Almost perfect
Friday, 2 November 2018
Well, you can’t have everything! After a great day’s walking, the cafe next to my B and B is closed, so I had to slog down to the pub (ten minute’s walk) and wait for a table; but the promise of sausages and mash is enough to keep my appetite whetted, so I am happy to sit here and write while the world goes by.
Today was a “medium” walk and it has meant that I finished by 2:15 and with only sore feet. Last night I didn’t sleep as well as normal because my knees were aching and playing up – even St Austell’s Anaesthetic hadn’t helped, so it was aspirin at 11:30, which did the trick.
Today was everything the Coast Path promises, which a perfect day and a guided tour of tin mining from the museum at Geevor – which I think was the last to close in the Seventies– to the remains of the earliest workings closer to Sennen.
Along the path were constant warnings of open shafts – and they were. Surrounded by a stone wall about 4 foot high, in spots they were less than ten metres apart. Amongst them were the engine houses – I would have loved to seen the restored one in the museum, because the style of building is so uniquely Cornish – Jeremy would remember them from South Australia, where they are a visual reminder of the Cornish diaspora.
Lest one forget an important detail (which William Blake justly celebrates in Jerusalem), Joseph of Arimathea was a tin trader who brought the young Jesus to Cornwall. Jesus is supposed to have taught the miners how to extract the tin and tungsten from the ore and liberated them from the Greeks who controlled the process. After the death of Jesus, Joseph becomes the custodian of the Holy Grail and escapes with his followers from Judaea, secreting the Grail in its first hiding place at Tintagel. Joseph was the first Christian missionary to Britain, which is why Queen Elizabeth rebuked the papal envoys for daring to suggest papal supremacy, because Christianity came to England before it came to Rome!!!!!
It was a much better path than yesterday, although not without the odd scramble, and I was soon passing the stunning Cape Cornwall (with a mining chimney on the top).
In the steep valleys leading to the sea were the oldest of the mining remains, and the signposting noted the contribution of women as surface workers while their men were underground. It must have been hard and dangerous: arsenic was apparently a desirable byproduct of tin smelting and it was condensed in long drives and then scraped off the walls by young workers – and this went on until the Second World War. No wonder they died young – or emigrated.
Sennen Cove is like a South Coast beach-side village and surfing is clearly the main industry. It’s stunning here and the walk on looks OK until lunch. Let’s see what the weather holds before committing to a seven hour walk.
As an aside, the TV over here has been really dominated by the Centenary of the Armistice, with a great program yesterday on a company of Cameronian Highlanders who were Territorials from Portree on Skye – Saturday night soldiers – who suffered terrible casualties in one fight in 1915. I’ll have to track it down. On other channels were a discussion of Monash as a successful planner and more on the 100 Days – the last three months of 1918.
