Cornwall 1996

Saturday 3 August 1996. I must have taken a heck of a lot of photos in 1996 as I'm still scanning the negatives from that year on my little film scanner. I reached our summer holiday from that year - notable as it was one of the last holidays we took as an extended family and typical in that it included several memorable and hilarious moments.

We went to Newquay in Cornwall, staying in (taking over almost) a small B+B guest house at the northern end of Newquay where the buildings peter out and the footpath leads on to Porth. Having set off early in the morning, lunchtime saw us as far south as Bude. Cornwall is just about the only place in England where the waves are big enough to surf. Blackpool is washed by the Irish Sea but in Cornwall it is the Atlantic that breaks on the beaches. Lots of 60s dropouts were still there with long hair now pulled into pony tails and surf boards under their arms. One stopped in front of us, for his girlfriend to take his photo with his surfboard in front of the beach. The real surfers hobble about on crutches or have bruises on ankles where the boards hit them as they fall off!

We had gone down in three cars, four of us in mine with Mum and Dad following us in his battered old Skoda and brother Frank with his wife, son and daughter in their car. We made it down to our B+B and walked down into Porth in search of some tea. All holidays to Newquay as far back as I can remember have started with a walk to Porth and then an exploration of Trevelgue Island, an iron age promontory fort that we have always called "Porth Island". We'll have a look at that in more detail in another post.

The beach at Porth. Mum decided my niece, Heather, who was just two and a half at this time, wanted to have a paddle in the sea. (Every time Mum wanted to do something she would say, "Heather wants to...")

So we sat on a bench whilst Mum and Heather went for a paddle and I got bombed by a seagull on my brand new pair of jeans - first time on! "Oh... where's the tissues?"" cried Fran.
"Don't be daft - that seagull will be miles away by now..."

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