I got
told off by a regular reader recently for “revealing” a “secret” Cornish
coastal walk (see DISCOVERING A “NEW” BIT OF CORNWALL – Sunday, 19 June 2016; oops,
there I go again). Today I refer to a walk
that’s much better-known, much shorter and closer to home, but with a night of
high drama at the end of it.
When
I want to “chill,” one of my favourite spots is on the low-level clifftop above
some rocks just to the east of Maenporth Beach near Falmouth. It’s around 35 minutes’ walk away from
Falmouth seafront, which in turn is a mere five minutes from my home. (Are you salivating yet, FH?)
The
main, and best, stretch comes once you have left the road, shortly after
Swanpool Beach. You trek through some
woodland and then turn right for the truly-at-one-with-nature bit, well away
from the roar of traffic and other man-made noises, to the west of Pennance
Point.
Here
you are at your highest along the route, with the full splendor of Falmouth Bay
stretching as far as the eye can see – to St Anthony Head in the east and out
to the Manacles in the west. Mostly it’s
on open view; occasionally it will be
courtesy of tantalising glimpses through the hedgerows.
Turn
the clock back to mid-January 1979 and it was one of those gloriously crisp,
crystal-clear sunny midwinter days when it was bitterly cold, yes, but already
suggestive of spring.
I
went out there with my wife Janet and our newborn baby Annabelle. Never was there a more vivid reminder of the
extreme range of conditions that can affect Cornwall’s coast, sometimes
fluctuating from one end of the scale to the other in a matter of hours.
It
was a perfect, still day, and Janet and I took it in turns to break off from
the footpath and head down the 40 or so yards to the aforementioned clifftop
area.
Annabelle
remained in her carry-cot on the footpath above. As I looked first at her and then at what lay
on the rocks below those cliffs, I couldn’t help but reflect that life would
always move on anew, no matter what tragedies befell humankind.
For
as our dear baby slept, still fresh in my mind was the disaster that had
unfolded here one wild night just two or three weeks earlier.
Today,
in 2016, a few jagged edges of rusty metal piercing the sea’s surface are all
that are left to bear testimony to the extraordinary circumstances that marked
the night of December 30-31, 1978.
When
the Scottish trawler Ben Asdale was swept onto those rocks, it sparked a heroic
rescue operation rarely matched in Cornwall’s long history of shipwrecks. Three men lost their lives in the horrendous
conditions, but there were 11 survivors – with eight airlifted to safety in
feats of remarkable skill and courage.
I was
chief reporter of the Falmouth Packet
at the time and I had a neighbour who constantly listened in to the emergency
services’ radio traffic. He was thus
able to give me something of a running commentary as the drama began to unfold.
We’re
talking midnight-ish now and I was in bed, thank you very much, with Janet in
the final days of her pregnancy – and with me already something of a nervous
wreck after she had suffered a miscarriage earlier that year.
So a
big part of me really didn’t want to be receiving the tip-off phone calls from
my neighbour shattering the bedroom silence so late at night. I was also aware that outside there was a
mini-blizzard raging, with poor visibility and winds gusting to storm force 10
to 11 and whipping up huge seas.
But
after the umpteenth phone call from Mr Neighbour, I gave in and told him I was
on the way to the scene, politely asking him to refrain from making any more
calls.
Fortunately
the snow wasn’t actually sticking as I drove off (it did later in the night,
just a few minutes after I had returned home) and on arrival at Maenporth I was
met by a truly spectacular night-time scene.
A
fleet of ambulances and police cars was already lined up in the car park
stretch just above the beach, flares were lighting up the sea and sky, and the Falmouth
lifeboat was in clear view just offshore.
Coastguard
searchlights from the cliff above were beaming down on the wrecked trawler, and
a search and rescue helicopter from RNAS Culdrose would later join the throng.
As I
subsequently reported, it had all begun when the 422-ton Ben Asdale reported
that cable had fouled her steering and she was drifting towards the shore. Ten minutes later, she put out a Mayday –
with the rescue services finding her already on those rocks.
Search
parties swung into action, following reports of men taking to liferafts. With blinding snow and the howling gale
stinging their eyes, coastguards rigged their Breeches Buoy equipment and, with
their second rocket, they connected with the stricken vessel.
The
trawler was awash, but the deck lighting was still on and the crew were in the
wheelhouse.
Then,
in one sickening moment, the Breeches Buoy was on its way to the wreck when the
Ben Asdale turned over onto her side – jamming the block and carrying away the
tripod. The deck lights went out and
radio contact was lost.
Despite
the low cloud base and driving snow, the Culdrose helicopter was scrambled and
arrived over the wreck at 2.08 am. The
area was repeatedly illuminated by paraflares fired by the coastguards and
lifeboat, herself taking a tremendous battering.
Across
the bay at Pendennis Point, two fire engines joined more police and ambulances
separately positioned there – ready to illuminate that area if conditions ruled
out a return to Culdrose by the helicopter.
Over
some 90 minutes, eight survivors were winched up from the wheelhouse side
windows, one at a time, with the helicopter coming in backwards on each
occasion. One of them had to be lowered
back into the icy water – it was the only way that a blockage in the
helicopter’s winch could be cleared.
Three
other crew members had abandoned the vessel and managed to reach the shore –
and three were missing.
Throughout
the rescue operation, the helicopter pilot, Lieutenant Tony Hogg (later to
become Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner), was unable to see the
cliff edge. So coastguard Charles
Robinson, standing on the clifftop and using VHF portable radio, “conned” him
in for each lift.
“Left,
left, left,” he would say, or: “You need
to drop much further back; you are going
ahead too far.”
“Roger,”
Lieutenant Hogg replied each time. He
was awarded the Air Forces Cross for his efforts.
Coastguard
district officer George Neilson, in overall charge of the rescue operation,
later described the conditions as among the worst he had ever encountered. He added:
“The men were working on a cliff edge in an onshore gale, with driving
snow and visibility that was poor at the best of times.”
l The Ben Asdale
had been offloading fish into a Russian factory ship in the bay when she cast
off her stern rope in readiness to move away – but the rope fouled her rudder
and she would not respond to her helm.
Then the bow rope parted in the fierce gale. Her skipper let go an anchor, but it failed
to hold and from then on the vessel was doomed as she was swept rapidly ashore.
l Fast-forward 14
years or so and - resting at that favoured “chill” spot of mine and with the
other extreme of conditions once more - you could have looked down and spotted
a teenage Annabelle Truscott serenely canoe-ing her way through the scattered, much-reduced
wreckage of the Ben Asdale . . . in
brilliant sunshine and the calmest of seas.
