So Many

A Memory of Charlestown.

I was born 1941 in Raneleigh Road Nursing Home in Mount Charles. I was brought up in Rope Walk Lane opposite the old Primary School. There was a cement works part way down the lane. My mother (aged 19) worked in the 'Food Office' in St Austell dealing with ration books and the allied administration. Her boss she called 'Cherpie' Richards and he was I understand a nice man.
Charlestown to me was a venture playground where we climbed cliffs, took and ate seagulls eggs, ran over rocks at speed, became very sunburned and suffered and may still!! We ran out and swam off the large pipe that took the sewage away from the 'Coastguard Beach' being the pebble one beneath the path to Duporth.
Large noisy lorries came down and deposited clay into chutes to fill the small cargo boats and we hung on the the back of them going up the hill out of the village on our bikes. The boats were usually named with 'ity' at the end - Assiduity/Alacrity etc... and were known as the titty boats! Watching them being brought into the dock was fascinating as there was no more than a few feet to spare. I think they were part of the Fred Everard line.
This could develop into an autobiography... I will stop and start again later.

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