St Mawes, c.1955

Photo ref: S33050T

My father was born in St Mawes in 1910. On his fourth birthday (so family legend has it) he was given a pair of Dutch wooden clogs. Being a canny child of seafarers, he knew that hollow wooden vessels floated. So when the tide was in, he set off from the steps in the bottom left corner of this picture, planning to walk/float across the water to the steps below the Ship and Castle hotel, seen opposite. The voyage was not, apparently, a complete success.

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 ...see more