Memories of a week's family holiday based in Nequay, Cornwall where we are camping just north of the town in Porth. 'We' are my parents, Miss Franny and I and our own daughter, Gillian plus my brother Frank and his son, also called John. Join us as we frolic through sights and sites both familiar and less well-known.
Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to the relevant article. A link on each page will bring you back here.
FRiday 21 August 1992. We've made it! TYHis is the final post covering our 1992 Cornwall holiday. Read, enoy, laugh if you feel the urge, then please close the door and switch the lights off. Next on the list will be an up-to-date 2026 cruise around the Western Mediterrannean with Tomas and Maris!
This is Padstow on a very rainy Friday. Mum stayed at the tent and Dad, Fran, Gill and I walked around in teeming rain. We went into a cafe and asked for coffees and 4 towels...
Did I mention it rained? A typical case of making the best of it!
There is a long harbour wall at Padstow that takes the broadside force of any storms, keeping the boats and trawlers relatively safe from any battering.
The shipwreck museum had two World War II guns outside. One had to wonder whether they were connected... A sort of self-continuing business...
Dad takes a professional interest, having been kept well away from instruments of destruction during his army days! "Er... I think you look down this bit to aim it..." he tells Gill.
Later in the day it cleared up. We collect Mum and walk into Newquay, wishing a last farewell to it's beaches.
And a similar goodbye to Porth Island for 1992. In fact goodbye to quite a chunk of what you see here as a lot of it has fallen down onto the beach or into the sea depending on whether the tide was in at the time...
Thursday 20 August 1992. Continuing our week's holiday in Cornwall, after visiting Land's End (first and last public toilet in Britain...) we headed for a totally different experience altogether. Chysauster is the site of an Iron Age village.
Mum and Dad got in as pensioners despite falling short of the age limit - in Mum's case she was short to begin with! The village is approached through a fogou. This would have been an enclosed tunnel but now the roof has fallen in and it is more like a narrow but fairly deep alleyway.
The huts here were still occupied as recently as during Roman times and are between 1500 - 2000 years old. Each had several rooms around a central courtyard and some had gardens at the back.
The courtyard of this hut has a water channel (to the left of Dad). The family's animals would have lived here. The water must still run along the channel as can be seen from the darker patch of grass at the bottom of the picture.
Looking from Hut 6. The hillside was covered in glorious purple heather. We all waved at a helicopter making it's way to Penzance. Whether they saw the crutch or thought perhaps that we were lost I don't know - but they circled round for another look!
Hut 4 had either a rather large hearth, or maybe it was the smallest room???
The afternoon was drawing on. As it starts to go dark we reach St Agnes model village and theme park.
We thought this was very funny but some Germans who were walking round behind us were not amused - especially when I offered them the twig so they could take their own photos...
Thursday 20 August 1992. We have gone as far as we can go. Well to be honest we could go a little further but that would involve - [a] getting wet and [b] drowning... We decide against!
We are, of course, at Land's End. A rather stupid claim really as travel in any direction whatsoever in the UK or any other island large or small and you will eventually reach land's end. Just not this one... This one happens to be the westernmost tip of England.
Yes, Scotland juts out a little bit further west but you don't hear them make a big thing about it until you get to the most northerly top of mainland Scotland at John O'Groats which sounds suspiciously like the offspring of porridge to me. Likewise Northern Ireland has the Giant's Causeway and therefore feels no need perhaps for a first and last anything. Oh... really hard luck, Wales...
The Isle of Man too feels no need to make any similar claim. Perhaps because the first and last north, south, east and west would be so close to each other... But look at this. That's no far distant land you can see on the horizon, it's just an inconvenient row of clouds. Head off over that lighthouse and the first decent sized chunk of rock you find is America.
Meanwhile let's remember that this is the early 1990s and digital photography is still a meaningless term. Mum and Miss Franny discuss how many or how few photos they have taken on their instamatic film cameras because each photograph taken costs money to develop and print. None can be deleted and retaken in camera if you take a duffer, even if you realise Aunty Amelia has walked across just as you pressed the button.
That ruined photograph costs just the same to be printed as there is no way to say "if a photo is ruined by a stooped little old lady" (or gentleman but then probably called Uncle Scroat or something) save me the money and don't print it..."
Wow, raise your hand if you remember all the TV ads for Direct Line Insurance... That little wheeled telephone (yes kiddies, apart from the wheels that's what telephones looked like) was forever on our TV screens until that annoying dog came along to say "Oh... Yes!"
And finally there is the signpost pointing to anywhere north, south or east with the number of miles to your hometown displayed only changing from year to year due to new roads, the strange effect of air currents or Jupiter being in the ascendant. Or something... Clan Burke gathers dutifully for their photo to be taken.
Wedesnday 19 August 1992, yes I'm back - a bit of an interval since my last episode but all to your advantage dear readers as we have been off once again "researching the world for future articles". Well - it sounds better than "on holiday"!
Jamaica Inn. Standing atop the windswept hillocks of Bodmin Moor it is the setting for the famous book of the same name - that is "Jamaica Inn", there isn't a book called "of the same name" as far as I know...
Here are Mum, my nephew John and Miss Franny who I wooed and wed after meeting her in an extremely low-cut dress... Right: now look, it was Miss Franny wearing the dress not me, ok? You can stop swamping me with emails now saying things like "At last, the truth!" and "I knew it!!!"
The sign above the door reads: "Through these portals passed smugglers, wreckers, villains and murderers..." All of whom would surely have fled at the sight of those yellow socks...
The Daphne DuMaurier room. She actually lived here and wrote her famous book about the inn and the wreckers, driving ships onto the rocks, smuggling the booty to the inn along dark tracks through the moors.
Our daughter Gill was actually halfway through reading the book at the time of our visit and was most put out by a huge spoiler in the shape of a placque on display inside the inn.
The inn served a decent pile of grub and no banging of bread disguised as biscuit to dislodge weevils, worms or squirrels (? well, you never know) was necessary. Gill looks a touch unimpressed - anything you'd like to express, Gill?
Wednesday 19 August 1992. Today we are in Polperro. You can go the boring way on roads which is around 36 miles or go via Fowey and take a ferry from Fowey to Polruan as part of the journey which diversion extends the distance to 47.6 miles but includes a car ferry ride. This alwys goes down well with the kids and as we are all kids at heart we always go that way!
I always think of this as the prettiest village in Cornwall. There are other contenders, but for me Polperro wins hands down. Cars are only allowed in the village if you are either living there or staying in accomodation there. The streets are so narrow that driving through them is a nightmare anyway as delivery vans can block the roads to any other traffic and streets can also be full of pedestrians unconcerned by your need to pass them.
By the time we got there it was dinner time or lunch time if you're posh. We found this cosy pub where the tables had been made for treadle sewing machines and still had the working treadles beneath the table top, which was indeed a table and not a Singer... We made sure the place was filled with the music of squeaks and groan of ancient metal joints as we practised our treadling prowess whilst eating and drinking!
We came out to find the tide had done the same - gone out... This is Polperro's inner harbour, beloved of artists but ignored this time by myself. It was only two years since taking up a pencil again and I wasn't ready for this amount of detail. See later visits to Polperro, you'll find a few etchings done here at Polperro!
The House with a Lifeboat. Well you would if you could, wouldn't you? If tempted, first ensure your house is close enough to water as lifeboats look a bit silly dangling from an inland back-to-back...
Halfway through the afternoon we found a cafe that looked ok so we all trooped inside. As we sat at the table waiting for someone to appear we were a bit surprised at the number of flies that were whizzing about. "Cor, there's a lot of flies..." I said. "Can I help you?" asked the woman at the next table. Oops...
Mum said the dwarf was about to hit her. The dwarf said she had turned it to stone with a single glance...
My brother, Frank, never a stickler for the conventions of colour co-ordination, but easily spotted due to those socks...
We have an ice cream from the Land of Legend. This is the entrance to Polperro's model village. It is well worth a look because it is not just a collection of buildings but is an actual model of the village of Polperro. Look closely and you can actually find a model of the model village!
We took the bus rather than walk back up the hill due to my foot. The lady who can't be seen but who is holding the ice cream said "Weren't you walking back from St Michael's Mount on Monday?" Obviously once seen, never forgotten! Can't understand it myself...
Miss Franny and Gill by the waterwheel at the top of the hill. In the dark days before indoor plumbing, this was where you took a wash. Tied firmly to the wheel as it turned, you were dipped in the stream three times before being released. Oh, alright... I made that bit up...!
Tuesday 18 August 1992. We stayed away from the cars for the day and although the weather was not overly warm, we spent time on the beach at Porth and exploring the island. There was a little bit of sunshine!
Porth is a small village just to the north of Newquay and has a large camping site behind the bay. It was a regular stopping place for us around this time. There was a cafe just out of the campsite entrance and on occasion we would buy food locally and cook it ourselves over a camping stove.
To the southern side of the bay the ground rose quickly to cliffs with a paved walk leading to Newquay itself. There was another small cafe here and Miss Franny is more or less outside it - we must have been for a morning brew!
The eastern side of the bay was a long headland, the end of which was an iron-age promontory fort. When the tide came in it rushed through a gap between the end of the fort and the cliffs and thus the fort became an island. It is known either as Trevelgue or Porth Island, both names being happily recognised and accepted by the locals. There are some pretty large ramparts protecting either side of the gap, which is bridges with a wooden bridge allowing access to the fort. There isn't much to see apart from the ramparts these days but there were roundhouses and a couple of barrows there.
We spent the morning playing on the beach, cricket, catch, wondering where Mum had got to...
My photos make a rapid jump to the evening. I suspect that not a lot happened in the afternoon to take photos of. We may have stayed on the beach. We may have gone back to the tents to sit and read. We may have gone for a walk somewhere... The last sentence brought to you from my soon to be published book: How to make a boring afternoon sound full of excitement. I'm not expecting great sales to be honest...
Finally for this article and for your great relief, I stand between the ramparts on the far side of the wooden bridge to the island. It goes dark a bit.
Monday 17 August 1992. We had been down and up the old tin mine at Wendron Forge near Helston (where they do the Furry Dance every 8th of May) and decided to visit Penzance where we spotted the island of St Michael's Mount just off the coast at Marazion.
"Oh we'll have a go at that" the family decide, leaving me wondering if I can hobble that far... This is a day long remembered in the Burke family, for reasons that will become apparent later!
Now someone (I forget who - but not me!) had said the beach had the sort of stones that crystals or fossils could be found in. Frank had actually brought a chisel along to split the rocks but didn't have a hammer so we used another stone. We didn't find any crystals or fossils and strangely it always seemed to be the stone we were using as the hammer that split in two... I remained somwhat aloof from all this as bending over to pick up rocks when you are on crutches is not easy...
Mum baulks at a minor puddle whilst Frank and Gill ford a major river and I wonder how I'm going to get all the gritty bits of sand out of my bandaged foot...
We walk over the causeway to St Michael's Mount. "What time does the tide come in?" I wonder. "Oh it was 9 o'clock last night!" said Mum. Yes - but that was the north coast and we are now on the south and it's already halfways through the afternoon.
We got to the island and went to have a look round a gift shop. This seemed to take an amazing amount of time. We weren't going to be climbing up to the top of the hill, that's for sure!
But we came out eventually and looked back at the harbour and causeway. I checked my watch... No... still not 9 o'clock... The only photo I had time to take on St Michael's Mount before: "Oh my God! The tide!" Some of the group were still in the gift shop and took some convincing that we needed to come out and scarper.
It wasn't too bad when we first set off back but I was soon at the back of the family group, soaked foot and bandage and hoping all the grains of sand would be washed out...
The walk back... The marks on my trousers show how deep it got whilst we were walking over. WIth a bandaged foot I was unable to walk barefoot and for an hour after we got back to dry land I squelched horribly...
Halfway back and therefore at the deepest point, some idiot on a quad bike roared past everyone, going far too fast and the bike was throwing up quite a wave to soak everyone. Frank dragged his foot sideways sending a shower of seawater all over him, gaining a round of applasue and shouts of support from other waders. Half an hour later we watched a boat turn back two people who were holding their belongings over their heads whilst the water reached their chins.
We found a chippy for tea which had a "dining room at the back". This turned out to be a shed with a shelf and some bar stools. We were all a bit unimpressed with the food and when I bit into a pie and found it all black inside, we complained and left. We ended up at Penzance instead where we kept the cafe owner and other customers egging us on to tell them more about our day's adventures...
