Cornwall art and culture from genius loci

CHRISTMAS? OH YES PLEASE! by Clies Stevens

View over St Ives Cornwall

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN A FAN OF THE YULETIDE, OR I SHOULD SAY THE WHOLE THING, THE YO HO HO AND WAVING TO FOLK ACROSS THE STREET AND THE SMILES FROM COMPLETE STRANGERS CAUGHT UP IN A CORNISH CHRISTMAS. I CAN REMEMBER ONE VERY SPECIAL CHRISTMAS, AND I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE THAT MEMORY WITH YOU NOW.

It does not matter were you are when you read this, because I want you to feel Cornwall, Cornwall 1978 and it is Christmas eve in St.Ives. We had stopped fishing two days back, cleaned the whole boat up and left her smelling fresh with her tanks full ready for the first days fishing after Christmas week. Extra ropes were put out and where they crossed the granite key rags were wrapped around them or as in our case we laboriously pulled the rope end through tough plastic pipe To stop the chafing on the granite tops of the quay.

After making sure the beer in the ‘Swordfish’ pub was okay and up to standard all four of piled into a taxi and headed for home, St.Ives. It was bitterly cold that December and I was not especially looking ahead to the festive season as I was going to be alone this year. A fisherman does not have a good social life, and it takes a special kind of lady to watch her man go to sea and wait for him to come home again. My Lady had told me it was the sea or her, one had to go and she left. I had no excuses, but in mitigation my responsibility lay with the boat and crew, their families depended on wages the men folk brought home every weekend and I took them to sea and brought them home again.

So I took my sorry self into the Sloop for a last pint before going home to the cat, and to my surprise found an almost empty pub. Almost that is except for 4 young women who were crowded around the coal fire that burned bright and cheerful down the other end of the bar. Now this pub had been here in this very spot for generations, the walls blackened from pipe and cigarette smoke, the only clean bits on the walls were the drawings by the local art guru Hyman Seagal, the glass covering the precious pencil drawings got polished every day. Those faces so full of character and knowledge, gazing to distant sea scapes will I hope always grace the walls of that old bar.

I noticed one slim female had left the others and was studying the art on the wall. Now old Hyman drew beautifully, his work was incredible the faces of the men he drew almost spoke to the watcher. He would trade his sketches for his bar bill and they were well worth every pint. Well being me I started up the conversation because Althea had the most amazing legs, and it turned out they had arrived on spec for a Cornish Christmas from some college I have long forgotten. Sometimes even on a dark day the sun will shine! Here I was with an empty house in Rose lane behind fore street, all alone and sad for the yuletide and fate had sent these four lovely ladies to me. Even the cat was happy when all was settled in the house, and I began to plan a real Christmas. That evening I took them around the town, because the local Methodist churches had the carol singers out, as well as the Sally army band playing on corners under streetlights.

Fore street was still semi cobbled then, and the warm yellow glow from the shops still open for business and the pubs washed across the brown granite cobbles, the fairy lights above blowing in the wind flashed different glimpses of red green and yellow from the plate glass of the shops, and cast shadows all over the place from folk doing last minute shopping or starting on a determined nights festivity. Smiles and laughter rang everywhere that dark evening, and when we at last made our way across the wharf towards the other pubs the harbour lights shone on the black water and the few boats still in the harbour looked forlorn and lonely as they snubbed against the creaking mooring ropes fore and aft.

I can remember the wind had gone around due North, and was bitterly cold, and I thought I could smell snow on the air mingling with the sharp biting sulphurous coal smoke, and wondered if would give us a white Christmas.

The pubs stayed open then to midnight, and we finished the night in the golden Lion, the nearest pub to the parish church. The atmosphere in there was hilarious, sweaty, blasphemous and well worth the effort of struggling to get served! I had been concerned that my female lodgers would be prey for my lecherous mates but they knew how to take care of themselves and I stopped wondering how many would be in the house for breakfast!

A miracle happened that night, the night of the mass of Christ. When all finally got turned out by a swearing laughing bar staff, we found silence! The silence of gently falling snow, with no wind to send it scurrying into empty shop doorways it just fell softly sparkling in the coloured lights to lay at our feet, reflecting the colours from above. Up the street the Queens hotel had also turned out and the whole crowd stood in the street and started singing carols, and so did we.

Goodwill to all men and peace on earth was felt by all that night, the softly falling snow and the crisp freezing air brought all together to sing carols, and complete strangers stood shoulder to shoulder in the street lustily rendering the best that they could remember about Christmas Carols.

We made our way home that night along Fore street; the snow crunching under our feet as we passed the Castle and the Union pubs, the lights still blazing out into the night from the now empty bars. The silence from the effect of the snow muffling everything was incredible, and people walking or staggering home waved and wished us ‘Merry Christmas’ or some words to that effect.

No more pubs now, just the soft snow and the rounded contours of houses and shop doorways, the granite curb stones looking totally different now under a few inches of whiteness. At last our wayward feet found the Digey, and then Rose lane and would you believe it the door lock played tricks and refused to keep still and let me get the key into it! I think it was the tall graceful Elizabeth who got the door open and picked William up to have a cuddle, That darn cat got all the luck but he was a most handsome cat.

I awoke the next day looking up at the roof light covered in snow, and the parish church bells ringing for all they where worth. My bedroom was right up in the roof, and the window looked out over the lower town, and it was indeed a most fantastic sight. But you know the best thing? I had shared a magical night with four lovely strangers, introduced them to a Cornish Christmas and my town and they never ever forgot it because they all still live here to this day. Clies stevens

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