DICKIE DUNSTAN: SMALL IN STATURE, BUT HUGE IN TALENT AND HEART

This cartoon by Brian Thomas is not a million miles removed from reality, as Penryn’s Dickie Dunstan was for many years famously known as “Britain’s Smallest Blacksmith.” 

Well, you really did mean you had a BIG horse, didn’t you?

 

I featured Dickie, together with the original cartoon, in a Falmouth Packet column circa 2012 and reproduced the piece, together with the cartoon, in my book REFLECTIONS, published in aid of Cancer Research, two years later. Here’s that column:--  

 

“BRITAIN’S SMALLEST BLACKSMITH”

My current reading is "Heart of Stone," by Mylor novelist Jane Jackson, and I was surprised to see a mention of blacksmith Dickie Dunstan, who was anything but a fictitious character in Penryn's 20th Century history.

 

I put this to Jane and she explained that it was her way of “paying tribute to a remarkable man known far beyond Penryn.”   

 

Dickie was "Britain's smallest blacksmith."  He was just 5ft  1in tall, weighed 7st 12lbs, and worked from his base at The Praze for over 50 years.  His fame even earned him a spot on Wilfred Pickles' long-running national radio programme "Have A Go."

 

Jane told me: “Dickie was small in stature, but he had a huge talent and an even bigger heart.  ‘Larger than life’ was not just accurate; it summed him up.”

 

In my Packet feature on him in 1971, I noted how he rarely worked on a horse without a handful of passers-by, mostly children, stopping to watch. 

 

Outside was the ceaseless roar of motor traffic – in stark contrast to the way of things when Dickie began his working life.  Then his only accompaniment was the clip, clop and trundle of horses and carts slowly passing by.

 

In 1964, he felt sure his career had been cut short when a momentary slip with a power cutter, spinning at 1,200 revolutions a minute, landed him in hospital with horrific leg and arm injuries – but 21 months later he was back at his “smithy.”  

 

As for working with horses, the former Penryn Mayor (1973-75) and chamber of commerce chairman never felt threatened.  As he told me: “My job isn’t dangerous - I’m so small I can always walk under the horse!”

 

* I am reproducing extracts from REFLECTIONS – the columns and cartoons – on an occasional basis throughout this year to mark the 10^th anniversary of my retirement and the start of my fund-raising for Cancer Research UK. To date, I have donated around £25,000 to the charity from the sale of my books and, latterly, my paintings.