Portscatho, c1955

The start of my quest

This is Lower Castle Road and the second cottage which is a slightly darker colour belonged to my parents-in-law, Edward and Nancy Honeyman-Brown. They originally lived in Essex but had taken their holidays in Porthscatho for many years taking hours and hours travelling through the night with their two young sons. On one such visit when the boys had grown up they saw this cottage for sale, it needed complete modernisation but they took on the challenge and turned it into the most lovely cottage. Edward lived for 5 years loving every moment here and spent most of his time visiting all the churches trying to put a family tree together for his wife whose ancestors had originally come from Truro, St Clements, Kenwyn and St Agnes. On the morning of his death, Royal Brittania was seen heading up the Fal for a customs check.
Nancy then bought Lord Falmouth's "One Design" and enjoyed a further 10 years racing the little boat and winning many cups and prizes, many of the young men and girls in the village sailed and raced the boat for her and my husband and his brother also spent many happy hours sailing around the coastline of St Mawes.
Sadly when Nancy died in 1991 the boat was sold as was the cottage but my abiding memory of the little cottage was sitting in the window seat of my bedroom in the early hours of summer mornings, watching the little fishing boats going out of the harbour. I then used to go out with my coffee and sit on the sea wall waiting for the fishermen to come back with their catch and it was a sight to see, the sun sparkling on the water and all the little boats coming home.
I then went down to the harbour to buy Red Mullett which Nancy loved and we fried it in a little butter and ate it with fresh salad and new potatoes, very simple but wonderful.
When Nancy died, a strange thing happened, the morning after her death I went out to sit on the wall and could not believe that Brittania was again sailing up the Fal just as it had done ten years before. There were seven helmsmen and girls at her funeral and the flag at the sailing club flew at half mast in her memory.
Whilst sorting out the cottage we found Edwards work on the family and I decided to carry it on and with the help of the internet and friends I have made worldwide, together with amazing people at the Cornwall Family History Society I have managed to trace the family back to the early 1600s and, whilst doing this for my husband, I found that my ancestors also came from Cornwall, little places called Kilkhampton and Stratton so, we are both from Cornwall and this pretty little cottage started a hobby for me that has brought immense pleasure and many, many friends.

My Fathers Birthplace.

My father Cornelius Henry Johns (Naily to everyone who knew him) was born in the little Round House on the left of the photo. He was the youngest of a large family, and there were 11 people living there in 1899. They then moved to Caragloose Farm, where his father and older brothers worked for Colliver Blamey. Colliver lived at Pennare Wallace. As soon as he was old enough my father started work on the farms with his father and two older brothers, Arch and Tom Johns. Jim, the eldest of the boys, by this time had married and was living at Camels. At the outbreak of the Great War, Arch, Tom, Naily and cousin Jack Johns all signed on for the duration of the war. Luckily all four came home, the three brothers back to work on the farms and Jack went back to his work. Lots of others were not so lucky. The women and old men kept the farms going during the war with two old horses that had seen better days!! My grandad died in 1918, just as the boys came back from the war. Father worked on at the farms until Colliver Blamey died and then took on the tennancy of Caragloose Farm, Pennare Being let out separately. Dad married Kathleen Elizabeth Couch, and lived on the farm where my three sisters Beryl, Ethel, Sylvia and my brother Henry were born. Ten years later I was born there also, living there until I got married in 1960 to a young lady from Kent, we met when she came to our farm camping with a group of disabled children. We moved into Pennare Wallace where our first son was born in 1961, and we lived there until my dad died in 1963.  So a lot of good memories to look back on, some regrets far outweighed by the good.
Don Johns.