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Clies Stevens 'My Cornwall'
Clies is a regular contributor to Genius Loci and also writes for 'Cornish World'
Click here for more writing about life in Cornwall by Clies Stevens
KERNOW BYS VIKEN by Clies Stevens
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Today I was given a signal honour; Sue and Phil (whom I have never met) asked me if I would write a monthly piece for my No.1 site, Genius Loci. Is the Pope a catholic?
There are a lot of other things I could say, but this site is about something I hold dear, as did my ancestors. Kernow! There is as far as I know not another place in the World that can hold me like the land of my birth.
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If you have never visited this magical piece of land, you should know that it is all things to all people, both and at the same time peaceful and magical.
Musical too because it has inspired some heartbreaking music; a land of colour, action and movement, moods and breathtaking beauty.
I know of a place where both the softer south coast and the hard grandeur of the North coast can be seen at the same time, and by just turning your head an ancient landscape is seen under the scudding shadows of the clouds.
Others call this land of ours the County of Cornwall. We who live here just smile, because we know you see that it could never be that simple. Once seen and explored somewhat it takes hold, and will be with you forever. Then you will know what the saying of ‘You can take a Cornishman out of Cornwall, but you can never take Cornwall out of him!’
KERNOW BYS VIKEN.
Dedicated to all those who have loved my county as they found it. Clies Stevens
THE HILL OF MY DREAMS by CLIES Stevens
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In the part of Cornwall where I live there is a hill, one among many!) This hill is special however, because my Grandfather brought me to it when I was far too young to understand what it was he was showing me. The hill is just out side of St.Ives on the Zennor road and the view itself is stunning! The old man was cunning though; he had judged me right. |
He knew I would return to this spot in the future looking for what he talked about when we were up there overlooking the most fantastic view in the world.
As a young boy my playmates and I all had the ubiquitous Lurcher dogs, used then to put meat on the table when the fishing was poor and money tight, as well as Jack Russell terriers of very mixed parentage!
The old man would collect me and the dogs, and the dogs then was punch, a huge dog by any standards and clumsy in the extreme, except when he ran, and then he was like a piece of exquisite poetry, all flowing muscle and intelligence. Then there was Judy, highly intelligent and graceful, a true Princess of the dog world and very disdainful of the common herd. The old man had two Jack Russell dogs and a Spaniel and we would all walk up the Zennor road to the rabbit infested green coated hillsides of Rosewall and ‘our Hill’. Rosewall was full of the ‘old mens’ workings and they can still be seen here today, the ‘Zawns’ and ‘koffens’ they dug in search of the copper and tin, and the deeper more recent shafts driven to depth by skilled men.
We had to careful here because the Rabbits would lead the dogs towards the open shafts in the hope of destruction.
Now it was the thing not to take more then was necessary for the table, I suppose by today’s standards that would sound like a blood sports sop to justify the hunt and kill, but to us in the fifties it was a real joy to come home with meat for the table.
Fathers money as share fisherman was often under ten pounds a trip, and this for 7-10 days work! From that there was rent and rates on our three bed council home, money for the gas and electric meters and after all that food for the table! I have seen my father with hands so swollen and ripped to pieces by the fish he could hardly move the fingers. Mother would prepare the bowl of hot salty water and look to her mans health first, he was the breadwinner here.
There was families in the town whose man had been lost at sea, and the loss was irreplaceable. I often watched as she squeezed the pus from his hands until the blood ran red into the bowl the tears of pain running freely down his face. She was from fishing stock however and had known from a girl how to do things like this. Indeed I have watched her as she carefully stitched his wounds with a careful neat stitch, and sent him back to sea again!
So a couple of rabbits for meat were very welcome, but only the exact amount needed. When this was accomplished we would make our way to the top of little Trevarrack hill, and there he would sit and fire up his old pipe and with the dogs thirst quenched from a pool of water at the foot of the huge granite boulder, we would talk or he would tell me his tall tales of the elves and pixies that inhabited the hill, for he would always maintain the hill was a sacred place to them.
The old man wove fantastic stories about the wars they had, and the heroes and heroines and the parts they played in the lives of the ‘mortals’. Time wove its magic, the old man passed on and left me with a fertile imagination and a deep love for the ‘other side’ of our lives, the side he told me about of the magic dragon Mortlaok, and his mate the most beautiful dragon Sterennyk, which is Cornish for little star.
My hound today is named after the Spriggin Hero Finnegan,
Who was the lifelong friend of the mighty dragon.
All these stories I left behind me as I grew up after his death, they sort of gradually faded away. I became a rover of the world, after I had learnt my trade underground in Crofty and Geevor/Levant I went to the sea, and after just five years got my first captains job on a rusty Panama registered coaster.
Then I took a job in Peru in the high open cast copper mines. The people there so desperately poor, the children so undernourished it made you feel guilty to be so well fed. They would struggle to earn a couple of Peso’s a day, and I had to help.
We that is the other ex pats on site and I set up a school for them and tried to get books in for them. It took a while because I/we had little Spanish and they had no English! Our cook had good English, and to entertain the kids and get them used to being in the clapboard hut we used for a school I told stories. Translated by Alfredo. And of course the stories were of the moors and hills of my country, and of the magical folk and Dragons who lived there. The old man’s magic had traveled with me down the years all unknown to me. As I told the tales I was back there again, my back against a sun hot granite boulder lying on sweet scented grass and surrounded by dogs, the old man whose back was permanently bent from hauling at the Pilchard nets, and fingers with joints pulled out of the sockets times beyond counting. I could see him slowly enjoying his pipe and relishing the rapt attention from me and dogs alike until they and I would fall asleep in the sun, worn out.
How precious those days are now in my memory, those summer days spent in the sun listening to my Grandfather telling me in his slow thick drawl of the tales and people he had heard about from his father. The work came to an end, the development brought to fruition and we came home to the county. I was at a loose end one day so I took my fathers Spaniel up to the hill. It had been a glorious summer; long hot balmy days like only the County can give. Father was retired by now and fretted that the young men were not ‘feshing right boy, tedn bleddy proper I telt thee’ and he would walk slowly off to join his cronies in the fisherman’s lodges over looking the harbour, gleefully criticizing the younger men as they went about the days work.
Well Sally the Spaniel and I walked the old road up to the hill, I had a car of course, that essential tool to the serious business of romance but it did not seem right to drive up there somehow. So we walked, Sallies tail never stopped in its wagging the whole time we walked, and I chatted to her as we went, she looking at me with knowing liquid brown eyes as though she knew every word. I told her to ‘just sniff that’s all girl, no chasing the bucks now’ and at last the top of the hill was reached. I shared the bottle of water with her and gave her nearly all the chicken sandwiches I remember.
| As the peace of the sacred
place came on us we both relaxed, and I swear to this day I could smell the
old black twist the old man used to smoke as we lay there on the short sweet
grass in the summer sun.
I rose and checked we were alone, then lay down again and began to tell him all about Peru, and Sierra Leone and Namibia, told him about Ayrs rock in Australia and other things, like my divorce and his great grandchildren. I remember Sally came and pushed herself close to me as though in sympathy, and I told her of better things I had done. All that was twenty five or more years ago, and from that day on I can still feel the peace and love he brought to his ‘sacred spot’. |
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My grandfather navigated across the Irish sea, up through the minches and around the wild north coast of Scotland, back down the east coast of England and home again year after year in pursuit of the ‘King of fish’ the Herring, but he could just about sign his name. He always brought his crew home safe to wives and family, and to me he gave a gift, my hill of dreams.
THE FEAST OF THE DAY by CLIES Stevens
A strange title you may think for a monthly bit of prose, but do read on, because this actually happened to me dear reader. Today is the 27/11/03. And it followed a good strong North Westerly blow. The wind was still in the Nor West, and the dogs were keen to get out and my Margaret was keen to see us go! Our old faithful Labrador Sue has passed on over the Rainbow bridge to wait for me there, but the same month she died Barney came to us! He just literally walked in the door and stayed all day, went back home that night and has been doing this ever since.
It is almost as though Barney gave us time to grieve and then came into our lives. Fortunately Finnegan the Greyhound and Barney the bitsa get on very well so there was no conflict, and Margaret took him straight into her heart like she does for all the things she sees.
Even me! So we ended up this particular day going to our favourite beach, Lelant or Porthkidney sands. I cannot begin to tell you how often we have been there, but each time it is like a new world.
Today was new, fresh. The surf was on song thundering on the pale creamy sand, leaving behind as the tide withdrew pools of water to investigate. We found oyster shells and starfish, bladderwrack and tall fronds of kelp, bright red seaweed and what I have always called beach lettuce. You can find up to 15 kinds of seaweed on our beaches, and fish that are not supposed to live here at this time of year or latitude!
Triggerfish for example, beautifully carved and etched as if from some artist’s magical palette, a huge sunfish its leathery hide already pecked at by the birds, sea mice a form of sea cucumber, and dogfish in profusion. The taste of ocean fresh on my lips and its call strong in my head, the fresh Nor Westerly talking to me as it blew, was a man ever so lucky to see such nature, was a man ever so humble at its beauty?
The strong sun glinted and glanced off the waves as they broke, pure white against the blue, and huge clouds flew over our heads. I found shells of clams here that are not supposed to be in our waters, huge things really. And the tiny delicate and fragile lace like shells that amaze you in their fragility, yet surviving against all odds. Margaret picking cockleshells and finding ‘someone home’ would put them in her pocket to throw back into the estuary on our way back.
The day was ours, the dogs happy and tired barking and chasing the gulls, just being the hooligans we both love. And the feast? The feast was the miracle of the light, the panacea of colours displayed for our eyes, in the smell and sight of an unlimited seascape no gifted artist.
Just this side of heaven is a place called
Those pets who have been ill or aged are restored to health and vigour, those who are hurt or maimed are made whole and strong. Each is just how we remember in our dreams of days and times gone by.
Our Pets are happy and content at
The animals all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance.
His or her bright eyes are intent, and eager body begins to quiver.
Suddenly he or she begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass legs going faster and faster.
You have been spotted, you and your special friend come together in joyous reunion.
Happy kisses rain upon your face and hands again, you caress the loving head and you once more look once more into the eyes of your special friend gone so long from your life, but never absent from your heart.
Then together again you cross the Rainbow bridge
MARGARET
my other half had been looking for a place to board out our Bunnies for week or
so while she visits family in
At last we discovered Joppa farm, right down in the Lands end way. Beautiful, beautiful country. Wild and remote yet inhabited.
So to the bunnie story. We met the folk who owned the farm and Kennels/cattery, and to our delight it was clean, very well kept and the couple themselves had adopted all kinds of waifs and strays, much like Margaret does. Ducks, Geese and dogs of various kinds wandered freely about the place obviously very much at home.
The couple themselves were not Cornish but that is of no matter, and when I asked how long they had been here in my country the reply was 6 years, because it is Gods own country!
Now this morning at 06.30 am, as is my wont I was out with the two hooligans who are my constant four legged companions, and the eastern shore was black under the faint pink blush of the sun rising.
As we made our way to the top of Penbeagle croft I thought about what it is that brings folk of all kinds here to live, to put down roots and grow children, make new friends then become totally absorbed in a way of life that at times must seem so alien to them.
Was it the low crime rate I wondered and then answered my own question. If it were the low rate of crime down here the big cities would be empty and my country would be groaning under the weight of houses and cars and people, and the big cities would be populated by who knows what?
Was it the fresh air perhaps? That could be a deciding factor I felt,
after you breathe the rubbish that city fathers are pleased to call ‘clean air’,
when Margaret’s kids come down here to stay with us for the first day or so they
are knocked out and sleep! (They live in
The scene was one of wild country, blond grey granite boulders weighing many tons each seemingly dropped carelessly like some gigantic child’s marbles; little granite built farmsteads so isolated that I yearned to be living there myself, cattle slowly grazing without a care in the world and the West wind still bending the landscape to its will. And to top it all? That big sky, open to all who just care to glance up.
That sky has inspired many to live here and find a contentment unobtainable in a big city,
And that is what brings folk here,
contentment. Clies stevens
Other writing by CLIES Stevens
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