My Childhood

A Memory of Higher Tolcarne.

I was born in 1944 in my grandmother's house named 'Bloemfontein' at Higher Fraddon.
She named the house after the capital of the Orange Free State of South Africa where she was born.
Her father, my great-grandfather Parkyn, was a miner and made his wealth? and each of his children were able to have a start in life. 'Bloemfontein' was my grandmother's start and my birth in that house was mine.
Within a short distance from that house lived my Gran Parkyn in a bungulow called Karee.
My grandfather's aunt, Bessie Goodman, lived a short distance away and there were other relatives such as the Cann family and Aunt Helen and Leda White, all lived on the same road, the only road that came off the main A30 and then through this hamlet, if you could call it that? and on for quite a few miles through the hamlet of Retew and on to Treviscoe. Retew was yet one more place I lived for a short time as a child, it no longer exists.
I spent many happy days playing in the garden of 'Bloemfontein' and watched my grandfather doing the gardening. My mother Joan Goodman married when I was three and became Joan May, the surname I used for all of my childhood, only the services changed that and I became known by the name on my birth certificate as Peter Goodman.
There were short cuts through a lane we called Pit Lane, this lead to Highgate hill at Indian Queens. An even shorter cut branched off from Pit Lane and through some kissing gates and went through the area of the Indian Queens preaching pit and came out onto the main A30 close to the house that was formerly the Indian Queen Inn opposite the Drang.
All these areas were my playground as a child and much more as just up the road from 'Bloemfontein' was a lane called Goodmans Lane, no relation! and this lead onto the downs and close to Wheal Remfry clay tip and a place called Stamps where again I once lived and this also no longer exist.
My playground was extensive and not the prisons of concrete full of technology that children have today.
I played amongst the heather and the gorse and picked Herts and blackberries and bunches of white heather for my gran.
We had Sunday School tea treats in Indian Queens pit and paddled in the rivers within the valleys of Retew and Stamps.
Families joined together for bonfire nights and also into the strong community things that happened in the villages of Fraddon and Indian Queens close by.
The village carnivals, St Johns Ambulance parades and musical festivals, talent contest and pantomimes at the Victory Hall.
There were Whist Drives and fetes and oh so much more it is hard to remember them all.
I remember well how self sufficient we all were by growing all our own vegetables and my mother growing flowers and bedding plants to sell in the florist at Newquay, with me and my sister picking blackberries to sell also in the fruit shops at Newquay. And sitting in the fields eating pasties when our parents helped the local farmer with the hay making with traction engines operating the thresher for the corn and bale making of straw.
There are still relations of mine living in the area though I confess I no longer visit.
These are but a few of my memories of Higher Fraddon and time has not erased them even now at 63 years of age.
I am still back there playing as a child and enjoying the long hot summers.