Memories of a Cornish childhood

rose blimey small world isn't it?

My great great grandfather (I think it might have been another great) was the village postman. They had 12 children and I guess they are all in St Juliots church yard, but it was so overgrown and muddled I couldn't find any, but I was with Mum so didn't have enough time but intend to go back some time.

jalima yes I'm going to do that this winter. I have bags full of stuff all needs labelling and explaining. My Aunt kept everything including black edged death announcement cards, all official forms, rations books etc etc you name it it's there.

Letters from my Uncle when pOW in Japan - well a couple of words per letter really but poignant to read. Masses of stuff. I could spend hours looking at it.

Lovely old church there.

Yes, we lived on Lanteglos Lane!?

rose then you will know Lanteglos - that's where my family came from during the 19th century. No one left there now.

Interesting, we used to live in a nearby village ( Helstone) and our very good tv engineer lived in Delabole.

How lovely to have those memories in written form.

I think it is so important to pass on memories but no-one in our family wrote them down, many were word of mouth and what I and another relative have found from research, so it may have to be me who does that so that they are not lost.

It's also important to write on or label photographs as we have so many old ones which are in a box which I labelled 'Who are We?'

It sounds fascinating, ww!

But on the other hand the children seem to have an enormous amount of freedom - to kill themselves if they wanted- some of the descriptions of their play makes your hair stand on end. It was definitely out of sight out of mind. I guess they got slapped if caught but it didn't seem to stop them.

devon I have books here that probably the head of the household read out for Sunday evening listening. They are all moral tales of how children should behave etc. It was full on I think. Imagine today's children tolerating it!!!!

She talks a lot about the quarry, which won't mean a lot to anyone unless you have memories of the place, but she also describes how the horses were gradually phased out as the little locomotives came in.

" there were 6 horses when I was a child, but I think at one time there were 8. They were lovely great horses. They all had names. Lion was a big brown horse, and he was the horse that used to go down into the pit. He used to go in a big horse box and was let down the incline by a wire rope. That was worked from the engine house at the top of the incline. Then there was Flower that was a big bay horse. He used to take the big blocks of slate from the top of the incline into the splitting and cutting sheds. Prince was a big black horse. He worked out in the slate yard. Daisy took the big blocks of slate from the pipit head at the other side of the pit to the sheds. The other two horses worked anywhere they were wanted..
we used to live around the corner where the horses had to pass on the way to the field after their days work. Our cottages were low and these horses co UKs look into the bedroom windows. We used to run ahead of the horses and go into Mt Geakes garden and look over the hedge to see how they galloped and jumped around when they were set free. They really made the ground tremble."

That sounds really rigid, ww! I grew up in Devon where my father was a lay Methodist preacher. I remember we were dragooned into goin to Sunday school every week, I remember I got the wooden spoon one year, I think he may have stopped coercing us at that point!

My mother was an atheist, so I daresay he chose not to push us too hard.

"Most always we had roast beef for Sunday dinner. Often in winter we had dried cod for breakfast. This was called "toe rag" . It was a huge fish and often dad was the only one who could cut it as it was very hard and had to be soaked overnight to soften and get the salt out, then boiled until tender and served with a knob of butter and pepper. It was delicious"

After service it was home for dinner, then back to Sunday School at 2pm. Then we usually went for a walk with Mum and Dad.

There was never any question what we would do on a Sunday. We always knew what Sundays would be and we loved Sundays.

We used to be at Sunday School at 10am, and then on to service. We stayed all through service. There was no question of coming out before the sermon. We were not allowed to move during the service. I remember once I had a cold and wanted to use my handkerchief which was in my pocke, but every time I moved my hand to get it out of my pocket Granny slapped my hand. So when I got outside, Mum told me off for having a dirty nose and Granny told me off for fussing during the service.

That should read towser not tower