St Mawes, Marine Parade c1960
(ref: S33130)
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Year: 1991
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.
Posted: 23/02/2008 21:33 by Andrea Honeyman-Brown
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