THE PURE MAGIC OF A CORNISH CLIFFTOP WALK

Yesterday was all about being reminded just how lucky we are to live in Cornwall.  As well as Penelope Keith’s TV bonus (see THE GOOD LIFE IN CORNWALL below), it was a glorious day out for myself and Janet courtesy of our daughter Annabelle.

I say “courtesy of,” as Annabelle is down from London for a week’s holiday with us, and she never fails to “get us out” and see more of the incomparable delights on our doorstep.

Yesterday that meant a trip over to Levant Mine and Beam Engine and then an utterly magical clifftop walk down west towards Cape Cornwall.

You’d need three lifetimes to exhaust the pleasure obtainable from such walks.  Such peace . . . such rugged beauty . . . such historical fascination.  (The “real Cornwall,” as I like to think of it.)

There was hardly a cloud in the sky and scarcely a breath of wind.  With other people countable on the fingers of one hand (well, almost), and the vast panorama of the azure blue Atlantic spread all around you, there is surely no finer way to refresh the spirits.

We even seemed to have the sea to ourselves, so to speak.  Just one ship on the far horizon, a fishing boat chugging away in the middle distance, and a little yacht, barely detectable, in glorious isolation.

And ashore, so many reminders of Cornwall’s mining past – the chimney stacks, the ruined structures, the derelict stone engine houses.

At the half-way point between Levant and Cape Cornwall, Janet and I chose to return to the car while Annabelle hiked on to Cape Cornwall for us to re-rendezvous there. 

Part of her reason (a rather big part, I suspect) was her knowledge that they sell Roskillys ice cream there, which she just loves.

As we drove into the National Trust car park at the Cape, the lovely lady on the admission gate gave us a huge smile and said “Lovely to see you.”  We didn’t know her from Adam – but the really nice thing was, we were convinced that she absolutely meant it.

Then we all tucked into that delicious ice cream, together with a well-earned cuppa, as we admired the stunning beauty of the Cape and looked across to the Longships Lighthouse and Land’s End glistening in the distance.

I told my Devon pal Brian Thomas all about it in an email this morning, and he replied with a special memory of his own:

“Your yesterday excursion sounded fantastic. I can see it in my mind now. The last time I did the Cornwall coast was a few years back with my friend Dave and we went all round the Cornish tip ‘from 'Zance to S'Ives’ and on up the north coast for a spell before coming back via Porthleven, Redruth etc.

“It was a glorious blue sky day with a single large cloud hanging directly over the centre of the county all day, but never blocking the sun on the coast. We had pasties bought in Helston at Sennen Cove and it was pure magic.”

Indeed it was – pure magic – yesterday.  Especially on that clifftop walk.  That had everything – almost.   All that was missing was Ross Poldark and Demelza galloping by!

SUNNY CORNISH MAGIC

With summer hopefully here at last, it will not be long now before I make my first trek of the year out to one of my favourite little places on God’s earth.  Among those before me who felt the same way about this place was Falmouth’s celebrated artist Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929), who many times captured its magic on canvas.

Tuke had his house and studio on the outskirts of the town, just above Swanpool Beach and overlooking the bay.  A short walk away is one of the coves where he would paint his trade-mark male nude figures.  Although that cove is not named as such on any map, it was and is known to all locals as “Sunny Cove.” 

The remains of Tuke’s studio and house, now long since gone, were still clearly visible when I first visited this delightful little beach.  That was way back in the early 1960s when, as part of a group of pupils from Falmouth Grammar School, we were led down there by our teacher, Mr F L Jukes, to obtain our 25 yards swimming certificate.

It was a world without fear, long since lost.  I was not quite out of childhood then and the health and safety brigade belonged very much to the future.  Which was just as well, given the precarious nature of the cliffside access to Sunny.

But that trek, which is not a lot safer even today, was and is well worth it.  More than anything, it is a beautiful escape to an enchanting little oasis of peace in a troubled world. 

It is “far from the madding crowd,” yet just 15 minutes’ walk from the bustle of Falmouth town life.  Indeed, one travel writer described it as “the most remote beach close to any urban conurbation anywhere in the south west.”  I can believe that.

On a fine summer’s day, the walk to Sunny is a treat, with countless insects buzzing away in the fields and woodland, the seagulls circling overhead, and an azure Falmouth Bay stretching out for as far as the eye can see.

The approach is almost as delightful as the place itself – that lovely clifftop walk followed by a descent through the woodland, then a bit of hard work down the cliffside and along the rocks.  Finally, Sunny greets you with its crystal-clear waters shimmering in the sunlight.  It is truly a little bit of paradise found.

Two arms of rock about 35 yards apart jut some 30 yards out to sea.  Sunny Cove is disturbed in the main only by nature’s sounds and, being tucked in behind Pennance Point, is sheltered from the prevailing south-westerly winds.

It all makes for a wonderful swimming haunt – for me and, latterly, my children, too.  And now, with Father Time getting to grips with me, I find sitting on those rocks beside the water to be a restful, reflective experience beyond measure.  Sunny Cove’s magic lives on . . . and I will shortly savour it anew.

POLDARK EARTHQUAKE?

Has there ever been a bigger single media “event,” I wonder, with the potential to trigger a seismic shift in fortunes for Cornwall’s economy?

The earth may not actually have moved – yet – but I think we could be forgiven for concluding that something not far short of a metaphorical earthquake is now being anticipated for our tourist industry this year.

I’m talking – as seemingly everyone is at the moment – about Poldark, in its spectacular reincarnation on our TV screens, with astronomical publicity before and after.

So far as Cornwall was concerned, it ticked just about every conceivable box – capped by out-of-this-world photography magnificently exploiting our stunning coastal scenery. 

“The A30 may need widening to accommodate the deluge of visitors,” wrote Daily Telegraph TV critic Jasper Rees.

Alas, remembering that he IS a “critic,” he sourly anticipated “seven further  episodes of perfectly vacuous entertainment” and signed off by describing the whole thing as “pretty but without a thought in its head.”

Ah well, he probably felt better for writing that – and it certainly won’t have worried anyone involved in our tourist industry.

Malcolm Bell, head of tourism at Visit Cornwall, was on BBC Radio Cornwall this morning gleefully totting up the equivalent free advertising value – something like £3 or £4 millions-worth, I think he said. 

The real-time viewing figures came out at a whopping near-7 million,  smashing Mr Selfridge out of sight (well, almost – but the latter IS starting to struggle a bit, isn’t it?).

And the earth – as I hinted just now – might yet move.  Victoria Lambert, in today’s Telegraph, almost suggests as much with this gem:--

“Ross Poldark . . . is so smouldering and so, quite frankly, sexy that I expect to hear reports of spontaneous combustion imminently among the vast numbers of female viewers who were hooked on the first episode.”

In the meantime, the programme has surely put Wycliffe, Doc Martin, The Onedin Line et al in the shade as a Heaven-sent mega-boost for Cornish tourism (and yes, you could even hear what the characters were saying, if some of the accents were a bit wonky).

So now the stage is set for that bumper year for our holdiday industry, which in turn can hopefully be the foundation for a sustained, longer-term era of prosperity.

But, as that disheveled, chain-smoking TV detective Columbo used to say, “there’s just one thing bothering me . . . “

In a previous life, I publicised numerous hotels and visitor attractions for many years, and I recall regular frustration at the way the good weather would never come in the “right years.”

That is, there would be a serious downturn in visitor numbers on the back of several poor summers.  Then – and this really was quite a regular pattern - we would have two successive hot and sunny ones, enough to persuade all those “lost” visitors to give Cornwall another chance. 

But then, of course, just as they were all heading back west of the Tamar once more, that third summer would be an awful one, putting everyone off again.  And so the frustrating cycle would continue.

You may recall that we’ve just had two lovely summers in a row . . . 

WELCOME ABOARD!

A very warm welcome to a brand new venture – and thank you for sharing my dip into uncharted waters!  After almost half a century as a full-time professional writer, I have, as they say (and as any professional media man of similar longevity should be able to say), “done it all.” 

Except that I haven’t.

I may have interviewed thousands of people, written millions of words, filed countless news stories, columns and features to newspapers, magazines, TV and radio, and written nearly 30 books.  But the one thing I haven’t done during any of my three professional lives – as journalist, PR man and ghost-writer of autobiographies – is write a blog.

But needs must.  Blogs have become a very familiar part of the media scene - and commercial arena generally - as the world as we once knew it (i.e. non-internet, non-high tech) has all but disappeared.

As for me, that “needs must” is now purely concerned with my lifelong love of writing . . . and a deep-seated desire to continue to put pen to paper, metaphorically speaking, even though I have now retired.  It’s lovely not having to work for a living any more – “retirement is a good career move, Mike,” as John Shaw, ex-E Thomas Construction, once told me – but another truism is that writers never really stop writing.  (They don’t really want to.  They just . . . don’t stop.  It’s what they do . . .  they write.)

So here I am with my very first blog – purely for the love of it.  A love of writing, that is, AND a love of my home town of Falmouth . . . and of Cornwall and all things Cornish.

Who knows where this blog will lead?  I suspect it will “find its own level” before too long – eventually taking on a life of its own – but for now my thoughts stray not much further than Falmouth and Cornwall, complete with an anticipated generous dose of nostalgia, plus, no doubt, an occasional observation or two on a broader topic. 

No boundaries, no rules (apart from staying clean, decent, honest and legal, of course).  Some short blogs, some longer ones.   Some weeks with more than one blog, others maybe with none at all.   Never a “forced” blog for the sake of one – just as and when one takes shape in my head, striving to get out.

Always, though, you will be welcome to join me, not just as a reader but also perhaps as a contributor.  If ever you would like to add to, or comment on, anything I have written, please feel very welcome to email me at mike@goldenreplay.com.

That’s it for now.  Thanks for taking a look, and watch out for my first “real” blog.  Stay with me, and let’s see where we get!