Unexpected

My Grandfather's story is very much a story of the unexpected and the unclear. I guess I shouldn't expect it to change now, just because I have tried to find out a few things.

My Mum always talks of him with great love and it is clear from what is said that he was well liked and respected by many. He stands tall in my families memories even though as you begin to look, there is a lack of concrete facts.

His father was a cabinet maker and I believe he died when my Grandfather and his brother were pretty young. The family was plunged into poverty and the boys spent time in an orphanage because there just wasn't the money to feed them. This is where the first hint of possible (as oppose to definite) tragedy comes in as there is the vaguest hint of possible abuse suffered in the orphanage.

The brothers grew up and my Grandfather went to war in India. He didn't talk about the war much but my Mum remembers that he said he helped build a road. The allies had pretty much finished their road building by the time the war started it seems. The Japanese however used Prisoners of War to build roads in the jungle and many, many died. The Japanese just couldn't understand that the West thought differently, it was duty to survive to fight another day whereas the Japanese committed suicide rather than be captured. The POWs were without honour as far as they were concerned and this tragedy of misunderstanding resulted in horrific treatment of the POWs.

My Grandfather met my Gran and my Gran tells a story about how she had to marry him because they went on a day trip with friends but left it too late to leave. She found herself in a position where she had to share a room with him and honour required she marry him. I don't think this was at all what she wanted. I don't think she loved him.

Two children later and my Grandfather moved to another town with work. My Mum always believed that they were to follow but the family never did. Instead a divorce came along and eventually a Stepfather who they did not enjoy living with. He was a man who liked to be alone and was best off in his garden. When we went and stayed he would manage for a day or two and then retreat to the garden. He had a brilliant smile and was not a bad chap but I can not imagine he ever wanted to live with someone else's children.

My step grandfather did something silly which caused my Uncle to spend a lot of time in hospital. Because of this my Uncle missed out on the last few years of his Father's life. For my Grandfather became ill. The added tragedy of this is he was to be married to a widower whose first husband died of exactly the same, not so common, illness. They didn't marry because he wanted to ensure my Gran carried on receiving his pension.

On a visit to see my Gran, she told my Mum and I a story. Knowing my Nan and given the way she told us, I have no idea if the story is true or not. My Grandfather was caught doing something that was still illegal at that time. It apparently resulted him losing his job and having to move and also resulted in the end of his marriage. The planned move had been a lie, told to ease the ending. It is possible from what was said that my Grandfather was gay or bisexual.

My Great Uncle didn't step in and help the family at all. In fact he was a headmaster at my Mum and Uncles school. My Mum was not academic but she had a dream to be a nurse. In his position of Headmaster, you would expect him to support them, no matter how he felt about things. He told my Mum to give up her dreams as she was not good enough and he put it in writing in her school report. Luckily she didn't listen.

So a life full of suspected tragedy, abused child, Japanese POW and society outcast... but yet he walks tall and all of these half guessed things might not be so.

There isn't many people to ask about him. My Gran is vague and not necessarily inclined to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Asking difficult questions of the lady he nearly married seems a way of just causing hurt and upset. He did however have two good friends that my Mum remembers. One I have no idea how to track down but the other is pretty well known, a celebrity.

So after not doing it for a looong time, I finallys ent him an email. I didn't say much, just who I was and why I was writing. Today I received a very nice and polite reply. Not the one I expected at all. It seems in those circles that there was another gent of the same name. The email apologised for not being of much assistance but said that he didn't really know him and suggested I look in a different circle.

I sent back a brief and equally polite email explaining that this man was not my Grandfather. I gave my Grandfathers profession and nickname as well as explaining that the eminent celebrity had in fact crafted a celebration of my Grandfather following his death but that all the information I have is second hand.

And now I wait.

It was 50 years ago after all. Could he really be forgotten? This man who walks so tall? Whose genial shadow comes down through time... My Uncle moved to the last town my Grandfather lived in and went to a pub one day. A man at the bar went into shock as he looked the spit of his father. All those years later, surely the celebrity can not have forgotten?

Expect the unexpected.... *sigh*

Rememberance

It shamed me today when I watched the proceedings at the Cenotaph that i couldn't remember what my family had done during the war. So I made some phone calls. Some things I had known but forgotten while other things I had never known. My family was lucky, it escaped the war relatively unscathed

My Dad's Dad was born in 1903 so he was not old enough to fight in the First World War. Although he was in his late thirties when the Second World War broke out, he didn't escape. He was too old for the frontline thankfully. He was a driver for the RAF based in London and he drove things everywhere and drove everything. Hampstead Heath was full of anti aircraft guns and a lorry compound. He escaped being posted abroad to North Africa due to a severely broken ankle.

His wife gave birth to my Father towards the end of the war and my Dad grew up with rationing and reminders everywhere. A family friend had an elbow that wouldn't bend because he had been shot at Dunkirk. They lived in London all through the war and survived the Blitz.

My Mum's Mum was one of those ladies who was suddenly allowed a much more independent life than otherwise she might have expected to have lived. She associated with officers and when she talks of the war, you can see it is bittersweet. Parties and fun times with friends who let go as if they might not come back and of course the memories of the ones that did not come back. My Nana was a very beautiful lady and she was based in London. The spirit of the Londoners at this time was a bright and shining thing in the face of adversity and she was one of them.

My Mum's Dad didn't like to talk about the war much at all. He was in the army posted in India. He at some point rode a horse and he also helped build a road. From this we suspect he was a Prisoner of War but we are not sure. As he and my Gran later divorced, finding out about him has always been tricky.

Family history is a valuable thing and I need to make a concerted effort to write more down... Least it be forgotten

My Dream Home

In my dreams I have been long torn by the prospect of an old house, full of history and time, and the joy of a new eco house, custom built for me. Last night I became decided once and for all what I want because I found it. I lost my heart completely. I couldn't sleep last night for thinking of my new love. I read all I could on the internet as well....

It is a little on the expensive side at 2.75 million and it is rumoured that celebrities have been to view it. I feel quite strongly that it shouldn't go to such a person. I have a strong feeling that this house shouldn't belong to a Trust or be open to the public. It should be looked after by a follower of the Goddess.

It should have children and life and not be frozen as a museum or primped into a flash showpiece. I should be first and foremost a home - both for a family and for the spirit that inhabits this place. Maybe it could be used as a retreat. It needs to be safeguarded as a sacred place, not have it's power leached away by a parade of families with unhappy children held behind a rope and not allowed to touch. Stonehenge has not lost it's power but the rules in place there make it a shadow of what it could be...

I personally think the current owner feels this too. This is an excerpt from an article you can read in full here.

It's an incredibly feminine house," says Richard. "It has a good feeling. You could sleep on the floor, all on your own, and you'd be perfectly happy."

Those who have watched the film will recall the sweeping lawn between the front of the house and the lake, and the sloping beech woodland behind. "All the wildlife gets condensed in the valley. Every day we see deer, badgers and owls and at night, there is total darkness, just stars. We never experienced that in Sussex," says Richard.

He will miss the woodland the most: "The trees are enormous up there. But you're only ever a custodian of a house like this – you have to pass it on to someone else."

Nevertheless, he is determined to be choosy about who buys it – no property developers, for example. But there is a chance it could sell to a celebrity, given that several "high profile" people have viewed it already, according to Jonathan Cunliffe of Savills, who is handling the sale. "It doesn't surprise us. Every other house like this is owned by the National Trust," he says.

The site has been inhabited at least since Saxon times and it is believed that the current house is built on the site of an older house with part of an older building possibly being the kitchen. In 1564 a lady called Alice Reskymer left the hosue to the church and it became a rectory. A succession of religous folk from London bought architectural ideas to the house. In the early 1900s a retiring rector built a new rectory rather than leave his beloved home.

In recent years the history of the hous has been troubled. In 2002 the owners went bankrupt and the house was in disrepair. Things had become rather unpleasant all round as shown in this article. The new owners pumped in money and the external rennovations have been completed and inside is a blank slate, requiring more money and time.

The house is huge, far, far bigger than I would ever, ever really need.... Downstairs there is a drawing room, reception room, sitting room, dining room, family room, kitchen, boiler room and an octagonal music room. There is a courtyard and then a coach house with three bedrooms. Oak panelling abounds and the ceilings are impressive shapes. Upstairs there are eight bedrooms with the master suite including a bathroom, dressing room and morning room. The attic hasn't been included as bedrooms and includes a further five rooms.... Then there are outbuildings....

But it isn't the house itself that draws the most, despite it being an undisputed beauty, featured in the film Saving Grace where the lady of the manor fights to save it from the bank by growing cannabis. (very funny) Just outside the house there is a hexagonal walled garden and at the centre of it there is a well. It is hinted that the well might have had a previous religious importance but I would say that that is pretty undoubtable. To add to this there is an ancient turf labyrinth in the mature woods around which wrongdoers would crawl on their hands and knees in penance.

Go have a look at the house here. Once the house is off the market, this link will vanish....

The house is private and situated within mature woodlands. It has a front and rear drive, 38 acres including a five acre field. It has a mill pond and the river appears to run through from the map.

Maybe I can win the lottery tonight... A seven million jackpot would possibly enable me to buy it and restore it but I suspect I wouldn't be left with millions afterwards but I could do it, if I won... Short of me winning, pray that this place falls into the right hands, for Wetherham is a gem, unique.

Spark of Memory

I have been thinking about memories a bit recently. Some memories are like a bright spark, a moment that is so distinct and strong while others are like a flickering candle light seen at a distance, longer but fuzzier to, the emotions that preserve them are less intense.

For me, emotion seems to be at the centre of memory.

One of those little sparks is an isolated thing but the thing that defines it was the realisation that at that precise moment in time, I was happy. I can not remember why I was happy or how old I was. Just the emotion and where I was. It was an Autumn day and I was in the grounds of my school, on the way to music. The dew was heavy on the grass and so were the craneflies, as I walked through the dewy grass I left footprints in the silver coated grass and shook up storms of daddy long legs all around.

People say that smell brings things back for them, or a place or something else. For me it is emotions I think that anchor. Smells are linked to things but less specifically... fresh mown grass or creosote or hot ink and paper, linked to tasks and non-specific memories. I think for me these smells are linked more with emotions than of specific memories.

The Crow

It is strange somehow how many little things take you back to another time, another place.

My niece wants to become a goth and I have offered to look out a few bits for her. One thing I know I have is a special poster, that I loved (and still do) so much.

I have been thinking of this film recently, remembering how I loved it but have only seen it once.... I am sure there was another reason I was thinking of it but I can't remember now, obviously I wasn't supposed to share it....

Then today, I found an ex of mine who is a film buff with an incredible brain and pretty much perfect recall and often puts quotes as his status update on facebook, put these few words 'it can't rain all the time'. Most of his quotes pass over my head but that one didn't.

And it takes me back in time. I had a beautiful boyfriend, my first love. Almost exactly the same height as me, he was lithe and trim and moved with cat like grace. The moves of someone who must have done some martial arts, a fighter, not to be underestimated. He was a biker type in his jeans and leather jacket and black silk shirt. Arms full of arty tattoos - apart from the spider...

I was a voluptuous goth girl, with long black hair, all fledgling woman with a body built for badness. In my maroon skirt with black tie dyed bits that was more than a full circle if you laid it out, my black cross over top, boots and leather jacket.

That night we had been to see the crow and it was fantastic. The only thing was i didn't want to leave. I had seen a group of people arrive just as it started who I didn't want to see. i hadn't really done anything wrong but it wouldn't matter how much I thought and felt that, it would not convince them.

Two of the girls were best friends and i was friends with one of them. The two girls had done something or another, stayed out with some boys they barely knew or something and a nasty piece of gossip was being put around it. The one I was friends with told me what had happened so I knew it wasn't true and thought nothing more of it.

A while later she comes in really upset having just heard the gossip. I admitted I had known and that was it. I had fallen foul of some rule of friendship no one had ever thought to tell me. Apparently I should have gone and told them the second i had heard it, not merely discounted it as false and put it to bed in my own mind. I don't think it helped that I wouldn't say who told me. It was actually the other girlss ex who she was good friends with.... *laugh* he offered to go put the record straight but I said no, there was no point, it wouldn't mend things.

That was that.

So back to the Crow. My first love got fed up of waiting and persuaded me to leave. It was one of the best things he could have done. The group were stood outside chatting and without saying a word or sparing them a glance, we walked on by. We looked so good, so in control, so capable. They couldn't touch us and they knew it. Together we were more than we were apart and they knew. They stopped talking and all eyes followed us. I felt a million dollars.

I must watch the crow again.

to say we looked good together was an understatement. At least that is the way I remember it.

The Crow is a dark film in the way it appears, the story, the music and of course the legend... Brandon Lee was killed during filming. Very appropriate in so many ways for right now. The two main characters are murdered the night before their wedding and the man comes back to avenge their deaths and to say good bye to the girl they took care of. Brandon died from a faulty blank in a gun used in the film which shattered his spine. He was soon to have been married shortly after. His father also died during filming and believed he had been given this knowledge in a premonition and that there was a curse.

Despite all this, the film is uplifting. The evil that caused their untimely death is beaten back and those that remain get to live as they deserve.

So in one fell swoop we have spoken of my first two loves and my most serious relationships before the lovely F. They both sit with fond rememberance in my heart. I guess that is another theme of right now, rememberance of the dead, both on samhain and on the 11th November for rememberance day when we remember those lost in war.

I think I need to watch this film again...

Rewriting History III

I am finding this an interesting theme for thought and there is a little more to come... Most of us rewrite personal history as well.

My first experience of this was with My Gran. She was a difficult lady. Widowed before my parents met and with only one child, she was never going to like my Mum, no matter how much she did... When I was about twelve, I very innocently caused a family row. My Mum, Gran, Sister and I had all been out and about. Things hadn't happened quite as my Gran would have liked and she went home stewing. By the time we next saw her she had convinced herself that things had happened slightly differently. She proceeded to complain to my Dad about what happened. I spoke up and contradicted her view of events.

It occurs to me in recounting this that she may have known she wasn't telling the truth. Who knows.... It always appeared that she brooded on things. With each telling she appeared in a slightly better light until she had the story just right, and of course, that was how it had been....

We all do this to some extent. The memory of pain vanishes, to become a memory of a memory of a memory. I think this is the minds way of protecting us. I think the same happens with things we do wrong. Imagine if we had to remember in 20:20 clarity every single wrong we had done. Imagine the weight of all that guilt. It would cripple us as people.

Thing is, I slowly rewrite the good stuff too. I just forget it. I have an awful memory. What did I do when i was 14? Where did I go at 17? How did I feel after my first kiss? Which one exactly WAS my first kiss? I am not sure everyone has quite as bad a memory as I do, but I think the principle is the same...

Shame, pain, fear, love all gone. A memory of a memory of a memory. A memory of the story I once told myself about how it happened.

Do we really want to live with the painful truth, every second?

Sometimes things happen that pierce our minds and we can't forget. A memory so strong, A pain so deep, a love so profound... Even they fade one day if we let them (or if we have a truly appalling memory). I have a piercing moment of memory from my childhood. Walking through wet grass in Autumn with flurries of Daddy Long Legs leaping out of the grass. It was a moment when I realised I was happy. When I just felt happiness and was present and there... No context, just that image.

Families write history too. Why did Grandma fall out with her sister? The polite fiction. What you tell the children. What is misunderstood by future generations. What is left out.

Rewriting History II

I wanted to write a little more about rewriting history because I have had a few more thoughts and rememberings.

I grew up when the IRA terrorist activities were at their height. When bombs went off in England. When there was daily trouble in Ireland. There was no avoiding the fact that there really was trouble in Ireland and they were cross with the English.

One day our English teacher decided to get us to have a debate on the Irish situation. I actually went away and researched it, unlike my class mates. I got the encyclopedia from the library and I read. I was pretty horrified by what I found out. I discovered, in short, the potato famine. I had never, ever heard of this before. No mention of it had been made in my presence, despite the troubles. And I was a teenager.

So I put together my argument and I was proud and passionate about what I had to say. And off to class I went. I didn't get the reaction I expected.

When I mentioned the potato famine, the class laughed. They had never ever heard of it. Not one of them. My opponent thought I was making it up and egged them on. The teacher and I locked eyes in horror and sympathy. My opponent won the debate.

Most of our history is taught in school but certainly when I was there, it was a sanitized version. All the bad nasty bits taken out. All the things we did wrong removed. The crusades were not an attempt at religious genocide. The Romans persecuted Christians but no mention of the start of the Roman Catholic church.

We are not the only nation guilty of this. I know that a lot of people won't like this next comment... but the whispers about how the IRA funded itself suggested US ex-pats. After 9 11 it all changed that's for sure. The IRA lost it's bite and learned to talk very quickly.

We all reinvent things. Sometimes it is reinvented for us, marketing, spin, political secrets, non-disclosure agreements, trade agreements. Where do all those warring third world countries get their weapons from?

When my descendants look back on these times, how will history have been written? What things will have been exposed as documents become unclassified? What events will be forgotten? Which shameful things will be left out?

Rewriting History

History is written by the winners.

Nowhere is this more (or less) true than the British Isles. The 'English' version of the history of these Isles is the one that has been taught but there is a resurgence. This history is no longer seen as threatening to Great Britain and people are interested so the tales are being told more widely.

Most British people have blood drawn from the four quarters of the Isles so as the history is explored so we are able to explore some of the less English aspects of our family history. I definitely have Welsh and Scottish blood. I have a Liverpudlian branch of the family so given all this, I am likely to have a little irish somewhere in there too. Much of my English blood is fenland and Suffolk based.

Britain is a set of islands, many, many islands. This enabled the many tribes to remain distinct in many ways. Waves of invaders did not settle equally across the islands. The Celts remained strongly present in Ireland, Wales, Scotland and Cornwall. I have also read that the fenlands, being an impenetrable, undrained bog retained a lot of Celtic blood as well.

The islands remained a hodge podge of tribal feifdoms, slowly united. England, Cornwall, Scotland, Wales and Ireland emerged as separate nations of united tribes. Slowly they all came under the sway of the English. The history of this integration is not really taught in schools. A little mention of the whole Scottish Kings and Queens is made perhaps, with Mary Queen of Scots.

My Scottish ancestor was a MacDonald from the Cairngorms who moved to Suffolk to work at the Naval College, as a bursar I think. He must have been well educated for the time but all connection to his Scottish ancestry seems to have been cut. He changed his surname to Donald and married a local farmers daughter. I think he was my great great great grandfather maybe an extra great in there too. My Mum was often told that we were directly descended from Robert de Bruce. This is all I know of my Scottish Ancestry.

Nothing of the Scottish history was taught me. I learnt of Robert de Bruce in films such as Braveheart. Now there is a series on TV about the History of Scotland. I have just sat and heard for the first time, the story of how the MacDonalds and the Stewarts divided Scotland into Lowland and Highland. How the MacDonalds ascended and descended in power. How the Scottish identity became divided. How the Lowlanders became Scots and the Highlanders remained Gaels.

Cornwall is a land of forgotten history as well. I wish more of this had been taught... Good job it is never too late to learn! I am truly British, not English. I am Celt, Angle, Saxon and Dane. I am no one thing. The English didn't win in me, they are just another part... They only won in history. Time makes us complete. Things come full circle.

Treasure Map

I like looking at maps. Sometimes you find out really interesting things about the places around you. Sometimes you find cool places to go.

Today was one of those days when we went to a new and good place because I spent some time looking at the map.

There is a bay called Gwithian Bay which stretches from Godrevy Ligthouse at one end to St Ives Island at the other. The villages of Gwithian and Lelant as well as the towns of Hayle, Carbis Bay and St Ives sit along it's length. In the middle is the mouth of the Hayle Estuary. If you could stand at the mouth you would look along cliffs to Carbis Bay and St Ives and along sand dunes past Hayle to Gwithian and the headland of Godrevy.

Hayle is an unusual town. I admit I didn't think much of it when I first went there. A long road stretches parallel to the dunes along one branch of the river from Copperhouse to Foundry. This road isn't the most exciting but it is the part everyone sees. Copperhouse and Foundry were iron founderies and their social effect on Hayle was huge. People worked for one or the other and they lived at the appropriate end. Huge rivalries developed between the two groups.

The industry had a very marked affect on the geography of the town as well and there is a good map here. The river flows past Copperhouse parallel to the dunes to Foundry and then it turns towards the sea and out. A number of quays are found at the Foundry end and one of them leads into the Copperhouse Canal which allowed ships to make it to Copperhouse.

Parrallel to the dunes you have first the old railway (no longer running) then the river then the canal and finally the road with all the houses of Hayle beyond. There are three large pools, Copperhouse Pool between Copperhouse and Foundry, a lovely duckpond inland from Foundry and Carnsew Pool the other side of the Foundry from Hayle.

Carnsew Pool is separated from the quays by New Pier. New Pier extends nearly all the way into the mouth of the estuary and separates the river that flows through Hayle from a second river that exits here. The pier also has a second leg that goes all the way round Carnsew Pool.

We walked from Foundry along past one of the many Quays and onto new Pier today. This took us past Carnsew Pool which tumbled over a waterfall and under a bridge in the pier. I expect at high tide the water flows the other way. I loved this. The water was clear and you could see all the stones of the fall. The bridge was all blocky and old fashioned with the many of the stones of the arch protruding outwards. From here the view across the pool to the far arm of the pier was fantastic.

We walked along the pier to the end where we sat on a bench. We were only a couple of hundred yards from the beaches on either side here and we could hear the conversations of others but we were separate and alone. Those to our left basked on a beach backed by dunes and those to our left walked dogs on a beach backed by cliffs and rivers flowed out to sea on both sides, glittering in the sun.

The pier is like much of the quays - faded industrial glory. Much of the buildings here are gone leaving that strange post industrial landscape. Gravel and hardcore compete with gorse and scrub. The pier has been built using all sorts of waste and more has probably been dumped over the years. Bricks, glass, bits of quartz.

Much of the quays are derelict as well, bits of wall demolished stones missing here and there. Anyone thinking this is a sadly declined fishing harbour is wrong, fishing was not the cause of this harbours complexities but it is now the only benefactor. Piles of lobster cages lie on the quay here and there.

F took lots of pictures but i don't have any to post right now, but I shall. I would also like to show you more of this bay because I like it very much and it would be good for me to explore more of it....

Kennal Vale

Kennal Vale is a little tiny nature reserve. Chances are that you would never find it by accident. The entrance to the reserve is on a tiny road that goes nowhere much. It looks as if you are entering the drive to someone's house but the path runs past the house to a gate. And still nothing looks that special or unique. Sure it looks pretty from the gate. A long path stretches along the side of a valley through trees with ferns and a river running somewhere near...

But the site is unique, it is one of my most favouritest places ever in fact. The valley has steep sides and the River Kennal runs through. This river looks like nothing more than a stream but in it's short trip to the sea it powered 39 mills in it's day. It is in fact the most powerful river in the country for no river can boast the ability to power so many mills per mile.

Some of the mills were used for making gunpowder, those in Kennall Vale itself. The mills were powered by water which has been channeled through a complex system of stone lined channels called leats. The valley is full of the river and the ruins of all these buildings. For gunpowder is dangerous stuff and the wet atmosphere of the valley was perfect for preventing explosions. Trees were planted between the different buildings to dampen any explosions and prevent them spreading from building to building. Of course there were accidents, and deaths, some of them gory...

The gunpowder works closed but the site was not dead. A quarry was begun on one side of the valley. The excavated material was placed on top of some of the gunpowder works buildings and new buildings were built on top. So the site has a whole host of industrial history....

There are three main paths, one on each side of the valley and one down the bottom by the river. The path on the mill side of the valley runs along side the leats as they run through the valley. It runs behind the mills and the water from the leats often crosses the path. As the leats descend the side of the valley, the path descends to, down steep steps alongside ruins.

The sound of the river is everywhere as it courses over rocks. It also goes over a weir and there are so many waterfalls, from the leats and the river....

On the other side of the valley is the quarry which is now flooded and backed by a sheer rock wall....

The trees the explosives workers planted have blossomed and the once industrial site is a haven for nature. As well as trees, tere are ferns, everywhere. They grow on the ruins, on the trees, just everywhere. Some of them are very rare as well...
I decided to take Little Dog for a walk there tonight. I also decided to take my brand new copy of Wreck This Journal there to (go see my other blog for some details on that!) It was lovely....

Retelling the Story

I know I have told my story on my blog before but I have an urge to tell it again. I think I left out most of the most important parts. I don't think I will feel that I have told it properly until I have. I think this part of my story is central to understanding me as a person. It is not who I am but these events shaped me and caused my direction to change and their ripples have traveled throughout my life. I am not looking for pity. I am not a victim. This is an old me that I honour. I am somewhere else now.

I went to a highly Christian school. Many of the staff had been missionaries and religion and ethics was central to everything they taught. Apparently all the children there were Christian. I am not convinced by this. I think some were sent there because their parents wanted them to have an English education somewhere where the girls would be almost cloistered away. I had a very protected childhood. The world was Christian and had ethics and Christians never did anything bad, did they?

I didn't fit. At some point I remember thinking that emotions and acting emotionally was too painful and difficult. I decided that the only way to make decisions was to follow the path of least hurt. Everything I did was based on a emotional assessment of how to proceed while hurting the least number of people in the smallest way. This led me to stand up to bullies for others but not necessarily myself. You see my own hurts somehow took a back seat. I stopped letting myself feel. I don't know how old I was, maybe 12, maybe 14, who knows?

My soul started to die and at 14 I became ill with Glandular Fever, for the first time. I was a robot. I think this was when the sadness that a doctor called depression first entered my life. It was the first time I was prescribed anti-depressants. They never have worked for me. My sadness is a thing of intellect and emotion rather than chemistry.

I started to come out of myself as my life moved on and took me away from that cotoon wool school. Life there hadn't really prepared me for life outside though. There is no logic to people being nasty or bad so it just didn't fit in my head.

I left home and started work. Still dreadfully naive and young but I probably didn't give the appearance of this. An older man at work decided he wanted to go out with me and pursued me. I eventually agreed because I didn't really have a reason to keep saying no. He was 14 years older than me and proceeded to reorganise my life. Before I knew it I was living in his house, paying him rent that included bills, but nervous of using the phone and running up the phone bill. He was pretty well off and you might think I would have benefitted but I can't actually remember him buying me a single thing or ever offering to do anything other than go halves when we were out.

Eventually things started to deteriorate and I dumped him but I had to spend a few more days living there. During this time I had to go away on a jolly. It was hot and we had a free bar and were expected to stay up late and take advantage of this. The next day we travelled back and by the time I got there I was so tired and dehydrated that you could have pushed me over with a pin.

My Ex took advantage of this situation and raped me. I may not have stood up for myself. Some people would probably dispute the use of the term rape. But inside my head, I did not want it, I never agreed to it and it destroyed my carefully built naive little world. The me that was ended that night.

I moved on and things appeared normal. I had moved to start my studies but rather than being friends with lots of men, I made few male friends. My attitude towards men changed. I let myself be taken advantage of and went out with unsuitable men. I drank to much. It wasn't very long before the glandular fever reared it's ugly head again. Eventually I had to drop out of Uni. my ability to hold myself together slowly decreased. I started taking drugs. I became more ill and left Uni.

One day I finally fell apart. I called my parents and told them some stuff, I can't remember what. They came and picked me up and took me home. They took me to the Doctor's and I was referred to a Psychiatrist. I had counselling and a nice little prescription of Temazepam (which I never took) just in case the mental pain got to much. My 21st birthday ranks as being one of the worst of my life.

I was a blank slate waiting to be re-written. My old moralistic, ethical, Christian world view had failed. It couldn't survive in the face of reality. I am a Libra. I am a logical, analytical scientist. I have to have a mental framework for things to fit in and mine had been destroyed. I had to rebuild mine from scratch.

I started reading. So many different books. A bit of this, a bit of that. I returned to the city where my best friend was a Wiccan who lived with her Wiccan sister and her Wiccan Mother. They fed me books. My counsellors recommended books. Everyone seemed to be feeding me books. I read and took the bits which felt right and connected with me. I built a new framework for my soul. This one isn't rigid, it can bend with life and it is always growing.

Those first months it grew faster than at any other time....

Living Magically and Stepping into the Magic
The Man who Planted Trees
Feel the Fear
The Road Less Travelled
Hedgewitch
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Flat Rock Journal: A Day in the Ozarks
Walking to Mercury and The Fifth Sacred Thing (Fantasy by Starhawk!)
The books of Sheri S Tepper
The books of Carlos Castenada
The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet

and so many others... (of course some more than others - not sure what I took from Carlos Casteneda exactly *laugh*)

Now there was also the books of Paulo Coelho, at this time just The Alchemist, The Pilgrimmage and The Valkyries. Like all the books above they were early participants in my quest to put myself back together and as I such I have an overwhelming fondness for all of these. And there authors of course. I do however feel that books do begin to take on a life separate from the writer....

I am not that naive girl who would go out with anyone who pursued her.
I am not that girl who hid in alcohol and drugs.
I am not that girl who had an interesting attitude to men.
I am not the girl whose mind tortures her.
I am not a victim.
I am not a sickly person.

But all of these people live on inside me, somewhere, as do all the books I have ever read.

Baker's Pit

I gave F warning that when he got home this morning, he could expect to be dragged off somewhere with Little Dog and I. And we did...

We went to Baker's Pit, a Cornwall Wildlife Trust site that lies between St Michael's Mount and St Ives on the old pilgrim's way. The back bone of Cornwall is made of granite and these hills are home to heathland and acid peat bogs. In between the hills lie heavily wooded valleys often with willow carr (a habitat featuring water and willow trees mixed together) and little rivers.

In some places water got into the granite and weathered it. In these places the clay has been weathered into clay deposits. St Austell is famous for it's clay pits and clay tips with the Eden project built in an old pit. I didn't know that other parts of Cornwall had been mined for clay, until today.

Baker's Pit is an old clay pit that sits between granite hills. The water has that orange colour that tells of water draining off from peat. trees grew round the edge of the lake. We sat on a concrete jetty and ate our sandwiches. Little Dog galivanted happily, in and out of the water.


It was a beautiful spot our camera couldn't do justice. The pit would be lovely to explore in a canoe but apart from this small area by the jetty it was inaccessible without causing damage and disruption and possible injury.


We made our way back to the main path and followed a fork that lead through some small fields around the top of the pit. Gates and stiles lead between fields and then into boggier land. The path came here, where it lead through a tiny ruin (on the left). Little Dog was turning into a Bog Dog with black paws and ran through the bog in the picture and back through the ruin several times.

The trees began to clear and we found ourselves on open heath as we neared the top of the hill. Behind us we could see the sea around St Ives. As we reached the top we could see the sea at Mount's Bay. The photo below actually shows Mounts Bay and Penzance....Paths zig zagged all over the area and once we reached the top we started to circle round. We passed fields of cows, mine ruins and a lone chimney. Our sense of direction was good enough that we ended up back at the car. Looking at the map I still can't see exactly where we went. I don't think all the paths and tracks are marked. Looking at the reserve map however we appear to have done the full circuit of the reserve....

It was lovely and Little Dog and F seem rather tired now...

The pits were started, in the main, in the early 1800s but one pit in the area was working in 1758. In 1868 the pits changed owners and pumping began. Sand was separated first and taken away and slurry was placed in settling tanks to separate the clay. The best quality mica rich clay was dried in a kiln. Some of the waste was sent to be made into bricks.

Work stopped for the Great War and never really got going again. It passed into the hands of English China Clays which later became Imerys. Work stopped in 1942. Imerys gifted the site to Cornwall Wildlife Trust in 2000.

Within the reserve there are also Early Bronze Age Barrows, low stony banks from a prehistoric field system and an iron age banjo enclosure (the only one in Cornwall). Banjo enclosures were funnel shaped and probably used for livestock but theories include farming settlements or seasonal ritual centres where feasting occured. I think this counts as an ancient site where people lived....

Trevithick

Tomorrow is Trevithick Day, A Spring fair in the town of Camborne in Cornwall. I am going to go and take photos for a photographic scavenger hunt.

I guess none of you will have heard of Richard Trevithick. If he had been English rather than Cornish, this might have been rather different. When grand things are invented they build on the inventions and ideas of others. Some times it is a little tricky to say who is the one who should take the credit, who becomes famous.

Wallace and Darwin. The Wright Brothers weren't the only ones trying to make a flying machine. Watt wasn't the only one working on steam engines and Stephenson with his Rocket came along much later. It was in fact Trevithick that built and demonstrated the first ever transportation device powered by steam, the Puffing Devil. He introduced high pressure steam engines to the world and this allowed engines to be small enough and powerful enough to be moved. Watt, who is far more famous, actually said that Trevithick should be hung for bringing something so dangerous into the world!

Trevithick was born in 1771, the son of a mine captain near Camborne. At 19 his first job was as a consultant engineer in local mines. He first made high pressure steam engines work in 1799 and the Puffing Devil took it's first trip in 1801 and it is this famous (or at least it should be) trip that will be commemorated tomorrow.

Trevithick picked up several men in Fore street and proceeded with them up Camborne Hill to the village of Beacon. Three days later the devil broke down after going over a gully in the road. The operators stopped for a meal of goose at a local pub. Unfortunately the engine ran dry, overheated and burnt out, destroying it. This all inspired a folk song...

Goin' up Camborne Hill, coming down
Goin' up Camborne Hill, coming down
The horses stood still;
The wheels went around;
Going up Camborne Hill, coming down

White stockings, white stockings she wore (she wore)
White stockings, white stockings she wore
White stockings she wore:
The same as before;
Going up Camborne Hill, coming down

I knowed her old father old man (old man)
I knowed her old father old man
I knowed her old man;
He played in the band;
Going up Camborne Hill, coming down

I 'ad 'er, I 'ad 'er, I did
I 'ad 'er, I 'ad 'er, I did
I 'ad 'er I did:
It cost me a quid
Going up Camborne Hill, coming down

He heaved in the coal, in the steam (the steam)
He heaved in the coal, in the steam
He heaved in the coal:
The steam hit the beam
Going up Camborne Hill, coming down

Goin' up Camborne Hill, coming down
Goin' up Camborne Hill, coming down
The horses stood still;
The wheels went around;
Going up Camborne Hill, coming down

Did I ever mention that this was not a classy town in those days? It grew to house the workforce for the local mines. Lawlessness occasionally prevailed.....

Back to Trevithick.... He built the first steam locomotive which took it's first trip in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales pulling 10 tons of iron, 5 wagons and 70 men 9.75 miles in 4 hours and 5 minutes. He was a consultant on an early project to drive a tunnel under the Thames which was beset by difficulties and didn't reach completion. His proposal for solving the issues was eventually successfully implemented in tunneling under the Michigan River in Detroit. It was however Sir Marc Kingdom Brunel, assisted by his son Isambard, who drove the first successful tunnel under the Thames in 1843.

The Peruvian silver mines provided a challenge that low pressure engines couldn't solve because of the altitude. He left for South America to consult and was granted rights to several mines but was unable to develop them due to lack of funds and the political situation of the country. He was also accused of neglecting his wife and family, left back in Cornwall.... He explored Costa Rica on foot looking for a route for a railway.

Penniless, he met Stephenson who leant him £50 to get home. He died alone and penniless in 1833. He should have been rich and famous. Stephenson's Rocket was the first locomotive to run on tracks and was developed 25 years after the Puffing Devil.

It didn't surprise me that I nearly got stuck behind a steam engine on my way home tonight....

Roseland Roadtrip

Today F and I went out on a little trip to the Roseland. The Roseland is a peninsula that is separated from mainland Cornwall by the Fal. The Fal runs south past Truro to Falmouth and is a flooded river valley. To reach the peninsula by road requires a large detour around the river valley. Unless of course you take to the river. The King Harry Ferry crosses the river. The river is tidal as far as Truro and is broad and heavily wooded along it's banks.

The view from the ferry up river to where some old ships await their fate.

From there we drove to a small village called Philleigh where we stopped at an Inn for a sandwich outside in the sun. We also explored the church behind the Inn and were lucky to be able to do this as the organist practiced. The graveyard is one that is managed by wildlife and as we entered through the gate we were greeted by a robin.

On from there we drove to Pendower Beach. The view from here was stunning as the beach sits in a large bay. Porthscatho sat glistening in the sun around the bay. The beach sits at the mouth of a valley and is sandy with small pebbles. As you walk along the beach it becomes backed by a cliff before the cliff drops away and it turns into Carne Beach. F skimmed stones into the sea and we admired the beach rocks. We spent quite a bit of time there....

Pendower Beach in the foreground with Carne Beach opening up beyond.

We drove on to Porthscatho, a lovely little fishing village / town which is joined to Gerrans. I was amused to see a poster advertising a frog race!

Porthscatho, across it's harbour.

From there we drove on to the very end of the peninsula, St Anthony's Head. This headland is the southern most point of the peninsula and sits at the entrance of Carrick Roads. The Carrick Roads is the expanse of water where several flooded river valleys come together. The largest of these creeks is the Fal, to the west is the port of Falmouth which sits between Falmouth, Flushing and Penryn and the third is the smaller creek which flows past St Mawes and into the Roseland Peninsula. Carrick Roads is such a deep and wide channel that huge ships regularly pass through it to avail themselves of the docks services at Falmouth.

From St Anthony's Head across Carrick Roads to Pendennis in Falmouth. You can just see the castle as the highest point on the headland. The docks are to the right of the headland.

To one side of the mouth sits St Anthony's Head and across the other side is the mound on which Pendennis Castle sits in Falmouth. A twin castle to Pendennis sits on the Roseland at St Mawes. Further military facilities sat on St Anthony's Head. A battery was sited on the head with an observation room for positioning ships. They were defended by the addition of walls. There was still ammunition and guns up there until 1959.

View from St Anthony's Head looking towards St Mawes with the Fal passing St Mawes on the left.

Walking between the battery walls.

At the bottom of the head there sits a lighthouse, St Anthony's Lighthouse. This lighthouse guides ships into Carrick Roads and warns them of the Black Rocks and the Manacles Reef. This lighthouse was the one used in the classic children's programme, Fraggle Rock. A little further along the coast is the old parafin store for the lighthouse.

St Anthony's Lighthouse

The Black Rocks from the Lighthouse.

From there we drove back up the peninsula, round the creek, to St Mawes. We walked along the sea front a ways and then drove up to St Mawes Castle.

View past St Mawes Castle to St Anthony's Head, you can just see the lighthouse.

I have seen so many beautiful views today and I have seen the Carrick Roads from so many angles.One last view of Carrick Roads from St Mawes Castle.

On the map below, the Roseland is the landmass to the right, with St Anthony's at the very bottom.

View map of Falmouth, Cornwall, England, TR11 3 on Multimap.com
Get directions to or from Falmouth, Cornwall, England, TR11 3

Celebrating your Memories

Following a link from Collage Diva, I have decided to partake in Carla's personal history blog party, which you can read about here. It sounds like a lovely project and I shall enjoy writing about it this Friday.

Walking on History

One thing I have come to realise by writing this blog is that I find History fascinating. On the whole, not the history I was taught in school though. this with the exception of that taught by one teacher, Mrs C.

Mrs C could have had a career as an actress. She spent hours talking to us and telling us what it was like. She had a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust come visit us and tell us her story. She used to act the parts in her stories and told us of fascinating books we might like. Hers were the stories of people, individuals and what they did and why and what happened to them.

During this period of study with her, I visited Germany and Austria with my family. This served to compound her teachings in my head. We visited the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's luxury pad on top of an Alpine mountain. More disturbingly, we visited Dachau one of the camps. Outside the gates, birds sang happily but inside the silence was heavy and unbroken and it felt as if no joyous living thing could bare to be there.

I loved Munich, and would love to revisit this vibrant town one day. Many of the fooderies there feature long tables with benches and it was while eating at one of these that I met an old man. He had only a few words of English and I, only a few of German but we talked. We talked of war and sorrow. He had flown as part of the Luftwaffe, the German airforce, and he talked of his sorrow at being part of the force that bombed my country. And he cried.

Mrs C taught me that history is truly about people. I am not interested in grand Politicians and Royalty in the same way, except where their lives intersect with those of the more common people. They have an equal place in my interest with those they ruled over.

Of course it is not just the people that fascinate me, but how they and their history has shaped the world around me. Britain is an ancient piece of land and the wight of many years of habitation lay upon it, all around, everywhere I look. Even places where they are not obvious. On top of this hill, those rocks were placed on top of each other and formed the base of a wall of an ancient hut. That ridge on that cliff was made by people, most has fallen into the sea now but was it a field wall or was there a mine there and here ran their spoil heaps? Everywhere I go the land is layered in history, beneath my feet and it is full of stories.

This journal was started in order to help me explore my spirituality and it has but I almost regret the name I chose now. I feel that there is so much here that people would not expect. My spirituality is but one side of me and my interests. I have realised I am not a Wiccan but a witch but then I have realised that it is nature that truly draws me and being a witch is a tiny part of my connection to all that is.

These days the stories of people are more accessible than ever in some ways. After I am long gone, somewhere ther is likely to be an electronic record of my life. Maybe just cold hard facts, maybe there will be some emotional meat on those bones. I can only guess how people in times gone by felt, most are nameless and forgotten but still I walk on their history.