Polperro Blog

Marie Stopes and the Mayjoy Cliffs Mystery

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 14:46:36 +0000

The mystery of the letter written by Marie Stopes from ‘Mayjoy Cliffs, Polperro’ and now on display in the Portland Museum, Dorset, has at last been solved thanks to a chance encounter with her grandson, Christopher Stopes, this summer.

Dr Marie Stopes was a well-known pioneer of birth control and contraception services for women in the early 1920s, following the publication of her best seller Married Love.

Mayjoy Cliffs, it turns out, is the name that Marie gave to an area of the coast below Great Lizzen to the west of Polperro, purchased by her in 1921. She had placed a notice in the Western Morning News seeking ‘Rough coast land, foreshore if possible, 3-30 acres, one mile or more from village’. Nathaniel Hocken, who farmed Lizzen, replied, offering to sell a portion of his farmland.

The summer of 1921 was spent fitting out two huts that she had erected on the cliff overlooking Penslake Cove. In a letter to her mother in August, she wrote:

‘We had riotous and glorious heat all through the dust and bustle of building our huts. We have cut steps and

paths and built a terrace and got a well. The place is really quite glorious… just by our house the overhanging cliff rises a sheer 300 feet from the sea. We are on a sloping platform two thirds of the way down it with a stream on our right.’

When winter storms blew part of the thatched roof off one of the huts, Marie enlisted the help of Frank Perrycoste who lived on Talland Hill with his wife Maud whom Marie had befriended during her visits to Mayjoy Cliffs from her home in Surrey.

1922-23 was a difficult period for her, as she brought a libel action against Dr Halliday Sutherland for comments made in his book Birth Control: A Statement of Christian Doctrine Against the Neo Malthusians, which she ended up losing in the House of Lords, having won in the Court of Appeal.

By 1931, however, the area around the huts suffered damage from intruders. In a letter to Nathaniel Hocken, Marie wrote:

‘I am extremely vexed and distressed to hear of the trespassing and destruction at the huts. I wish people would understand that I got that as a bird preserve and that I have got a scientific paper half written on the habits of the sea birds. It is simply abominable that there should be such goings on there. Would you mind telling this to the local policeman and see if he can do anything about it by warning people off.’

She also wrote to the RSPB, telling them that she had bought the land ‘because of my interest in seagulls which are nesting there in a very trustful, natural state, and on whom I was able to make observations which I think are novel. But since then I have been considerably hindered in carrying on these observations by the unscrupulous trespassing of hikers and others who come down even when I am there, push past me and insist on photographing them on the nests etc., as well as stealing the eggs.’

Although the land she had bought lay between two areas of the coastline west of Polperro, Marie was adamant that there was no right-of-way across hers. Her attempts to block access along the coast path by building a high wire fence cutting off much of the land beyond Freshwater and the old coastguard path and right of way made her unpopular with residents of Polperro and local boys would go out on Sundays cut it down. A petition signed by several local people was organised by Eleanor Carstairs who lived along the Warren.

In another letter in 1934, she sought the help of Sir Lawrence Chubb at the Commons and Footpaths Preservation Society, telling him ‘some of the people in Polperro were trying to arouse some trouble there about my land because I received a petition from Mrs Carstairs… In confidence I may tell you that the whole thing was stirred up by Mrs Carstairs herself. I met her in the road in Polperro and she very grievously attacked me about it.’

In a later development, the Cornish Times reported in November 1939 that ‘Dr Marie Stopes had proposed that her land should be zoned for building “so that a village on the lines of Clovelly can be erected.”

Such a proposal did not meet with the approval of the local planning officer however. Subsequently, ownership of the land passed to Marie’s son, Harry Stopes-Roe, who ensured that a footpath was established across the land which has since been maintained by the National Trust. In 2014, on his death, the land passed to his children, who still own it.

Jonathan Couch Miniature Portrait

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 14:58:04 +0000

A descendant of Jonathan Couch, the Polperro surgeon and naturalist, recently came across a hitherto unknown miniature portrait of him as a young man.

A note attached to the glass case which housed the miniature portrait gives the date as 1808 and Jonathan Couch’s age as 19. It is almost certainly the miniature he referred to in an account inserted into his Private Memoirs, written in January 1811 shortly after the death of his first wife Jane Prynn Rundle. In 1809, he secured a place at the combined Guy’s and St. Thomas’s teaching hospitals in London and corresponded regularly with his first love Jane who lived at Porthallow above Talland Bay. Couch appears to have commissioned the work by the Italian miniaturist Joseph Pastorini.*

‘When in London her letters breathed the most ardent and constant affection; about two months after I had been there I transmitted to her, by the hands of George, then going down the county from Devon, my miniature which I had promised her. It was drawn by Pastorini and the hair on the reverse is hers…’

Couch’s passionate courtship of Jane Rundle continued throughout his time as a medical student in London. The couple were very much in love when, early in 1810, Jane discovered she was expecting a baby. Her parents may well have persuaded her to withhold the news from him until he had finally completed his medical studies and returned to Polperro later that year. In any event, they were married at Talland in August but tragically Jane died shortly after giving birth to a baby girl in October.

In later life, Jonathan Couch often reflected: ‘In twelve months I was a young man, a married man, a father and a widower’.

His first daughter, also named Jane, went on to marry and have six children of her own. Couch himself remarried twice, becoming the father of eleven children and living until the age of 81. Today, he is remembered as a pioneering man of medicine and the natural world, the author of many books and articles as well as a noted local historian.

*Joseph Pastorini (1775-1839) exhibited at the Royal Academy in London 1812-1834.

History Of Polperro

Sat, 05 Aug 2023 12:20:18 +0000

Jonathan Couch (1789-1870), the surgeon apothecary of Polperro who became one of the pioneering natural historians of his day, is largely remembered for his many publications during his lifetime including his four-volume Fishes of the British Islands.

A hitherto unknown manuscript edition of his History of Polperro has been discovered more than 150 years after it was written in 1847, three years before the author’s death in 1870. A later edition of the History of Polperro, edited by his son Thomas Quiller Couch, was subsequently published in 1871.

The large bound volume consists of 160 pages written in Jonathan Couch’s copperplate handwriting, amounting to nearly 34,000 words and appears to be an early draft version of the History of Polperro that was eventually published. The two versions differ markedly however. Couch’s original draft includes chapters on the storms of 1817 and 1824, the harbours and piers, fishery, trade and religious history, much of which does not appear in the final published edition.

The manuscript is accompanied by an Index compiled by one of the volume’s early owners, Henry Lee Rowett (1844-1922), in 1898.

Polperro Fishermen's Choir Centenary

Wed, 08 Feb 2023 15:31:32 +0000

The Polperro Fishermen’s Choir celebrates its centenary this year. Founded in 1923 (pictured above), it has continued to perform for audiences ever since, raising funds for charity. For many years the prosperity of Polperro depended on the pilchard industry. The fishermen were a hardy breed of men and the Chapel had a great influence on their lives. They were devout men who would sing as they worked their boats; and not surprisingly many of these songs were hymns that were sung in Chapel on a Sunday. When the pilchard fishing began to decline; the singing did not.

It was Eva Cloke, the organist at the Chapel and Thomas Mark, a lay preacher known locally as the ‘Fishermen’s Bishop’ who realised the need to establish the Polperro Fishermen’s Choir in 1923. The choir would sing hymns and religious style songs in Chapel on Sundays and at Harvest of the Sea services as well as other religious fishing festivals around the county in the 1920s and 1930s. The choir’s reputation grew and they were soon singing regularly in the village and in different parts of Cornwall. At the time some 90 per cent of the choir were fishermen from Polperro.

But, with the decline of the fishing industry, the choir suffered losses until other tradesmen from around the village joined in. It was disbanded for the duration of World War II but was reformed in 1951. The Choir’s ‘uniform’ in the early days was a rough knitted roll-neck gansey, knitted by the wives and daughters for their men folk. Each man could be identified by the pattern of his gansey, a tradition which had continued down the years. In 1982 the choir ‘modernised’ and adopted a black blazer with badge and a roll neck shirt or sweater.

After Eva Cloke’s death in 1969, the choir continued to perform concerts not just in Polperro but throughout southern England, including television appearances for both BBC and ITV as well as recordings for BBC Radio, Radio Cornwall and Plymouth Sound. Other performances included visits to Quiberon in France and the Royal Albert Hall in London.

In 1973 the choir celebrated its Golden Jubilee year by making their first long-playing record entitled ‘Sounds like Polperro’ which became a best seller and remains a favourite today. This was quickly followed by ‘Polperro Sings Again’; ‘When evenings Twilight’; ‘Tis Christmas time’; ‘Born In Song’ and ‘Polperro Sails’. In 1992 almost all the choirs in Cornwall sang together at Truro Cathedral to a full capacity audience.

The tradition of the Choir runs deep within the original Fishermen’s Choir families. Phil Carrigan became the musical director in 1999, having served with distinction in Her Majesty’s Band of the Royal Marines. He has played before the late Queen and the Queen Mother as well as concerts around the world including Washington D.C. and the West Indies. Probably his greatest claim to fame is when he lost his bass drum over the side while on parade on the flight deck of HMS Ark Royal in 1971 much to the amusement of the captive audience. It is said the entire ship’s company spontaneously broke into a chorus of ‘Sailing’ thus pre-empting their now famous recording!

Record Pilchard Catch by Polperro Boat

Mon, 26 Sep 2022 14:19:45 +0000

The record catch of pilchards by a Polperro boat off Cornwall occurred in 1866 according to a first hand account that recently came to light. The story of the catch was told by one of the crew, Joseph William Gedye (1873-1954):

‘On an autumn day in the year 1866 the Polperro gaffer J.R.N. (representing the names Joseph, Rachel and Nicholas Gedye) was lying weatherbound at Plymouth with several other Polperro and Looe Luggers. The owner of the J.R.N. was Mr. Joseph Gedye, the Captain was Mr James (‘Mollie’) Curtis and the crew Joe Gedye (son of Joseph), Jack Gedye, W. Bunt and T. Searle. The weather having improved on the following morning the J.R.N. sailed with three other boars for the fishing ground south of Eddystone. Shortly after arriving there a stiff S.E. wind rose and the three other boars returned to Polperro. J.R.N. under two reefs continued. Jimmy Curtis called out “Shake out the reef. Jacko [J. George] take over helm. I’m going to put on my oilskins”. Jack remarked “That’s settled it. We shan’t go in tonight.” (He was courting at the time). Curtis saw gannets diving. They shot the nets and hauled 2,000 pilchards. Turned south and Joe and Jack started ‘brining’ (stamping on fo’c’sle). Found themselves in the midst of a vast shoal – fish were swarming everywhere.

‘Jimmy called out “Let me know when we are through. Don’t put the lights up”. They shot nets and returned over the same course. Had a cup of tea and then started to haul nets but could not get them in. They were so full of fish that they were aground. At dawn the next day some Looe Boats arrived and took over some of the nets. The J.R.N. took on board ten lasts (100,000) and got in to Polperro at 4.30pm. This remains today a record catch of pilchards for a Polperro boat. The fish sold for 5s. a 1,000. Next night J.R.N. was out again and caught 20,000.’

The owner of the J.R.N., Joe Gedye’s father was also named Joseph William Gedye (1837-1907). Joseph Gedye senior had become the innkeeper of the Three Pilchards by 1870, just a few yards along from the former Fishermans Arms in Lansallos Street. After his death in 1907 he was buried alongside his wife Rachel (née Batten, 1839-1887) in Talland churchyard.

His son Joe, who told the story of the record catch, married Fanny Tangley Holt (1872-1959). The Cornish Times reported in June, 1947, that 75-year-old Mrs Fanny Gedye was living ‘in one of those tiny cottages which cling so precariously to the steep slopes of Polperro… For the past 12 years Mrs Gedye has suffered from rheumatism of the spine. She was blitzed out of Plymouth during the war’.

1814 Map of Polperro

Fri, 11 Mar 2022 15:20:34 +0000

Last autumn I was contacted by a lady living near Truro, saying she had come across an ‘antique’ map while clearing her late aunt’s house relating to properties owned by Zephaniah Job in Polperro. When I visited her, she produced the map, dated 1814 and described as a ‘Plan of Polperro Harbour and lands situate at Polperro belonging to Zephaniah job Esq. Surveyed 1814’. It was drawn on calf skin vellum and had obviously been kept rolled up for some considerable time.

The map, drawn by surveyor James Dunstone, shows a number of properties leading down from the Coombes to the harbour where the quays and limekilns were marked. Properties coloured red were shown as belonging ‘to Mr Job’ and included the buildings on the inner quay; several along The Warren overlooking the inner harbour, including the lime kilns; others on Talland Hill along with their gardens; another in Fore Street with a large garden, and a stable and plot of land on the west side of the Coombes.

It was almost certainly drawn for Zephaniah Job, the ‘Smugglers’ Banker’, following the sale of the Raphael Manor estate on the west side of Polperro in 1813 when many of the tenants, including Job, were able to buy their homes. Job himself paid £630 for seventeen properties in Polperro, including the sand quay, the two lime kilns on The Warren, the slip where coal, goods and merchandise were landed and even the harbour itself:

‘... all that the Haven or Harbour of Polperro extending from the sea at low water mark up the Beach to the Street called Lansallos Street as far as high water mark together also with the two Piers or Quay walls standing in the said harbour and the mooring rings and mooring places .... also all the Rock at the entrance of the said harbour called the Peak which is the sole defence of the said Harbour and Quay Walls in stormy weather .... and also a right is hereby given and granted to and for the said Zephaniah Job his heirs and assigns his workmen and labourers to dig search for and take stones wanting and sufficient for the reparation and rebuilding of the said Piers and Quay Walls from the path leading from Jane Mark’s house by Chapel House to the Peak Rock.’

The harbour proved to be Job's one bad investment. In January 1817, just four years after he bought it, Polperro was hit by a storm of such terrible severity that it destroyed almost everything in the harbour. It was a devastating blow for Job who at once set about having all the damage repaired at enormous cost to himself. The effort of repairing the damage left by the storm took its toll on him. Although nearly 70 years old, his banking and commercial activities still demanded a great deal of his attention and, exhausted by the strain of rebuilding Polperro's shattered economy, his health began to suffer.

For the last few years of his life Zephaniah Job lived in a cottage at Kellow near Crumplehorn Mill in the coombe above Polperro. During his final illness he was treated by Dr Jonathan Couch until his death at the age of 73 on the last day of January 1822.

The 1814 map showing the properties and land he owned is believed to be the oldest known plan of Polperro. It has now undergone conservation by a Harrogate based restorer; professionally cleaned, flattened and framed, it will be displayed in the Polperro Museum.

Bill Cowan

Tue, 05 Oct 2021 11:28:20 +0000

Bill Cowan, who died this year at the age of 97, came to live in Polperro in 1947, having been born in Plymouth and grown up by the Barbican. Apprenticed as a carpenter before the war, Bill joined the Royal Navy at the outbreak of war and his love of the sea never left him. He survived the sinking of one of the ships he served on in a bombing raid while another sank in a storm.

His post war career as a fisherman proved just as hazardous when, fishing out of Hull, he was part of the crew of a trawler fishing off Iceland when he was badly injured after falling down into the hold. The experience did not deter him from life at sea and once recovered from his injuries, he headed for Newlyn in search of a job there.

‘I was walking along the harbour in Newlyn when I met Frank Oliver, skipper of the Patsy Ann which was registered in Polperro,’ he later recalled. ‘He offered me a job straightaway.’

Bill arrived in Polperro, living with the Oliver family for a while and eventually he and Frank went into partnership together.

‘It was very hard going,’ he said. ‘There was no radio or life jackets. It was done with a compass and a clock. We would fish around west Cornwall for maybe a week and then come back to Polperro for the weekend.’

Bill stayed with the Patsy Ann for a few years, marrying a local girl, Madge Curtis, in 1952. Madge died in 1970 and five years later Bill married Fay Jolliff, eventually to become father, grandfather and great-grandfather to a large and loving family while also continuing to be very active in the village. He was a Trustee of the Harbour for over 50 years, during which time he was both Chairman and Harbour Master, eventually being made Life President.

Bill’s most enduring legacy perhaps will be the Polperro Heritage Museum of Smuggling & Fishing which he was instrumental in setting up in 1994. Based in what had previously been the Teglio brothers pilchard factory in The Warren, it has proved to be a valuable asset to both the harbour and the village, visited every year by thousands of visitors.

Cornwall's Forgotten Art Centre

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 15:12:17 +0000

The art colonies of Newlyn, Lamorna and St Ives are well-known but somehow that of Polperro has failed to attract the same degree of attention despite the fact that the village has drawn numerous artists over the years. Furthermore, unlike most other Cornish art centres, Polperro has largely retained its attractive features and had not been unduly spoilt by modern development. Margaret Tarrent - The Inner Quay, Polperro (1946)

Now, at last, an impressive two-volume work has been published that should change all that. Art historian David Tovey, whose great-grandfather William Titcomb was among the many artists to have visited Polperro in the 20th century, has produced a handsomely illustrated publication, Polperro: Cornwall’s Forgotten Art Centre, encompassing work by artists spanning two centuries.

Not only are both volumes fully illustrated with colour plates throughout, but the author weaves an enormous amount of well-researched social history in with an account of the artists’ work featured.

Typhoid Fever in Polperro

Sun, 11 Oct 2020 15:52:28 +0000

An outbreak of typhoid fever in Polperro at the beginning of September 1929 caused considerable alarm among residents and the local authority at the time. The Western Morning News reported that the Ministry of Health had issued instructions for an isolation hospital attached to the Liskeard Workhouse to be used to accommodate 15 infected patients from Polperro, many of whom had been very reluctant to leave their homes, some only agreeing to be taken there after being threatened with a magistrate’s warrant. One young mother suffering from typhoid was reported to have fled to an unknown address with her baby of 20 months.

Such was the fear of infection that the authorities faced further difficulty when the fact that the Liskeard ambulance refused to transport any of the typhoid sufferers. After considerable delay, an ambulance was obtained from Plymouth, making three journeys on two successive days until the Medical Officer of Plymouth intervened and refused to allow it to be used. As there was then no ambulance in the whole of Cornwall available for infectious diseases, a further case of typhoid in Polperro had to be taken to Liskeard in a private car which was subsequently disinfected.

The local Medical Officer of Health said it was the first outbreak of typhoid in Polperro for over 40 years, in spite of the fact that the river running through the village was used an open sewer. Careful investigations had revealed that the likely cause was the milk supply from a dairy which drew water for washing utensils from a well located within 80 feet of the river. An official report following an inspection by medical officers in Polperro concluded that the pollution of the river ‘renders the water from the stream totally unfit for domestic circumstances or any other purposes, however remotely connected with the preparation of food and drink for human consumption’. The future disinfection of the river at Polperro with chloride of lime was left to the medical officer’s discretion.

A previous outbreak of typhoid fever in Polperro had occurred in 1891 when the then Medical Officer of Health, Dr William Nettle, reported to the Liskeard Rural Sanitary Authority: ‘No hospital being at hand to isolate the case, the patient was kept at home and went through all the stages of the fever in the living-room of the house and infected another member of the family’.

The Mary Barrow

Wed, 13 May 2020 15:51:10 +0000

The Mary Barrow was one of the biggest vessels to visit Polperro harbour before the Second World War.

Built by W. K. Lean at Falmouth in October 1891 for South American hide trade, she was a beautiful three-masted topgallant schooner, was 103’ long, 24’ wide and 11’ high. In 1894 two of her crew died of yellow fever. For many years she plied the Newfoundland fish trade and nearly came to grief during the January storms of 1908 when she was stranded on Porthminster beach, St. Ives (alongside another schooner, the Lizzie R. Wilce). Both ships were carrying coal from Swansea when they encountered heavy seas and a strong north-west gale while trying to enter St Ives harbour. She was refloated a week later under a reduced rig and continued to sail on the British coastal trade.

In 1926 she was fitted with an engine and managed by Couch of Fowey. In 1928 she was owned in Newquay but around 1932 she was sold to Captain Peter Mortensen of Truro and converted to auxiliary schooner, finding steady employment in the china clay industry to Scotland.

In September 1938 she was lost in fog off the Isle of Man and came too close inshore and was stranded on the Calf of Man while bound with coal from Truro to Ayr. The crew were saved but the sturdy old schooner was doomed. She was pounded by the storm during the night and when dawn broke she had been reduced to a pile of broken matchwood.

Deck Prism

Tue, 11 Feb 2020 12:45:06 +0000

I was given this ship's prism by an American friend, Roberta Weisberg (see blog January 2016). At first, I wasn’t sure what it was… my first thought was that it was a paperweight of some sort. The smooth, hexagonal face measures three inches between opposing vertices, and three inches between opposing sides. The overall height to the tip is three inches. It is quite heavy for its size, and I'm not sure exactly how old it is.

What I have since found out was that for centuries, sailing ships used deck prisms to provide a safe source of natural sunlight to illuminate areas below decks. Before electricity, light below a vessel's deck was provided by candles, oil and kerosene lamps - all dangerous aboard a wooden ship. The deck prism was a clever solution: laid flush into the deck, the glass prism refracted and dispersed natural light into the space below from a small deck opening without weakening the planks or becoming a fire hazard. Aboard colliers (coal ships), prisms were also used to keep check on the cargo hold: light from a fire would be collected by the prism and be made visible on the deck even in daylight.

In normal usage, the prism hangs below the overhead and disperses the light sideways; the top is flat and installed flush with the deck, becoming part of the deck. A plain flat glass window would just form a single bright spot below - not very useful for general illumination - hence the prismatic shape.

Another Man's Shoes

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 17:28:18 +0000

Stories of extraordinary heroism by people caught up in the horrors of the Second World War are still emerging even seventy-five years after the events.

One such is the first-hand account of Sven Somme, a Norwegian scientist who was working for the resistance movement in 1944 when he was arrested for spying by the Gestapo. On his way for interrogation and almost certain death, he managed to escape and make his way across the mountains to freedom in Sweden, pursued by German soldiers.

Sven’s remarkable story, written shortly before he died after the war, was eventually published by the Polperro Heritage Press in 2005 after his daughter Ellie Somme had returned to Norway and traced the route of her father’s flight from Nazi-occupied Norway, meeting some of the families who had helped him along the way.

Ellie recounts one particularly emotional moment when a pair of her father’s shoes, which he had exchanged for mountain boots, were returned to her by one family who had sheltered Sven along the way.

After the book, Another Man’s Shoes, was published fifteen years ago, Ellie later discovered coded messages hidden in microdots under postage stamps on some letters among her father’s effects. Much has subsequently come to light about the secret work of the brave men and women who worked for the Norwegian resistance, many of whom were tortured and executed following capture.

Ellie Somme talks about her father’s work on BBC Radio 4 Saturday Live on 18th January.

An 18th Century Schoolboyâ€™s Exercise Book

Tue, 10 Dec 2019 16:55:01 +0000

The surviving ledgers and letterbooks of Zephaniah Job, the ‘Smugglers’ Banker’ of Polperro, include an exercise book that had once belonged to a boy named John Clements, one of Job’s pupils when he earned a living as a schoolmaster shortly after arriving in Polperro in the early 1770s

The brown covered book, measuring 6in x 9in, is inscribed on the first page: John Clements of Polperro and, underneath a multiplication table, 12th December 1775. John Clements was born in 1768, so would have been seven years old at the time.

Subsequent pages (there are some 70 in all) mostly contain a series of arithmetical problems and exercises and, towards the end, tables of weights and measures, all written in copperplate hand. These not only provided a fascinating insight into the educational methods of the period, but also reveal something of the trade carried on in Polperro in the eighteenth century.

If one anker of Brandy costs £2..6s..9¾dwhat shall 3 ankers cost at that rate?

If one yard of Broad Cloth cost £17s..10½d what shall 4 yards cost?

If I buy One Sheep for £12s..9¼d how much must I give for 7 sheep?

If one anker of Geneva costs £2..18s..7½d what shall 18 ankers cost?

What shall 72 ankers of Rum, each 10 gallons, cost at 4s..9¾d?

Others shed some illuminating light on earnings and the cost of living at the time:

If my yearly income be £36..16s..8d how much will it be for 7 years?

If I pay 5s..7½d for the wages of 6 men for one day, what must I pay them for 12 days?

But several of the calculations set out in the exercise book seem almost impossibly challenging even for an adult mathematician, let alone a seven-year-old boy:

Reduce 7842 miles into barleycorns [a barleycorn = one third of an inch];

Answer: 1,490,607,360 barleycorns!

How many barleycorns will reach round the globe, it being accounted 360 degrees, each degree 60 miles?

The answer is a mind-boggling 4,105,728,000! But, as Perrycoste himself pointed out, the task ‘seems calculated to reduce one’s brain to flitters’.

How many wagons will reach from Fowey to Looe, it being computed 8 miles; allowing 6 yards for the standing of each wagon?

Reduce 12 years, 11 months, 3 weeks, 6 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 57 seconds into seconds

How many seconds are there in 38 solar years?

[A solar year in the 18th century = 13 months, 1 day and 6 hours. Today it is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 45 seconds]

There are several other exercises involving units of weight from the old avoirdupois system such as grains (1/7000th of an ounce), drams (1 dram = â€Š1⁄16 ounce) and scruples (1 scruple = 16 grains). For example: Reduce 41,423,103 drams into tuns [1 tun = 216 gallons].

John Clements obviously kept his school exercise book because, in later years between 1787 and 1808, he used some of the blank pages at the back for accounts on the schooner Polperro of which he was master. There are one or two entries relating to dealings with William Quiller involving quantities of rum, brandy and Geneva which suggest that he also joined the smuggling trade in contraband goods from Guernsey.

The Fate of the Brilliant of Polperro

Tue, 16 Apr 2019 11:32:03 +0000

The Brilliant was a big three-masted lugger whose owners included, among others, Zephaniah Job and John Quiller of Polperro during the 1780s. Though she may well have been engaged in the smuggling trade that flourished between Guernsey and Polperro at the end of the 18th century, she was also credited with having seized a number of valuable prizes. References to her privateering exploits crop up frequently among Job’s surviving papers, including a detailed description of her rigging and equipment in 1786:

Three-masted lugger of 120 tons,

Hull, Masts, Yards, Standing and Running Rigging good as she came in from the sea.

1 Large Mainsail

1 Great Foresail

1 Trysail

1 Main Topsail

1 Working Foresail to ye fore Mast

1 Maccarony foresail

2 Storme foresails

1 fore topsail

4 Jibbs

3 Mizzens

2 Cables almost new & 2 Ankers good

1 Copper Kettle

1 do. Teakettle

2 Brass Compasses with sundry other stores belong to the said Luggar Brilliant’

The Brilliant was really a Guernsey ship but in 1793 Letters of Marque were granted to her commander, John Quiller, against French vessels. At the time, she carried a crew of 60 and was armed with 12 carriage guns and 6 swivel guns. Shortly after setting out from St. Peter Port she quickly recaptured an English ship that the French had seized previously. A few months later however, under a Guernsey commander, she disappeared, presumed captured or sunk by the French. There are a few tantalising references to her among Job’s letters to the Guernsey merchants but nothing to indicate her fate.

Nothing, that is, until I was contacted by a French maritime historian, Jean Rouffet, asking if I knew anything about a vessel named the Brilliant that had apparently been captured by the French in 1793. He had come across a picture of a three-masted vessel on a dish (right) produced in Bayonne in 1800 which he had subsequently identified as the Brilliant, seized by a larger French naval vessel named Lionne after a brief but intense exchange of fire in December 1793.

The British prize was taken to Rochefort where she was much admired and soon taken into service by the French Navy. Renamed Brillant, she became one of the fastest ships in the French fleet and was credited with the capture of a number of foreign ships. Later service in the West Indies ended with her being declared unfit in 1799. After undergoing repairs, the Brillant returned to Bayonne where she was put on guard duty until eventually being broken up. Her timbers however were used in the building of a new lugger also named Brillant which went on to capture three British ships in 1803!

Cornwall's Pioneer Photographer

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 17:11:29 +0000

Some of the earliest photographs taken in Cornwall in the 18th century are the product of a patient of Dr Jonathan Couch of Polperro. The man in question was Lewis Harding (1807-1893); encouraged to take up photography as a therapeutic treatment following a nervous breakdown, he was the grandson of the erstwhile local squire, Rev Sir Harry Trelawny.

One of Harding’s earliest photographs was of Jonathan Couch himself, pictured seated at Trelawne holding the tusk of an Indonesian wild pig in October 1856 (right). Photography then was in its infancy and the equipment required was cumbersome, so that almost all of Harding’s later subjects were drawn from the residents of Polperro where he lived.

Many of them were local fishermen. Indeed, one of Harding’s most notable legacies is a series of 80 head and shoulder portraits of Polperro fishermen and other village men. Among them, John Oliver the customs officer, Richard Curtis the local preacher, William Minards the boot and shoemaker, Joseph Geddye the landlord of the Three Pilchards Inn, all part of the fabric of village life in a Cornish fishing village 150 years ago.

Lewis Harding was using a collodion process. Discovered in 1846, it was made by dissolving gun-cotton with a mixture of alcohol and ether and was originally used to treat wounds, but in 1851 Frederick Scott Archer used it for the first time to coat photographic glass plates. The surviving sepia prints are still of a high quality, but more recently there have been moves to colourise them. The results are remarkable, as this portrait of William Adams (1814-1893) shows.

Packing Pilchards in Polperro

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 11:26:55 +0000

Polperro once relied upon the sea for nearly everything: food, transport, trade, defence and contact with the outside world. Fishing was always a vital part of the Cornish way of life and in the 18th and 19th centuries and pilchard fishing was a major industry in Polperro. Throughout the summer months huge shoals of pilchards were caught off the south Cornish coast and then taken to pilchard cellars, called pallaces, for processing.

Pallace Court, above the Museum in the Warren, was once such a building. In 1800, Reginald Barrett leased a pallace on the Outer Quay. Another pallace stood at Kit Hill on Talland Hill, leased to James Pearce (1753-1815) and his wife Ann (neé Peake) but by 1813 this had been converted into an inn with a brewhouse attached.

In these buildings, women salted and packed the pilchards up against the walls until a solid bulk three feet deep and six feet high was raised. After a month had elapsed, the fish were packed into hogsheads (straight-sided barrels that held 3,000 fish and designed to leak) and the contents pressed by heavy weights so that the oil and salt seeped out into specially made drains, producing up to 45 litres from each barrel. This ‘train oil’ was collected for use in lamps or sold for use in the tanning industry.

Even before 1800, Polperro pilchards were sold far and wide, including Italian ports such as Livorno. The fish was purchased almost exclusively by Italian Catholics for religious fasting. Hence the traditional toast of Cornish fishermen:

Here’s a health to the Pope; may he never know sorrow,

With pilchards today and pilchards tomorrow.

Good luck to his Holiness; may he repent,

And add just six months to the length of his Lent;

And tell all his vassals from Rome to the poles,

There’s nothing like pilchards for saving their souls.

Later, in the 20th century, two Italians – the Teglio bothers – settled in Polperro and leased the fish store below Pallace Court (now the Polperro Museum) from where they exported pilchards to their home country.

Pilchard fishing declined from the mid-20th century, although small quantities of pilchards are still caught in Cornish waters today.

Kiko's Story

Mon, 16 Jul 2018 13:30:17 +0000

When I wrote the last blog entry in February, our latest author, Kiko Matthews, was somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic ocean attempting to become the fastest woman to complete the crossing solo and unaccompanied.

At the time, neither she nor I knew if she would even manage to complete the crossing let alone break the world record for doing so, given that she was still recovering from recent brain surgery to remove a tumour from her pituitary gland.

Four weeks later, Kiko rowed into Port St Charles, Barbados, exactly 49 days, seven hours and 13 minutes after setting out from Grand Canaria, beating the previous record set by a French woman 15 years earlier by six days. It was a remarkable achievement by any measure, all the more so because she was on medication as she rowed, battling wind, waves and fatigue all the way.

Every day she would send a brief blog of her progress via satellite phone. It is this, plus the story of her life leading up to the crossing itself, that has formed the basis of the book that she has written. Kiko: How to beat the Atlantic rowing record after brain surgery will be published in September. Not surprisingly, perhaps, it has taken her rather longer to write than it did to row across the Atlantic, but the account of her epic solo voyage, accompanied by dozens of amazing colour photographs taken on her phone along the way, make a very special publication.

As she says in the Introduction: ‘It’s an honest account of me, Kiko, and my solo row across the Atlantic. What got me there, my background, my thoughts on those who have helped me and some of the theories behind my mental strength. I really hope you can take something away from it. I want it to make you laugh, to think and inspire you to challenge yourself. If you cry, that wasn’t the intention, but you never know! I want it to make you realise you can do anything. After all, I went to quite a lot of effort to prove to you that anything is possible if you want it enough’.

Atlantic Challenge

Wed, 21 Feb 2018 12:55:05 +0000

I came across a remarkable story last year. A young woman, Kiko Matthews, was preparing to row across the Atlantic on her own in an attempt to beat the record for the fastest woman ever to do so unsupported.

What was all the more remarkable however was that Kiko had undergone two major operations to remove a tumour on her pituitary gland at the base of her brain, a life-threatening condition known as Cushing’s disease. She had never rowed before announcing her challenge and planned to raise £100,000 for King’s College Hospital in London where she had been treated.

On 1st February this year, she set off alone from Gran Canaria in her boat to row 3,000 miles to Barbados. The current record for the fastest woman to do so was set in 2003 when Frenchwoman Anne Quéméré completed the crossing in 56 days. Kiko (right) plans to complete the crossing in only 45 days.

The book of her extraordinary feat is being written as she rows, day by day, page b y page… though we cannot yet be sure how it will end. As she herself says, “I have found the experiences that come with tackling the unknown and the potential for achievement far outweigh the possibility of failure. With a belief that the outcome is irrelevant, I see challenge as an opportunity to develop skills and knowledge as well as resilience, confidence and relationships.”

Kiko’s fund-raising has been supported largely by women through her 100togetHER campaign, set up to involve one hundred (or more) women in her record attempt and to show that any challenge can be overcome or achieved by women working together and supporting one another. Each ‘woman’ (a group, business or individual) was asked to donate £1k.

“The campaign itself started as a personal challenge,” says Kiko. “Something to keep me out of mischief but also, having been at a point so close to death, I wanted to show people how life can change and what can be achieved with the right attitude and support. It was also a great opportunity to say thank you to King’s College Hospital by raising funds for their new critical care unit to thank them for saving my life.”

The story of Kiko’s epic voyage, when it is eventually published later this year, should certainly inspire many other women to take on a similarly impossible challenge.

The Denniston dynasty

Fri, 20 Oct 2017 15:15:01 +0000

Ten years ago I published Robin Denniston’s tribute to his father, Thirty Secret Years: A. G. Denniston’s work in signals intelligence 1914-1944. His father Alastair had headed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) before the Second World War and was responsible for setting up the code-breaking operation at Bletchley Park. In due course he was moved to a similar operation in London but when he retired at the end of the war, the highly secret nature of his work meant that he received little recognition for his distinguished career. Indeed, he is almost the only head of what is now GCHQ to have not received a knighthood for his service.

Robin had originally approached me while I had been in discussion with one of his daughters, Susanna Everitt, about a possible book about her great-grandfather James Denniston. In the event, I went ahead with Robin’s monograph about his father’s work. Robin himself had had a distinguished career in publishing and was keen to see his father’s role acknowledged once he had been given the go-ahead by GCHQ.

In due course, I returned to the story of James Denniston, a Glaswegian doctor who had volunteered to work in a field hospital in Erzurum in Turkey during the 1870s when Turkey was at war with Russia. His letters to a young woman he had left behind vividly described the appalling conditions he encountered; they also charted the growing intimacy of the relationship that developed between them.

A young member of the extended Denniston family, James McKnight, undertook the task of turning the epistolary romance into a novel, published this month as Letters From Erzurum.

Meanwhile, a few weeks earlier, a biography of Alastair Denniston by the Bletchley Park historian Dr Joel Greenberg was at last published. Alastair Denniston: Code-Breaking from Room 40 to Berkeley Street and the Birth of GCHQ was duly launched at GCHQ in the presence of the Denniston family.

The hitherto unacknowledged role of the man who headed one of Britain’s most secret wartime operations has now been told, along with that of his father, the young Glaswegian doctor who served in an altogether different theatre of war.

Wrecks and Royals

Wed, 13 Sep 2017 09:13:59 +0000

The story of the ‘Wreck of the Ten Sail’, when ten ships from a convoy came to grief on a reef off Grand Cayman in 1794, is a familiar one to the inhabitants of this idyllic haven in the Caribbean. But the legend that has become attached to the incident, that the reason the Cayman islands enjoy tax free status today is because a royal prince aboard one of the ships was saved by the islanders and a grateful King George III granted the Islands the status they enjoy today, has long been dismissed by modern historians.

However, as author Sam Oakley reveals in her new book The Wreck Of The Ten Sail – a true story from Cayman’s past there was indeed a link with the British monarch. One of the passengers aboard HMS Convert, the frigate escort also wrecked along with nine merchant vessels, was Lady Amelia Cooke, daughter of the Duke of Atholl whose aristocratic Murray family ruled the Isle of Man in the 18th century. Thirty years old at the time, she was returning to England from Jamaica following the death of her husband there. Her cousin, Lady August a Murray, had secretly married Prince Augustus Frederick, the sixth son of George III, in Italy the previous year.

Lady Amelia was among several hundred survivors of the maritime disaster, attributed to a navigational error, who found themselves stranded on Grand Cayman at a time when the inhabitants were still coping with the aftermath of a ferocious hurricane that had virtually devastated the island. So dire was their plight that a group of prominent residents wrote a letter to Captain John Lawford, commander of the Convert, pleading with him to evacuate the survivors as quickly as possible.

Today, a monument stands on a lonely outcrop of the shore overlooking the reef where the ten vessels were wrecked. It was commemorated on the 200th anniversary of the event in 1995 when Queen Elizabeth II paid a visit to the spot, though it is not known whether she was aware at the time of the royal connection unearthed by our author.

Polperro Smugglers' Jug

Wed, 02 Aug 2017 15:39:44 +0000

‘Success to our Trade’ was the toast of the Polperro smugglers in the 18th century. The ‘Trade’ in question was the import of contraband goods from Guernsey; huge quantities of rum, gin, brandy, tea and tobacco were shipped across the Channel to Cornwall and sold on once landed ashore. It was a risky if lucrative business that brought great wealth to a number of Polperro families, among them the Quillers.

The existence of a ‘smuggling’ jug that had once belonged to William Quiller and inscribed with the famous ‘toast’ has long been known. Indeed, an early photograph of it can be seen in the Polperro Museum. But the jug itself was thought to have been lost… until now, when it surfaced in the care of a descendant of the family and in remarkably good condition considering its age.

The creamware jug is typical of many commemorative jugs produced during the 1790s and early 1800s, except that it uniquely celebrates the smuggling trade. On one side is a picture of a lugger and on the other a pony laden with a barrel of what is presumably liquor of some sort; both representative of the smuggling trade that flourished in Cornwall at the time.

The jug originally belonged to either William Quiller (1765-1816) or his son of the same name (1790-1823). Both commanded a number of smuggling and privateering vessels during the Napoleonic wars and both probably perished at sea as did many of the Quiller menfolk. William Quiller’s name crops up frequently in the accounts of the Polperro privateers that captured a number of valuable French prizes when Britain was at war with France.

Nelson's Right Arm

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 17:52:46 +0000

Enjoying a few days away from the British winter weather last month in Tenerife I was surprised to come across the full story of Admiral Horatio Nelson’s only major defeat in battle which resulted in the loss of his right arm.

The Battle of Santa Cruz in July 1797 was initiated by news that two valuable Spanish treasure ships had taken refuge in the harbour there in the north of Tenerife, aware that the British fleet was blockading Cadiz following Nelson’s victory a few months earlier off Cape St Vincent. One them, the Principe Fernando, was seized by the British along with her cargo worth £30,000. But the other more valuable prize escaped capture, prompting Nelson to mount a seaborne assault on the heavily defended port of Santa Cruz.

His squadron of three 74-gun ships, three frigates, the cutter Fox and a mortar boat recently taken from the Spaniards, arrived off Tenerife on 21st July. The Spanish defenders were alerted to the possibility of an invasion however. An attempt to land a raiding party and gain a position above the town was repelled so, on the evening of the 24th Nelson decided to attack directly from the sea. The battle plan called for a combination of naval bombardments and an amphibious landing.

Several of the boats failed to land at the correct positions in the confusion, while those that did were swept by gunfire and grapeshot. Nelson's boat reached its intended landing point but as he stepped ashore he was hit in the right arm by a musketball, which fractured his upper arm in several places. He was rowed back to his flagship, Theseus to be attended to by the surgeon. Most of the right arm was amputated and within half an hour Nelson had returned to issuing orders to his captains.

A force of almost 1,000 men made up the assault force, but many were lost in the attempt. The cutter Fox was also sunk by a lucky shot from a 24-pounder and as the battle ashore continued through the night, it soon became clear that the beleaguered invaders had no option other than to surrender.

The Spanish commander in Santa Cruz, General Antonio Gutierrez, allowed the British to leave with their weapons. This led to a courteous exchange of letters between Nelson and Gutiérrez. A copy of Nelson's letter (right) offering a cheese as a token of his gratitude is actually on display at the Military Museum in Santa Cruz. It must have been one of the first occasions he was obliged to write with his left hand.

Polperro Painting Appeal

Sun, 18 Dec 2016 12:51:49 +0000

Seven years ago, in 2009, I was contacted by an amateur antique dealer in Minneapolis who said she had just bought an oil painting of Polperro dated c1820 in a sale there. She was initially attracted to it because of its large gilt frame, but on closer inspection, she noticed part of an old label on the back on which it was just possible to make out the following words, written in ink: ‘English Channel… purchased from the artist for 36 guineas Mar 09, 1800 [?] … Polperro Bay’. The painting was signed ‘W. Linton’.

The photograph of the painting she sent me suggested it was a very early view of Polperro. There was indeed an English landscape artist named William Linton, born in 1791 whose style was very similar to the Polperro painting, though it must have obviously been done later than the 1800 date on the label suggests. Linton (1791-1876) was a Liverpool born landscape artist who moved to London where he exhibited between 1817 and 1871. He was one of the founders of the Society of British Artists founded 1824.

My US correspondent, Ann Pierzina-Killian, told me that the person who sold it to her has said it came from a Victorian house in Minneapolis that had been a funeral parlour and where it had hung for many years.

What struck me, when I saw the photo of the painting, was how remarkably accurate many of the features were, given what we know of Polperro in the early part of the 19th century. Unlike the exaggerated views drawn by Joseph Farington after his visit there in 1810, it is possible to make out the Warren, both piers in the harbour and even what looks like St. Peter’s chapel on the Lansallos side in Linton’s work.

How it ended up in a funeral parlour in Minneapolis is anyone’s guess. It may, of course, have been taken to the USA with one of the Polperro families who emigrated there in the 19th century. But the current owner of the painting is now offering it for sale with a price tag of $5,000.

That seems a lot for a painting that appears to have no particular artistic merit, but it is clearly something that ought to be brought back to Polperro if at all possible, perhaps by some form of public subscription or local appeal.

Looe Literary Festival

Mon, 14 Nov 2016 11:20:32 +0000

As one of the speakers at the Looe Literary Festival this year, I was struck by the delightful pleasure that Cornish folk derive from stories about their past. Author Paul Greenwood opened this year’s festival with a spell-binding talk about ghosts in the Jolly Sailor Inn, and I followed the next day with the story of Zephaniah Job, the smugglers’ banker of Polperro. There was scarcely room to move in the crowded bar of the Jolly Sailor, reputed to be one of the oldest pubs in Britain, a sure sign that Cornish men and women enjoy a good yarn.

The Looe Literary Festival is now in its third year and despite attracting big names (former Home Secretary Alan Johnson and Ann Widdecombe were among this year’s speakers) it still struggles to avoid making a loss. Even the local town council withdrew funding this year but the indomitable spirit of organisers Amelia Pruen and June Slee has kept it going despite setbacks and difficulties.

There was something for every taste and age among this year's highlights: Hogwarts recreated in the Guildhall, a talk on self-published fiction, 'horrible sciences' for children, a comic poet, a workshop for young writers, a Booker Prize Long List novelist, 'moon gardening' (whatever that is), Cornish miners in World War I as well as the two famous politicians - one Labour, one Tory - discussing their memoirs!

The Wreck Of The Ten Sail

Tue, 19 Jul 2016 09:42:14 +0000

On a recent visit to the Cayman Islands I came across the story of the Wreck of the Ten Sail, when ten ships were wrecked on a reef off Grand Cayman in 1794. They were part of a convoy of merchant ships escorted by a British frigate, HMS Convert, that had set out from Jamaica for Britain and a navigational error by the Convert led it and nine of the merchant vessels on to the island.

A legend attached to the incident claims that a royal prince aboard one of the ships was saved by the islanders and as a result, King George III granted the Cayman Islands the tax free status they enjoy today.

Whatever the truth of that legend, the story of the Wreck of the Ten Sail is remarkable enough as it is. Author Samantha Oakley, who lives on Grand Cayman with her husband Nick, is currently researching the events leading up to and following the disaster which claimed the lives of several people on board the stricken ships.

A monument commemorating the event was erected in 1994 overlooking Gun Bay to mark the visit there by the Queen on the 200th anniversary.

On Being Published

Sun, 13 Mar 2016 12:10:19 +0000

As a publisher myself, I have found the experience of being published by another publisher somewhat strange and revealing.

My latest book, Smuggling In Cornwall: An Illustrated History is published this month by Amberley Publishing, a well-established imprint with a great many titles. It was commissioned a year ago and I duly delivered the text (17,000+ words) and 130 images in July last year. I even submitted some additional images that might be used for the cover.

I heard nothing more until a few weeks ago when I was shown the cover image for the first time. My initial reaction was one of disappointment; it didn’t really seem to reflect the subject of the book and looked more like a crude redrawing of one of the images in the book. When I mentioned this to the commissioning editor (who has since moved on to another publisher) I was informed that it was too late to change.

How different, I reflected, to the rather more consultative process I adopt with my authors. The decision over the choice of cover image for a book must, finally, always rest with the publisher since it is a very important part of the marketing strategy. But I have never knowingly published a book with a cover that the author did not approve of. Indeed, maintaining a good and constructive relationship with an author is an important part of the publishing process. In my previous life at the BBC, it was known as managing the talent.

Amberley Publishing is a big operation and it publishes many new titles every month, but I have felt strangely excluded from the process of publishing mine. Apart from one perfunctory telephone call from a publicist, there has been little evidence of any promotion for it, let alone any involvement by me as the author.

Serendipity (2)

Sun, 10 Jan 2016 12:41:56 +0000

A few weeks after Mariner’s Mirror published an article about my 3x great-grandfather Richard Johns, the senior surviving officer of HMS Reindeer following her unsuccessful engagement with the USS Wasp in June 1814 (see blog entry June 2014), I discovered a further connection with the incident while visiting the USA.

A chance encounter with Roberta Weisberg, one of the cataloguers at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, revealed that the collection housed there included not one, but four original pen and ink watercolours of the battle by the English maritime painter, John Thomas Serres (1759-1825). Roberta very kindly arranged for a private viewing of the paintings, three of which were hitherto unknown to me.

Each has been exquisitely executed in minute detail, portraying a sequence of four stages of the engagement between the two vessels which ended after a ferocious battle lasting only twenty minutes with the burning of the Reindeer at sea. Serres is believed to have completed the works around 1820.

Polperro History Archive

Thu, 08 Oct 2015 15:54:07 +0000

The Polperro Family History Society continues to thrive, despite being robbed of the wealth of knowledge of our late Projects Officer, Martin Hipperson, who died suddenly in September 2014. Martin devoted himself to compiling an extensive archive on the local and family history of Polperro dating back several centuries. Over a number of years, he conducted interviews with local inhabitants, many of them elderly and some sadly no longer with us; in addition, he created an enormous genealogical database of Polperro families, work that other members of the Society are endeavouring to continue.

Fortunately, Martin’s widow, Christine, is the Society’s chairperson and has kindly consented to the large number of files relating to his research being relocated to the library room of the village hall in Polperro as a permanent archive for PFHS members and others by arrangement. The village hall management committee has generously provided some secure cabinets to house the wealth of material that has arrived there. Meanwhile a team of local members are currently working through it all in order to collate and catalogue it.

Many tributes have been paid to Martin since his untimely death last year, and the latest issue of the Society’s Journal (No. 27) gives details of the arrangements being made for anyone requiring access to the archive.

What Makes A Good Blog?

Wed, 01 Jul 2015 10:10:06 +0000

Judging entries for the Birmingham Press Club’s ‘Blogger of the Year’ this week has had me contemplating exactly what does constitute a good blog. The citation for this year’s Midlands Media Awards says it is looking for ‘the most engaging writing and commentary on almost any subject’ in recognition of the growing significance of blogging to journalism, communication and lifestyle.

Of the eight entries I have been looking at for this year’s award, three of them consisted largely of restaurant reviews, often disappointingly uncritical. Only one was refreshingly honest, combining wit with acerbic comment. But it was really a newspaper column that happened to appear in the on-line edition as well, so did it qualify as a blog?

In the end, one entry shone through. A fine example of comment and reportage on a subject that invariably requires further explanation, written by a true professional; illuminating, insightful and entertaining.

Whether my fellow judges agree remains to be seen.

Award Winning Young Author

Mon, 29 Jun 2015 15:42:44 +0000

Awards are always welcome in literary circles. For publishers, they are an opportunity to showcase their authors and promote book sales; for authors, they are a gratifying acknowledgement of their work, all too often unrecognised.

All the more delightful therefore when the author is a teenager with a passion for writing, as in the case of Charlie Johns, aged 15, who was presented with the Worcestershire Literary Festival’s Young Writer Award this month. Entries had to be no more than 300 words long and based on the theme of ‘The Gift’. Charlie’s story was based on a character he has been developing for his next book: Barry From Basingstoke – a grotesque obese leather-clad motorcyclist.

This is his award-winning story:

Barry’s ears pricked at the shatter of glass. Excitement squirmed in his sizeable belly. His tight leather trousers squeaked in protest as he scooted towards the sound, Doc Marten boots clumping along the tarmac, ploughing through puddles of motorbike diesel.
A figure slowly appeared at the end of the road wearing a grey tracksuit, holding a brick in his left hand. “What?” he snarled at the approaching figure of Barry.
Barry panted, his lungs rasping. The chrome studs on his leather jacket glinted in the glare of a shattered street lamp. “Not bad, mate,” he said, looking around at the youth’s vandalism.
The youth realised who he was talking to… Barry was something of a local celebrity, having made the front page of the Gazette for motorbike theft. The awe-struck lad bowed his head, his grip loosened and the brick dropped to the floor.
“Fanks,” he muttered, wracking his brains for an offering, some token of respect. The eager youth produced a package and held it near Barry’s nose, displaying a small pork pie.
The act of kindness melted Barry’s stony heart. He welled up as he slowly took it and, with trembling hands, brought it to his mouth and ate it whole. A rivulet of grey juice flowed down his chin, smattering onto his leather biker jacket.
Barry felt… happy. He couldn’t tell if it was the boy’s unwarranted kindness or the salty flavour of the pie. As he swallowed a bolus, a warm feeling spread through his tummy. He hadn’t felt this way since his Mum’s toad-in-the-hole in 1994.
“Cheers,” said Barry. The youth thumped his chest twice, and jogged away. Barry surveyed the cul-de-sac, the sun eclipsed by a massive satellite disk. He felt the pork pie settling in his stomach.
“Nice,” he said.

Polperro Inns Past & Present

Mon, 16 Feb 2015 17:52:22 +0000

Polperro’s six inns don’t just offer a warm welcome and good ale. They all have a fascinating history, some going back more than 200 years.

One of the oldest is the Three Pilchards (left)overlooking the harbour by the fish quay. Back in the early part of the 19th century, the Three Pilchards was kept by Charles Jolliff who came to Polperro from Launceston, married a local girl and stayed. In later years, it was often said contraband liquor was sold over the counter of the Three Pilchards: ‘If Charlie’s grey mare was saddled outside the inn at night, locals would know that another consignment of smuggled goods was due’.

The original Pier Inn, often referred to as the ‘New Inn on the Quay’ during the 18th century, features frequently in accounts of Polperro’s history. In March 1783 it was the venue for the sale of four valuable French and Spanish prize ships captured by a Polperro privateer named the Swallow. The sale, advertised in the Sherborne Mercury, attracted a large crowd of curious onlookers and prospective buyers to the harbour where three of the four vessels were berthed. Today, the Pier Inn is a private house.

The same New Inn was also used by John Rowett, a notorious Polperro smuggler, for a dinner in 1802 that he and his ship’s company were treated to by one of the Guernsey merchants from whom they bought their contraband goods. The cost of the meal, £9.18s.6d, was recorded by Zephaniah Job, who became known as the Smugglers’ Banker. At the time, the landlord of the New Inn was Benjamin Rowett, a cousin of his smuggling namesake. The origin of the present Blue Peter Inn is less certain, though its location right by the new pier suggests it could possibly have once been one of the ‘inns on the pier’ referred to from time to time in 18th and 19th century records.

The Ship Inn in Fore Street originally stood where the Post Office is today. At the end of the 18th century it was run by Charles Guy who was also heavily engaged in the smuggling trade between Polperro and St. Peter Port. Typical of his correspondence with the Guernsey merchants is the letter he sent in December 1799: “You will please ship on board the Mayflower for the account of Charles Hutton, ten ankers of Brandy, five of gin and five of rum, ready money.” An anker was an eight gallon barrel; ‘ready money’ meant cash on delivery.

Even more recent inns like the Noughts and Crosses in Landaviddy Lane have an interesting history as well. It was originally one of the three bakehouses in Polperro where bread and other items were baked during the 19th century. The name comes from the novel accounting practice then in use: bread orders were noted with a small or large ‘o’ according to size, and with an ‘x’ when they were paid for. The Old Mill House was another of the Polperro bakeshouses. At one time, dinners were cooked there for a halfpenny a time. A delectable aroma would fill the narrow streets around the harbour when the ovens opened and local folk hurried home with their Christmas dinners. The present building was built by William Henry Wright who came to Polperro with his father in 1891.

At the top of the village is the Crumplehorn Inn. Originally known as Killigarth Manor Mill, the mill wheel was powered by water that came from a mill pool located where the large car park now stands at the approach to Polperro. The Crumplehorn later became a farm and was converted to an inn the 1960s. It still has a working mill wheel.

Editor's Island Honour

Thu, 08 Jan 2015 15:58:24 +0000

A few years ago an extraordinary account of life on one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world landed on my desk. The island concerned was Tristan da Cunha, located somewhere in the middle of the South Atlantic, and the MS was the work of the island’s chief policeman, Conrad Glass.

Conrad vividly described how his duties were divided between the occasional demands of his police work and the need to look after the island’s colony of Rockhopper Penguins; the latter often proving more demanding. But I quickly realised that Conrad’s draft would need an editor to turn it into the book that I hoped it would become, a task that my former BBC colleague Chris Bates willingly agreed to undertake.

Entitled Rockhopper Copper, it was the first book to be written by a Tristan islander and, with Chris’s editing skills, is full of stories of rescues, volcanic eruptions, violent storms as well as the work involved in protecting the local wildlife... all told in the words of the island’s policeman and former Chief Islander.

Shortly after publication in 2010, Conrad Glass was awarded the MBE for his service to the Tristan community and Chris Bates (pictured right) was appointed as the official representative of Tristan da Cunha, attending meetings and various international functions around the world. He also visited the island itself on more than one occasion.

Rockhopper Copper has continued to delight readers worldwide and visitors from passing cruise ships lucky enough to get ashore invariably come away with a copy personally signed by Conrad himself. And when Chris Bates finally decided to retire from his role as the island’s representative last month, he too was awarded the MBE in the New Year Honours list.

His Majesty's Bad Bargain

Tue, 17 Jun 2014 18:23:00 +0000

Exactly 200 years ago this month (June), a British Naval sloop, HMS Reindeer fought a brief but bloody battle with a heavily-armed American man-of-war, the USS Wasp. Despite a courageous fight by the Reindeer’s crew, the British ship was forced to strike her colours after an engagement that lasted barely 20 minutes. The United States had been at war with Britain since 1812 but it was to be the last time the British Navy took on the US navy in European waters.

The action took place on the 28th June 1814 off the north-west coast of France in the approach to the English Channel and resulted in 27 members of the Reindeer’s crew being killed, including her commander, Captain William Manners, and a further 40 wounded – more than half her entire company. The senior surviving officer, the sailing master, was my 3x great-grandfather Richard Johns, himself severely wounded; two musket balls had passed through his left thigh and another through his right arm.

The Wasp’s captain, Johnston Blakeley, had the battered remains of the Reindeer burnt at sea before putting the rest of her survivors ashore at L’Orient. In due course, they were repatriated to England and at the subsequent court martial Richard Johns and the rest of the gallant survivors of the Reindeer were honourably discharged; the court recorded that they had displayed ‘the most determined courage and resolution’.

Two years after Richard left hospital the doctors had still not been able to remove the musket balls, and the wound in his shattered left leg was still open, causing considerable pain. A cripple for life, having lost the use of the leg, which was now shorter than the other by two and a half inches, his right arm was so injured that he could never undertake active service again. Pension arrangements in the Navy were still at a primitive stage, and any man not of officer rank was lucky to get anything, for he was not seen as a permanent member of the Service. At the time of the battle, Richard Johns had still been Acting Master, his appointment to that rank not yet having been confirmed by the Admiralty. He had to ask for special consideration.

The time came when he finally had to ‘swallow the anchor’, and settle down for good with his family at Plymouth. When in 1863 the Admiralty abolished the historic title of Master, and retired Masters were promoted to the new rank of Staff Commander, Richard Johns, (pictured above) at the age of 82 with his wooden leg so honourably acquired, must have been among the oldest of them. At the age of 90, he was called to the Admiralty. He presented himself in full dress, with cocked hat worn ‘thwartships’ like that of Nelson in the Trafalgar Square statue. A young officer pointed out to the old man that he was incorrectly dressed - the hat should be worn ‘fore-and-aft’. Richard retorted that he had worn a cocked hat before the youngster was born. The fashion had changed well over half-a-century before.

At the time of his death in his 93rd year at Plymouth in 1874 Richard was still entitled to half-pay of a retired Staff Commander, more than 50 years after the engagement between the Reindeer and the Wasp which had left him crippled for life. Not for nothing was he known as ‘His Majesty’s Bad Bargain’.

As to the Wasp, after re-fitting at L’Orient after her encounter with the Reindeer, she resumed her cruise. Still commanded by Captain Blakeley, she made a further seven captures before apparently being lost with all hands in a Caribbean storm.

The Three du Maurier Sisters

Thu, 01 May 2014 11:37:17 +0000

Daphne du Maurier’s literary legacy is an enduring one, as the recent BBC television dramatisation of Jamaica Inn demonstrated, despite some criticism of the audibility of the dialogue.

As Cornish author Michael Williams says in his book The Three du Maurier Sisters, ‘Daphne may not have been Cornish but she was one of the greatest writers to have come out of Cornwall: that rare character, a bestseller who defies classification’.

Jamaica Inn was certainly a huge success when it was first published in 1936 and its evocative description of Bodmin Moor and dark gothic story is reminiscent of earlier classics such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Jamaica Inn today bears little resemblance to the setting for Daphne du Maurier’s story, but does have a smuggling museum to remind visitors of the trade that certainly flourished in Cornwall in times past.

Michael Williams’ book about Daphne and her two sisters, Angela and Jeanne recalls the lives of all three gifted siblings, though Daphne’s success rather eclipsed the artistic talent and achievements of the other two.

Walking Through History

Fri, 04 Oct 2013 15:44:24 +0000

A recent visit to Polperro this month involved meeting with actor and broadcaster Tony Robinson who was walking along the south Cornwall coast path filming an episode of his Walking Through History series for Channel 4 Television.

Torrential rain prevented us strolling around the harbour; instead, we sought shelter in the bar of the Crumplehorn Inn where we talked about Zephaniah Job, the ‘Smugglers’ Banker’ who masterminded the thriving smuggling trade through Polperro in the latter half of the 18^th century.

Tony was particularly interested in the way groups of local fishermen and others formed syndicates and owned shares in the boats that were used to bring the contraband across from Guernsey. And when the war with France in the 1890s provided an opportunity for privateering, even bigger boats were built, armed and fitted out for the purpose.

This led us on to talk about the national lottery introduced at the time to help fund the cost of the war effort. Tickets cost 16 guineas each, so syndicates formed to buy a single lottery ticket, though the prize money was correspondingly high. Inevitably, we got around to talking about the Lottery, the Polperro smuggling lugger that was involved in the murder of a customs officer in 1798. When the crew was eventually caught, one of them turned King’s evidence and named a fellow crewman, Tom Potter, as the man of fired the fatal shot. Despite several attempts by Zephaniah Job and others to prevent justice taking its course, Potter was eventually tried and convicted of the murder and executed.

Tony’s route took him on to Fowey, Mevagissey and eventually to west Cornwall, stopping along the way to discover more about the ‘trade’ that Cornish men and women carried on for centuries. Despite being knighted for public and political service earlier this year, ‘Sir Anthony’ seemed remarkably unfazed by his title... a consummate professional who proved very popular with the hard-working TV crew who were following him on his travels.

Forgotten Masterpiece

Thu, 29 Aug 2013 16:49:28 +0000

First screened 65 years ago, The Fallen Idol is widely regarded as one of the classic post-war British films; in fact it has been described as ‘one of the greatest forgotten masterpieces’.

Based on a Graham Greene story and directed by Carol Reed who went on to direct The Third Man, it starred Sir Ralph Richardson and an eight-year-old boy named Bobby Henrey who plays the part of Philippe the young son of a diplomat who idolises his father's butler, Baines (played by Ralph Richardson, pictured right on the set with Bobby). When Baines' wife is found murdered and Baines is implicated, Philippe tries everything to point the investigation away from the butler. In doing so he makes matters worse and also discovers that his hero is not the man he thought he was.

An instant success when it was first released in 1948, Bobby Henrey’s performance was singled out for critical acclaim. At the Royal Command Performance at the Empire, Leicester Square, that year, he was chosen to present the Queen with a bouquet. But such fame was to prove an unwelcome feature in his young life and his efforts to cope at boarding school afterwards led him to bury the whole experience, pretending - unsuccessfully – that it had never happened.

Subsequent events more than half a century later have resulted in Robert, as the erstwhile star is now known, writing an extraordinary account of how he struggled to cope with childhood stardom as well as a family tragedy in later life. His story Through Grown-up Eyes: Coping with Childhood Fame is published this month.

Sea Chest Surprise

Tue, 13 Aug 2013 14:04:46 +0000

Remember the line from the song in Treasure Island:

'Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest…'

Well, I’ve just unearthed the sea chest of John Quiller (1741-1802), the buccaneering smuggler and privateer of Polperro whose exploits have been the stuff of legends and yarns there for generations. He commanded the Brilliant, a three-masted lugger that was to prove one of the most successful Cornish privateers to venture against French shipping during the Napoleon wars.

Among the prizes seized by the Brilliant in 1793 was the Spanish ship La Tortola which, when sold by order of the High Court of Admiralty, yielded the astonishing sum of £8,800 for the crew and her owners. Privateer crews generally received no wages while they were at sea; instead, the proceeds were divided between the owners of the vessel and the ship's company, with each crew member owning an agreed share in the venture. In the case of the Brilliant, John Quiller held a quarter share as part owner and a further 64 shares as captain of the vessel.

As the Brilliant's commander, John Quiller’s share of the proceeds amounted to £1,100, while Zephaniah Job, the ‘Smugglers’ Banker’ of Polperro received £550 and Quiller's sons William and John their proportion each. Such prize money made the physical and financial risks involved in privateering seem small by comparison.

The sea took a terrible toll of the Quillers, however, claiming the lives of many of the male members of the family. John Quiller was drowned off Land’s End in 1804, his son Richard was lost at sea in 1796 and two of his grandsons also off Tenerife in 1812. There is a chapter devoted to the family in my book, The Smugglers’ Bank: The Story of Zephaniah Job of Polperro.

John Quiller’s sea chest turned up recently at an auction in Plymouth and was bought by an antique dealer from Looe who fortunately tracked me down via the internet. Clearly identifiable from the inscribed brass nameplate on the lid, its leather-bound exterior and brass trim has now been carefully restored.

Serendipity

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 14:57:37 +0000

One of the delights of publishing is that every now and then I come across a story so extraordinary and so beautifully written that it absolutely demands to be turned into a book. So when I first read Robert Henrey’s account of his experience as an eight-year-old child improbably chosen by film director Carol Reed and producer Sir Alexander Korda to star alongside Sir Ralph Richardson in The Fallen Idol, I just knew it was a story we had to publish.

Based on a Graham Greene story and released in 1948, the film was an instant box office success. The child star’s performance was singled out for critical acclaim and it remains one of the classics of British cinema. His brief film career over, Robert (or Bobby as he was then known), an only child brought up within an exclusively adult world by eccentric parents focused on their literary careers, was suddenly confronted with the rough and tumble of school life. Survival came at the cost of burying the experience, pretending – unsuccessfully – it had never happened: an attitude Robert carried into adulthood. The death of his 19-year-old daughter and an invitation to a special screening of The Fallen Idol in London in 2001 finally persuaded him to come to terms with his childhood experience. His book, Through Grown Up Eyes: Living with Childhood Fame is a remarkably moving and candid account of coping with childhood stardom in post-war London and the vicissitudes of later life in the USA, tragedy and loss.

It is ultimately about survival, treasuring the good things of life – and allowing hope to have the last word – and will be published in September.

Robert is now retired and lives with his wife in Greenwich, Connecticut USA, where he is an ordained deacon assigned to the parish church of Saint Catherine of Siena. He is modestly dismissive of his childhood experience, but only recently it was described as ‘The greatest unpolished child performance of all time’ by Mark Romanek, the producer of the 2010 film Never Let Me Go.

Luggers In Looe

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 17:56:28 +0000

The Looe Lugger Regatta is one of those great but little publicised spectacles that can be witnessed every two years off the south coast of Cornwall when, weather permitting, a fleet of wooden hulled luggers can be seen under full sail in Looe Bay.

That should have been the sight last weekend when the 13th biennial Looe Lugger Regatta took place, but gale force winds in the Channel meant the sailing events had to be cancelled. Indeed, many of the vessels that had been expected to arrive in Looe were unable to get there in time, though several magnificent French boats did make it, having set out earlier.

The event is organised by Paul Greenwood, whose two books Once Aboard A Cornish Lugger and More Tales From A Cornish Lugger have proved so popular with lugger folk and others with an interest in historic wooden boats. Paul’s boat, the Erin, a 38 foot former pilchard driver built in 1904, was among the thirty or so moored up in Looe harbour for the weekend and while he, like the other skippers and crew, fretted about the weather, spectators were at least afforded a closer view of the luggers than would have been the case had they been able to set sail.

Paul’s first book, Once Aboard A Cornish Lugger, is a frank and salty account of his time as a young crewman aboard the Iris when she was a working boat out of Looe in the 1960s. Encouraged by the success of that book (it was awarded a Commendation by the Holyer an Gof Publishers’ Awards in 2008), he went on to write the sequel volume in which he describes graphically what it was like to work as a Cornish fisherman in the 1970s and 1980s. One of the boats he owned and worked then was the Ibis.

Polperro Cousins

Mon, 06 May 2013 11:41:20 +0000

Having just returned from the annual gathering of the Polperro Family History Society in Polperro, I’ve been reflecting on the mysterious attachment that binds related individuals together no matter how tenuous or distant the relationship.

This year, the twelfth that have met up with my Cornish cousins (we are almost all related in some way), there were over 100 of us assembled for a weekend programme that included a talk by Lady Claudia Chilver on the joys of growing up in Polperro in the middle of the 20^th century, a moving performance by the Polperro Fishermen’s Choir and a visit to the charming Sclerder Abbey run by a handful of Carmelite sisters.

For some, the gathering has become an annual fixture not to be missed. For others, it is a first encounter with distant members of their families or a pilgrimage to the village of their forefathers. This year, we welcomed seven ‘cousins’ who had travelled all the way from Australia.

When a handful of us met up for the first time in the harbourmaster’s office in 2001, we never imagined that it would lead to the foundation of what must surely be the smallest place on the planet to have its own flourishing Family History Society. Much of the genealogical research owes its origin to the work of an eccentric Polperro resident named Frank Perrycoste who fingerprinted every man, women and child there in 1903 in the course of assisting Sir Francis Galton with research into whether related individuals had similar fingerprints (they don’t). Perrycoste also compiled a number of ‘pedigrees’ to identify the prints he obtained (see blog entry for 8 March 2012).

Tales of the Unexpected

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:12:36 +0000

Like buses (or trains, perhaps, since I don’t use buses), I sometimes have to wait ages for a really good bit of unexpected publicity for one of our titles and then, like this month, along come three really good examples.

The first was Ellie Targett’s appearance on the BBC Antiques Roadshow on April 7^th. Ellie wrote the Introduction to her father, Sven Somme’s book Another Man’s Shoes which we published in 2005. It’s the story of his escape from capture in Nazi occupied Norway in the Second World War and how, 60 years later, Ellie and her sister retraced the route of his escape over the mountains to Sweden On the way, they were handed a pair of their father’s shoes which he had exchanged for some boots – hence the title of the book. The cover (right), incidentally, shows him swinging through the treetops in Norway to avoid leaving tracks in the snow.

Ellie recently discovered some papers belonging to her father, who died in the 1960s, including secret messages he had concealed beneath postage stamps while working for the Norwegian resistance. When she took these along to a recording of the Antiques Roadshow in Cheltenham last year, she was spotted by Fiona Bruce and asked to tell her story for the programme.

While Ellie Targett was being recorded for the Antiques Roadshow, another of our authors, Mary Wright, was also being recorded by the BBC Coast team in Polperro about her book, Cornish Guernseys & Knitfrocks. Mary’s book was first published in 1979 and has been in print ever since, largely due to the growing interest in traditional knitting patterns based on the ‘knitfrock’ sweaters worn by generations of Cornish fishermen. Their distinctive patterns were said to enable the families of the wearers to identify them if they were drowned at sea. The particular wool used, as well as the patterns, often requires a skilled knitter to produce one, though in times past young girls were encouraged to take up knitting and contribute to the household income.

Both programmes are being televised this month, so we are expecting an increase in sales of both books. And in addition, Cecil Duckworth’s book, Worcester Warrior has been chosen as the Book of the Month by Rugby World, the monthly magazine for rugby union players and supporters. Cecil’s book, which tells the story of how he made the millions he has invested in the Worcester club and taken it to premiership level, is given a four star rating in the May issue.

What's Happening To Bookshops?

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:58:52 +0000

I witnessed the closure of yet another local independent bookshop this month, this time just a few miles away from us in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire.

‘Books, Books, Books’ has been a little haven of literary delights in the high street there for many years, until recently owned by Diana Ryan (right), a wonderful lady who knew her customers and, more importantly, was passionate about books. It was almost impossible to leave there without buying one of her recommendations.

Such places are now an endangered species. Where once upon a time almost every town had its own bookshop, now we are left with Amazon and a chain of Waterstones branches found only in cities and large towns. The rate of closure of truly independent bookshops selling new books has reached almost epidemic proportions.

Amazon’s domination in the market is truly monopolistic; so much so that it’s now quicker, easier and invariably cheaper to order both new and secondhand books from them than it is to go to your nearest bookshop.

Waterstones on the other hand is attempting to ride out the Amazon storm with James Daunt at the helm, trying hard to capture that ‘independent’ quality that the fast-disappearing smaller bookshops have – or had. Sometimes it works: their Truro branch for example, is an exemplar where the staff know and care about their customers. But the same cannot be said for all branches of Waterstones sadly. My recent experience with one of them (which shall remain nameless) suggests that where the manager had been parachuted in from outside the area and many of the staff don’t know enough about the area and interests of their customers, they are unlikely to succeed in the long run.

E-books

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 16:32:48 +0000

Two years ago, e-books were beginning to dominate discussions among publishers in the UK. They had been around for many years earlier but it was the arrival of Amazonâ€™s Kindle reader in this country that really heralded e-books as a serious rival to the traditional printed format. Other rival electronic readers appeared but Amazonâ€™s dominance in the book buying marketplace ensured that the Kindle was the popular choice. And Kindle owners were often the best ambassadors for the emerging e-book market.

I had been reluctant at first to get involved in e-books, in the belief that a non-fiction publisher like us would have little to gain from what appeared to be a predominantly fiction market. Ironically, it was Orphans Press of Leominster, the print firm that produces most of the printed books published by the Polperro Heritage Press, that persuaded me to embrace the new technology. It was a steep learning curve for both of us; converting the print files for the two e-book formats was not as straightforward as we had imagined and proved time-consuming at first. And then there was the matter of how to ensure that the files reached the e-book retailers.

That last issue was quickly resolved by the Faber Factory, a joint venture between Faber & Faber and the Perseus Books Group in the USA, catering specially for independent publishers. The process is simple. We deliver a pdf version of the print files to Faber Factory, they convert them to the required e-book formats and launch them onto the market. Our first e-book, Cribs For Victory was launched this time last year but I soon discovered that the e-book market was developing rapidly and promised all kinds of possibilities.

This year we have launched a further six e-book titles, four of which came from our back list.

Sales of them are steadily increasing, with 70% going to UK customers and a further 20% to North America and others to Australia and New Zealand. And if any of the islanders on Tristan da Cunha has a Kindle, they will be able to download a copy of Rockhopper Copper by the islandâ€™s chief policeman, Conrad Glass.

The latest e-books come with full colour if you have the right reader (Iâ€™ve just bought the new Kindle Fire which comes with wi-fi connection and other applications); many now come with audio and video enhancements as well as a variety of apps.Â So while the future for e-books looks bright, the future for p-books (physical books) at least looks assured.

Polperro Bank Notes

Fri, 02 Nov 2012 17:59:05 +0000

Zephaniah Job, the 18^th century â€˜smugglersâ€™ bankerâ€™ of Polperro, acted as a financial and insurance agent to the extent that he was, to all intent and purpose, operating as a banker. He loaned money at interest and received money on deposit.

Such transactions were invariably accompanied by a promissory note of some sort, not unlike the note of hand JobÂ obtained from Sir Harry TrelawnyÂ in 1788 and, since a bank note was simply a printed promise by the bank issuing it to pay the bearer, on demand, a sum of money, it seemed quite natural to Job that he should eventually begin issuing his own notes for fixed sums of money. Early in 1806, having obtained a banking licence for Â£20, he asked a London printer to prepare engraving plates for bankâ€‘notes of Â£1, Â£2 and Â£5 denominations payable by Christopher Smith Son & Co. one of the London merchant bankers with whom he dealt.

Christopher SmithÂ was an Alderman and Sheriff of the City of London who unsuccessfully contested the parliamentary seat for East LooeÂ in 1806, but later became MP for St Albans and Lord Mayor of London in 1817. His association with Job continued for many years, the two men frequently exchanging gifts; in 1819, Job wrote to the Alderman offering to provide 'a bottle of the best for you should you honour me with a visit at my humble cottage.'

The Polperro bankâ€‘notes issued by JobÂ were among the first to be circulated in Cornwall, but he was always careful to observe the essential condition of having sufficient coin available in exchange for his paper money. The custom of issuing paper money had originated during the wars with France when the enormous cost of the military effort drastically reduced the amount of gold and silver coinage in circulation. Bank of EnglandÂ notes were declared legal tender and occasionally Job found his creditors preferring them to his own, as in 1819 when he was obliged to exchange six Bank of England Â£1 notes for his own, observing: â€˜I have the satisfaction to know that my notes are readily received by every banker in the country and by every respectable merchant and shopkeeper.â€™

When, only a few years later, he was to die unexpectedly there was still more than enough cash, bonds, bank notes and other funds due to him on all the promissory notes on his bank then in circulation to be honoured.

Two of Jobâ€™s bank notes have now been acquired by the Polperro Heritage Museum and will be on view in 2013.

Polperro Family History

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 14:12:07 +0000

An added extra publication that I have the pleasure of editing twice a year is the Polperro Family History Societyâ€™s Journal. It began life rather tentatively just over ten years ago, produced exclusively for members of the Society, and issue number 21 has just gone to press.

Its 76 pages are packed with news, articles and photographs of Polperro people past and present (mostly past) and there appears to be no shortage of material ranging from personal memories of growing up there to fascinating accounts of individual family members and their lives.

Contributions from members in the latest issue include the story of Charles Henry Pascoe, born in Polperro in 1867, who was one of the few survivors from the sinking of the Titanic.

There is also an account of the knitting of the distinctive knitfrocks worn by local menfolk, prompted by the recording of an interview with Mary Wright (pictured left with Ruth Goodman), the author of Cornish Guernseys & Knitfrocks, soon to feature in a forthcomingÂ edition of the BBC Coast programme.Other articles include a look at the spread of Methodism in Cornwall; a trawl through local newspaper reports during the first few months of the First World War; recollections of a Talland childhood by the daughter of a 19^th century vicar there, and news of a new issue of postage stamps on Ascension Island marking the Shackleton-Rowett expedition of 1921-22, featuring John Quiller Rowett who not only financed the ill-fated expedition but also the building of the Rowett Institute in Polperro in 1920.

The really extraordinary thing perhaps is that a small fishing village like Polperro actually has a thriving family history group of more than 250 members, some of whom are scattered across the world. Every year, many of them meet up there in April for a weekend programme of talks, walks and convivial entertainment. Many firm friendships have developed over the years as a result, perhaps because we are all distant cousins of one another.

Young Authors

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 17:12:26 +0000

I regularly receive submissions from authors seeking to have their work published. Many of them are well-written and researched and some are temptingly attractive publishing prospects. But the book business is becoming increasingly competitive and more and more difficult to get a reasonable return on the investment required to launch a new author’s work on the market.

In fact, almost all my most successful titles have come by word of mouth rather than arrive unsolicited. A chance conversation over dinner with someone perhaps, or via a friend of a friend say… It’s easy to spot the obvious (but rare) potential success, just as it is often easy to decide what is not likely to be worth taking on. The really difficult ones are those MSS that I like, indeed would love to publish, but instinct and experience suggests that I should not. And these are by far the biggest category.

I no longer take on fiction (success in this genre has been mixed at best) and nor do I do children’s books though I have occasionally tried to assist a few children’s authors to get published, either elsewhere or by self-publishing initially. It’s a particularly difficult market to break into, however. More recently, I’ve been approached by a couple of young writers, writing for their own age group. It’s always a delight to be able encourage youthful talent and, just maybe, help get their work into print.

One such budding author is 12-year-old Charlie whose debut novella, Bagpipe Island, was first published earlier this year. A couple of limited print runs and some local press publicity have not only fostered a growing readership for his book but also encouraged him to write a second: Fairichaun. As the blurb on the back cover says, it’s full of surprises and strange happenings from beginning to end.

The story revolves around Rolph Ralph, an ordinary 11-year-old boy who never makes fun of other people’s names. Never! But when he gets angry with his embarrassing clown dad and his egg-poaching mum, a nasty encounter with some cruel fairies results in a shocking and uncomfortable mix-up involving Hercules the obese pigeon, Selina the deaf ostrich and an unsavoury fairy called General Bunion.

Fairichaun (the title is a conflation of fairies and leprachauns) is an extraordinary flight of fancy and it will be intriguing to see how it is received when it is published in September. But I suspect that we may be seeing a lot more of Charlie’s output in the years to come.

More Picnic Crumbs

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 10:35:22 +0000

The Glyndebourne Festival Opera presents the perfect opportunity to indulge in champagne picnics on summer lawns. Dating back more than 70 years, it attracts thousands of opera-lovers from London and further afield, especially for its Mozart, Handel and Janácek, staged in the acoustically brilliant multi-million pound modern auditorium that opened in the 1990s.

According to Debretts, the authority on all matters etiquette, taste and achievement, landowner John Christie, who inherited the 16^th century country house, and his opera-singer wife Audrey Mildmay originally set up the festival as a showcase for small-scale productions of Mozart operas.

The London Philharmonic is the main resident orchestra for the duration of the festival. Operas are staggered throughout the summer months from May to August. They commence in the afternoon and are punctuated by a lengthy 90-minute interval during which dinner can be enjoyed on the extensive lawns, ideally in the form of a picnic.

Picnics can be pre-ordered along with porter service and furniture if required, and include champagne, lobster salad and Glyndebourne summer pudding. Better still if accompanied by a copy of Anabel Loyd’s delightful new book, Picnic Crumbs – a Gathering of Picnics, Packed Lunches and Provisions at Home and Abroad. Anabel will be signing copies in the Glyndebourne shop on Thursday, 26th July.

Nearly 150 years ago, picnics were largely the preserve of the gentry as this early photograph of the Trelawny family picnicking on Peak Rock overlooking Polperro harbour in Cornwall illustrates. The photograph was taken by Lewis Harding, grandson of Sir Harry Trelawny, the eccentric Cornish baronet whose religious odyssey led him from Calvinism via the Anglican church eventually to become a Catholic priest. The curious group of onlookers, doubtless belonging to the local fishing families, appear to be completely absorbed by the spectacle of the cliff top family picnic.

Book Launches

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 10:31:48 +0000

Book launches can be strangely rewarding events. Publishers are often wary of them while authors of course love them, being the centre of attention surrounded by admiring friends, family and colleagues, signing copies of their book.

Our latest book launch this week, for Anabel Loyd’s delightful Picnic Crumbs, took place in a cobbled mews street in the heart of Belgravia. The guests were an exotic mix of London literati, Anglo-Indian movers and shakers and an impressive list of names from Burke’s Peerage. Just the sort of heady mix you would want for such an occasion. The author herself looked appropriately glamorous in a gorgeously coloured dress and everyone bought lots of books for her to sign.

It was particularly pleasing to see Anish Kapoor (right), whose Orbit sculpture now adorns the London Olympic Park, giving encouragement to Peter Haslam Fox, the young award-winning artist whose illustrations add considerably to the pages of Anabel’s book. All in all, a truly memorable evening.

Having hosted similar events in locations as diverse as the British Embassy in St. Petersburg and the Looe Sailing Club in Cornwall, I can certainly testify to the enormous pleasure to be had by everyone involved. There is invariably a collective sigh of relief afterwards, perhaps in reaction to the build up of nervous anticipation beforehand.

Picnics at Glyndebourne

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 07:49:53 +0000

Picnic Crumbs

What better place to celebrate the publication of a new book about picnics than Glyndebourne, venue of the glorious annual Festival Opera.

In her Picnic Crumbs: A Gathering of Picnics, Packed Lunches and Provisions at Home and Abroad, Anabel Loyd recalls how picnics there have always been variable feasts ‘although champagne has a regular role’ and quotes Arabella Boxer on the subject of what is expected of a Glyndebourne picnic:

‘A totally different sort of picnic that occurs, though less frequently, in my life is the evening picnic. An expedition to Glyndebourne is a good example of this sort of occasion, and here it seems worthwhile to be more extravagant. I like to construct this sort of picnic as if it were a formal meal, served on china plates with proper silver and glass, taking a pretty tablecloth to spread on the grass. Several bottles of chilled white wine, or even better, still champagne, are almost obligatory. To start, perhaps home-made potted shrimps with small sandwiches of brown bread and butter, or giant prawns or crayfish, served with mayonnaise. Then possibly some small chicken pies, served warm; or a roll of flaky pastry enclosing a large spicy sausage served with a mustard sauce; or an enclosed quiche, like a shallow pie, filled with spinach and tomatoes, or mushrooms, fish and rice. An alternative menu might consist of a hot consommé madrilène or a bortsch served in small cups and followed by a cold main dish such as smoked chicken or turkey, cold duck, or a duck pâté with crusty French bread and a green salad. Slices of cold roast sirloin can be rolled round small heaps of freshly grated horseradish, or thick slices of rare fillet of beef can be served with a rich and creamy horseradish sauce.’

As Anabel Loyd says, it sounds delicious, especially if the rain stays away next month when she will be signing copies of her new book in the Glyndebourne shop on Thursday, 26^th July, before the performance of Le Nozze di Figaro. She adds a cautionary note though: ‘Dozing off after a good dinner and several bottles of white wine, not to mention pre-performance Pimms, is another hazard although the latest, air-conditioned theatre at Glyndebourne has reduced the problem. In the old, cramped and close space, programmes swished constantly in a vain effort to stir the air. One man had a heart attack in the front row and was quietly removed as the music played on and a woman in a daffodil yellow dress crumpled to the floor during the interval’.

Visitors to Glyndebourne are advised to bring their own picnic blanket or table and chairs and ‘plastic sheeting to cover your picnic in the event of rain’. Let’s hope the latter will not be required for Anabel’s book signing next month. Award-winning artist Peter Haslam Fox, whose illustrations add the best seasoning to her appetising text, will also be there to capture the atmosphere.

Du Maurier Festival

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:55:40 +0000

Of all the literary festivals I visit, the Du Maurier Festival in Cornwall is certainly one of the best. The venue, overlooking the Fowey estuary and Polruan beyond, affords some of the most spectacular views anywhere in the Westcountry; and this year’s line-up of events certainly lived up to expectation.

Having listened to biographer Jane Dunn talk about her forthcoming book on the du Maurier sisters, we then joined Anne Wroe to learn something of the art of an obituarist. Anne writes for the Economist and is usually restricted to one obituary a week so is often faced with difficult choices. Next came a fascinating hour with Frank Gardner, the BBC’s security correspondent, fresh back from the Indian Ocean where he had been running the gauntlet of Somali pirates. The following day began with an extraordinary account of some of the double agents working for Britain during WW2 by author Ben Macintyre and ended with a stroll round the smuggling haunts of Polperro. All five events as varied and as interesting as one could wish for over three days…

But the sad fact is that the Du Maurier Festival is under threat and urgently in need of a sponsor for 2013. Cornwall County Council, it seems, has withdrawn much of its support and the organisers – a small team of local Fowey folk including David and Ann Wilmore who run the town’s two excellent bookshops - are worried about the Festival’s future.

It would be a tragedy if such a well-established annual event that attracts large numbers of visitors to Cornwall as well as an impressive line-up of guest speakers and authors was to suffer from lack of local support. Does anyone at County Hall in Truro ever attend? If so, let’s hope they take this message back with them and give the Festival the support it so badly needs.

The Three Sisters

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:12:47 +0000

Of the three daughters of Sir Gerald du Maurier, the eminent actor-manager of Wyndham’s Theatre in London during WW1, Daphne is certainly the best known. Born in 1907, she moved to Cornwall with her family in the 1920s where they rented Menabilly, the house near Fowey that she based her fictional Manderley in her best-selling book Rebecca.

While Rebecca established her reputation as a novelist, Daphne du Maurier (right) is also remembered for her other books, among them Jamaica Inn, with its story of smuggling; Frenchman’s Creek, and The Birds which was turned into a Hitchcock horror film.

Daphne’s elder sister Angela was also an accomplished writer but had the misfortune of having her first novel, The Perplexed Heart, published in 1939, the year that WW2 began and soon after Daphne’s success with Rebecca and Jamaica Inn.

The youngest of the three talented sisters was Jeanne who became an accomplished artist, exhibiting at the Royal Academy in the 1950s. All three were known to author Michael Williams whose new book, The Three Du Maurier Sisters is published this month in time for the Du Maurier Literary Festival in Fowey in May.

Stitches In Time

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:21:45 +0000

Cornish fishermen have traditionally worn knitted ‘guernseys’ or ‘jerseys’ for several centuries, but in Polperro they are known as knit-frocks. These woollen working garments were invariably knitted by the wives and daughters of the men, often using special patterns unique to a particular family.

Many of the Polperro knit-frock patterns survive to this day, largely thanks to Mary Wright, a Cornish knitting expert who has researched them for her book Cornish Guernseys & Knit-frocks.

Her book contains 30 distinct knitting patterns, some of which can be seen in photographs dating back to the 19th century taken by one of Cornwall’s pioneer photographers, Lewis Harding.

Harding was the grandson of Sir Harry Trelawny, the eccentric baronet whose family seat, Trelawne, is located just above Polperro. The wet plate collodion process used by Harding was one of the first photographic procedures invented, but the cumbersome equipment required meant that almost all his photographs were of the nearby inhabitants of the fishing village, including a remarkable series of 80 portraits of the fishermen themselves.

His portrait of Richard Searle (right) clearly shows the fine pattern detail of his knit-frock 150 years later and is one of the patterns included in Mary Wright’s book, still popular with knitting enthusiasts today.

Fingerprints in Family History

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:16:57 +0000

Every year, around 100 ‘cousins’ meet up in Polperro – some from far-flung parts of the world – to celebrate a shared family history in this little Cornish fishing village. And they all acknowledge the debt they owe to an eccentric Victorian antiquarian, Frank Perrycoste (right), who obtained the fingerprints of every man, woman and child there a little over 100 years ago.

This extraordinary feat came about as a result of a request by Sir Francis Galton, one of the early pioneers of the study of fingerprint identification (dactylography), who sought to establish if related individuals had similar fingerprints. Perrycoste, who had recently moved to Polperro with his wife, offered to help conduct an experiment for Galton.

The task proved an arduous one. At one stage Perrycoste wrote to Galton: ‘At this time of the year the fishermen are usually in bed or at sea, and the only chance is to catch them at meal-time, and this often involves half a dozen visits to catch one man.’ By the end of the summer of 1903, he had obtained 865 sets of fingerprints from the inhabitants of Polperro.

In order to identify the relationships of the prints he obtained, Perrycoste drew up elaborate family ‘trees’ for each of the 52 families involved. And it was these, later deposited with the College of Arms in London, that were to provide such an invaluable resource for family historians several decades later. Descendants of the families whose ancestors were fingerprinted later realised what an invaluable resource they were: an entire village community’s genealogy mapped for future generations.

The Polperro Family History Society was formed 100 years after Frank Perrycoste’s experiment and today numbers more than 250 Polperro cousins among its membership, some as far afield as North America, Australia and New Zealand.

Privateering to Publishing

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:14:23 +0000

Privateering to Publishing

A little over 200 years ago, when England was at war with France and Spain, the fishermen of Polperro seized the opportunity to engage in a form of legalised piracy known as privateering. Privateers were armed vessels that were issued with licences (Letters of Marque) to attack and capture enemy ships.

The Polperro fishermen were famed for their seamanship. Years of smuggling contraband goods from Guernsey in their fast sailing luggers, running the gauntlet of the Revenue cutters patrolling the Channel, meant they were particularly well-equipped to take on slower French and Spanish cargo vessels. Many valuable ‘prizes’ were captured and brought back to Cornwall where they were sold for large sums of money, bringing great wealth to some of the Polperro families.

Despite Lord Nelson’s objection that ‘the conduct of all privateers is, as far as I have seen, so near piracy that I only wonder any civilised nation can allow it’, there is little doubt that the Polperro privateers made a significant contribution to the war effort.

In due course, the Napoleonic wars came to an end – as, indeed, did the smuggling trade eventually and the Polperro fishermen resorted to more law-abiding methods of earning a livelihood. And when, in the 20^th century, the little fishing port began to attract large numbers of visitors eager to sample the delights of the picturesque harbour and its surroundings, tourism provided a new source of income for the local inhabitants.

Many of the visitors who flocked to this corner of Cornwall were entranced by stories of the smuggling ways and days of times past and local businesses thrived on the new trade they brought. One man who prospered as a result was Frank Nettleinghame who founded the first Polperro Press at the famous House on the Props overlooking the harbour.

The Western Morning News in 1926 described it as ‘a daring piece of architecture with its 300 year old props’. Sixty years later, the Heritage Museum of Fishing & Smuggling opened nearby, reviving interest in Polperro’s extraordinary history and, with it, the dormant Polperro Press. The House on the Props still stands precariously over the stream that runs into the harbour, today a thriving guest house and restaurant.

And while contraband goods may no longer be offered for sale there, the Polperro Heritage Press has at least revived many a tale of times past… and no doubt many a local tradesman occasionally still raises a glass to the toast ‘Success to our Trade!’

View from the Teme Valley

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:05:39 +0000

Who Am I?

Sometimes I think I lead a double life. Most of the time, I’m sitting in my office in the garden of my home in Clifton-upon-Teme, a small village overlooking the Teme valley in Worcestershire. Here I’m known as Jerry Johns, publisher by day, proprietor of the Polperro Heritage Press. I publish books, mainly non-fiction and quite a lot of them with a Cornish connection of theme. Take a look at some of them on the website: http://www.polperropress.co.uk/

Why Polperro? Well, that’s where the Polperro Press started in the 1990s as an offshoot of the Heritage Museum of Smuggling and Fishing. In fact I was one of their first authors. And when I left my previous life with the BBC in 2000, I brought it up here to Worcestershire where it’s now based.

But Polperro, a little fishing village on the south coast of Cornwall between Looe and Fowey, also happens to be where my ancestors came from. I discovered that some of them had been busily engaged in smuggling and privateering there in the latter half of the 18^th century. That led to my first book, Polperro’s Smuggling Story being published in 1994; a few years later it was followed by The Smugglers’ Banker: the story of Zephaniah Job of Polperro, and in 2010 my last book, Doctor By Nature: Jonathan Couch – Surgeon of Polperro. All are still in print and continue to sell steadily.

Down in Polperro they know me as Jeremy Rowett Johns, the author. I’ve even acquired a reputation as something of a local historian which has led to occasional TV and radio broadcasts. And I’m also one of a small group of people who run the Polperro Family History Society. It was founded ten years ago as a result of a number of Polperro cousins (we are all related) getting together there. Today the Society has more than 250 members, organises an annual weekend gathering there every year and publishes a Journal twice a year as well as several other publications.

So, in Polperro I’m Jeremy Johns, publisher, author and family historian, but few there know much about my life here in Clifton-upon-Teme. And up here in Worcestershire, I’m just plain Jerry Johns, publisher… but not many here know much about my ‘other’ life in Polperro.

Maybe this blog will bring the two halves of my life together…. Who knows?