Alfred Wallis 1855 – 1942 by Tom Salmon

What I do mosley is what used to Bee out of my own memory what we may never see again as Thing are altered altogether So wrote Alfred Wallis, arguably the strangest and one of the most original of all Cornish painters in response to a note he’d received (and that must have surprised him), […]

A Scillonian skippers’s scribllings with John Hicks c1995

John Hicks is a Scillonian and very proud of it. He’s a boatman by profession who used to ferry passengers all around the Islands in his 45 foot launch The Swordfish II. John used to live in his guest house in Longstone which is about one mile from St Mary’s. An ex-member of the local […]

The Coming of the Wireless by Tom Clemens c1996

In my village in mid-Cornwall the telephone was still something of a novelty when the first wireless sets appeared and although we didn’t understand  how it worked, at least it had wires connected to it along  which messages could travel. But here was a box of tricks which needed no wires from the outside, as […]

Nineteenth Century Punishment in Cornwall by Michael Tangye

Today it frequently appears that “crime pays”. Lack of discipline within the family group allied to a vast drift away from church and chapel, where a Christian way of life was learned and practised from early childhood, has resulted in a vast decline in moral standards. Government encourages selfish rampant individualism where the wealthy flourish […]

Choughs Over Cornwall by Dr. Richard Meyer

How things have changed since Richard wrote this article in 1996, there are now numerous sightings of the Cornish Chough in Cornwall. We will give an update as soon as an expert lets us have an article. Three endangered species stand upon the Cornish crest: the fisherman is threatened, the tin miner is virtually extinct, […]

Cornwall’s Boer War General

The Boer War was only nine days old when the first battle occurred at Talana Hill, near the Natal town of Dundee. It was October 1899 and the British troops deployed from Ladysmith to meet the Boer invasion from the north were under command of a Cornishman, Major-General Sir William Penn Symons of Hatt, near […]

John Knill remembered

Many Cornish worthies are remembered principally for their contribution to the well being of our Cornwall. Opie as the artist, Trevithick for steam power, Boscawen the Admiral and Davy for the safety lamp, to name but a few. However, these men are remembered by their talents with which they were endowed, and are therefore remembered […]

ST.BILLY OF BALDHU (Life and times of Billy Bray) by Thomas Shaw

Thomas Shaw, was a Methodist Minister, and a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedd (ystoiyer Methodysyeth). Tthe former general secretary of the Wesley Historical- Society, editor of the Cornish Methodist Historical Association Journal’, author of The History of Cornish Methodism, the Bible Christians, and many other local Methodist Church histories. During the celebration of the 250th […]

It’s lives we’re after, not ships. by Thomas Austin

Padstow Lifeboat first Published in Aigust 1995 Severe stormforce winds, some structural damage may occur. That warning is always ominous, and all of us on hearing such a forecast will immediately offer a fervent hope that our home will be spared, followed in the instant by thoughts of insurance, renewal dates, amount of cover, and […]

Bit Chat With Joy Stevenson, our Maid Lowenna

Cornish author and bard, the late great Joy Stevenson, who promoted dialect throughout her life wrote this piece for Cornwall Today Yesterday & Dreckly in 1996. Joy died in 2015 in her 90s with husband Stan by her side. Stan was an adobted Cornishman being Scottish and he was a truly lovely man that I […]