a happy playtime. ‘At the Cove, we swam and dived off the quay, using the granite blocks jutting out at different levels, moving up a block as we got bigger!’ ‘Just above the quay where the track led to the coastguard hut, the wall formed a triangular shape and there lodged large stones and boulders embedded in sand, ‘That’s where we played ‘gardens’, planting flowers and shells in the sandy soil… We also played in the rock pools around the cliffs towards Carn Barges’ When dusk fell and it was time to go home, Lamorna children had to be called from all corners of the valley, Judy and Ann explained: ‘Our mothers had an individual way of calling us in – a horn for one family, a bell for another; the Baileys blew a hooter and the Ladners, a whistle! One by one we dispersed homewards to the sound of ‘our call’’
‘To a child’s mind, we both felt that the valley seemed to be split in two, ‘them and us’, the children getting together though at the Youth Club and when there was a carnival or fancy dress…’ Judy said, ‘My mother arranged many tea parties for us children and the evacuees…’ ‘There wasn’t a lot for youngsters to do in the valley, so my mother then started a Youth Club in her two-up two-down Rose Cottage, it became so popular that a Nissan Hut was built among the trees, near the Church Room (now Village Hall) to host it, and other village events. ‘The Hut cost money so we all saved up to pay for it, someone collected it from Troon, members built it – it had red Marley tiles. We held whist drives, euchre drives, beetle drives, all sorts – people came from miles away…’ Pen Humphrey was also instrumental in getting the school bus to come to Lamorna to pick up the children: ‘Previously, we had to walk up Rocky Lane to catch it.’
Judy and Ann said Lamorna was always ahead of its time – it attracted bohemians – but like many other places, had regular visitors of necessity: the onion seller, knife sharpener, the peddler-man, the scrap-man, Joe Pollard with his horse’n’cart selling vegetables. Tramps came, and an organ grinder...
‘There’s something very unlucky about Lamorna…’ they said. ‘Plenty of unfortunate things happened here…’ They spoke of one house ‘near the turn’ and the legend that the male of that house always lost his life at sea…. Ann remembered once that a tragedy happened up at Borah Chapel resulting in a local man’s death: ‘My grandfather was a bearer at the funeral – after the burial he came out of the cemetery and dropped dead, himself!! I’ll never forget it – it was January 4th, my ninth birthday…’
Judy remarked, ‘Good Friday was always a reminder of the day I was born in 1938. As the years went on, my memory of Good Fridays was one of hoards of people milling about the place.’ Ann Bailey said she remembered it as a day ‘when folk came to Lamorna to pick daffodils and enjoy a saffron bun tea… there was a cottage at the Cove which served Teas, it was painted blue, it had blue tables, cloths and chairs outside, and the toilet door was painted blue, too…’
In 1945, when she was eight years old, Judy’s father, Morgan, died and her mother eventually left the Wink but stayed in Lamorna. ‘We lived in Little Aubawn, swapping homes with Tom snr and Emily Bailey who moved to the Wink after us.’ Just before Christmas in 1953, Judy’s widowed mother, Pen, and her two teenage daughters, Judy and Susan, left Lamorna to live in Penzance.
Ann Bailey said: ‘Before my parents, Tommy and Hilda became landlords at The Wink (they took over after my grandparents Tom snr and Emily left), my father, Tommy used to grow flowers on the cliffs; he’d pick them and trawl them up in a wheelbarrow. The flowers were sent by train to Covent Garden.’ Ann’s father, Tommy Bailey was a market gardener at Boskenna and taught Derek Tangye at Minack how to bunch violets. Her mother, Hilda, worked for Jeannie Tangye in the house – ‘they were lovely people’, she said. ‘Once my parents were installed at The Wink, my father started the camping in the garden there.’ During her time in Lamorna, Ann Bailey lived in the now demolished 3-roomed wooden building on the right of The Wink. Ann moved to live in Newlyn but worked behind the bar at The Lamorna Wink for many years including the time that Bob and Di Drennan were landlords.
In 1981 after Denys Law died, his studio, Nantewas, was empty. Ann arranged to move in temporarily as she’d decided to let her Newlyn house and decamp to Lamorna. She said, ‘I white-washed the walls, including the spiders and their webs. I worked and ate at The Wink, and went to Lily Cottage to the Gardiners, where Keith and Christine allowed me to wash and bathe.’
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Anne Forrest 2014
A short extract from one of the Bodnant Garden Stories…………
BODNANT GARDEN STORIES FOR CHILDREN
by
Anne Forrest
TIMOTHY CRUMBLE LOOKS FOR TROLLS
Timothy Crumble was a bit fed up. He had planned a day out at Bodnant Garden with his cousin, George – they were determined to find a troll! They’d both read that trolls could be described as giants or dwarves, could be rather unpleasant-looking with broken stubby teeth, face warts, leathery ears and crumpled looking hats and tunics of green and brown yet sometimes wore ill-matched socks! Often they have crossed-eyes, long, dirty finger nails and chose to live in hillside caves or under bridges in the forest. Ever since they’d both read this, they were determined to find one in Bodnant Garden because Timothy and George had seen just the habitat under a small stone bridge for a dwarf troll!
The troll stalkers had the whole day planned and ideally, would have liked to have this adventure on their own, with no grown-ups in tow. But of course they were not allowed to do that! Aunt Prim and Uncle Brad had volunteered to be in charge while Timothy’s mum took his young brother Benji to his nursery school. That wasn’t too bad, ‘cause his aunt and uncle were good fun, but they also had to bring along Timothy’s twin cousins, Anna and Ishbel. They were six and a half years old – and they were girls!
Yes, the two boys were a bit fed up!................................................
BODNANT GARDEN STORIES FOR CHILDREN
by
Anne Forrest
TIMOTHY CRUMBLE LOOKS FOR TROLLS
Timothy Crumble was a bit fed up. He had planned a day out at Bodnant Garden with his cousin, George – they were determined to find a troll! They’d both read that trolls could be described as giants or dwarves, could be rather unpleasant-looking with broken stubby teeth, face warts, leathery ears and crumpled looking hats and tunics of green and brown yet sometimes wore ill-matched socks! Often they have crossed-eyes, long, dirty finger nails and chose to live in hillside caves or under bridges in the forest. Ever since they’d both read this, they were determined to find one in Bodnant Garden because Timothy and George had seen just the habitat under a small stone bridge for a dwarf troll!
The troll stalkers had the whole day planned and ideally, would have liked to have this adventure on their own, with no grown-ups in tow. But of course they were not allowed to do that! Aunt Prim and Uncle Brad had volunteered to be in charge while Timothy’s mum took his young brother Benji to his nursery school. That wasn’t too bad, ‘cause his aunt and uncle were good fun, but they also had to bring along Timothy’s twin cousins, Anna and Ishbel. They were six and a half years old – and they were girls!
Yes, the two boys were a bit fed up!................................................