Holiday Memory

A Memory of Lerryn.

In the previous two years we'd had our holiday in South Devon, but in 1958, for some reason, my father decided we would stay in Lerryn, & booked himself, mother & I into a B&B (possibly The Old Forge?) by the river. I was 11 at the time, & it was decided that my older brother would stay at home in London & look after the dog & two cats, so I was going to be on holiday for the first time without him to keep me out of trouble!
We had a motorbike & sidecar, and when the long journey was nearly over, (no motorways then!) something went wrong with the bike's electrics, & the lights became very dim. I remember us peering at the old-type fingerboard road-signs in the gloom to see where we ought to be going. Eventually, we arrived in Lerryn at the dead of night, to find that the proprietors of the B&B had assumed we weren't coming, & had locked up & gone to bed. Our knocking sounded to me like the crack of doom, but eventually someone came, and a bit grudgingly let us in & showed us to our room.
After that, I walked around the village & it was amusing to read some of the other posts, because I also, of course, slipped off the stepping-stones, and got my shoes & socks soaked. I squelched back to the B&B & mumbled something about having an accident, but mum didn't seem too put out about it.
We travelled about quite a lot, visiting Mevagissey, Pentewan, Falmouth, Par, St Blazey & Polperro, where someone then had two enormous, white Pyrenean Mountain Dogs named Pola & Perro.
At the B&B, I remember that there was another guest named Richard Wordsworth, who was an actor, & we thought he might have been a descendant of the Poet, William Wordsworth, but we weren't sure. He seemed awfully posh to us!
Somewhere about, I have a small, fading photo of a steam locomotive, no 6911, hauling a train over the level crossing at Lostwithiel.
So that was my very first, but by no means my last, visit to Cornwall. I shall have to come by Lerryn next time we're 'down west'.