Tag: cornwall

Racing pilot gigs, a chapel and other nice things at the little fishing village of Cadgwith

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Pilot gigs at Cadgwith – as usual, click on the
thumbnails for much bigger photos

There’s something very sweetly charming about the tiny Cornish cove village of Cadgwith, and the Cadgwith Pilot Gig Club’s kind invitation to look at their boats is entirely in keeping with the pleasant tenor of the place.

They’re saving up to pay for a new gig, however, as their boats are apparently having trouble keeping up with the leaders in races! Please contribute, if you can. The photo below explains the problem:

Cadgwith Pilot Gig Club needs your dosh!

Cadgwith beach, fishermen’s chapel, and
an unexplained plaque

The beach and its fishing boats surrounded by granite buildings and jagged schist rocks are unforgettable, as is the romantic little fishermen’s chapel.

And what about that plaque? I don’t know who these people were but I notice that the club has a boat named after Buller.

No doubt that wall could tell some stories. Presumably no-one sings now, as people hardly sing in public anywhere now unless they’ve got a geetar and a public address system – but what kind of progress is that anyway? And have you noticed that whistling has died out? Can you remember hearing someone whistle in the acrobatic way the old boys used to do when we were all kids?

It must be time for some songs again soon…

If you’re going to Cornwall you may need this: The Rough Guide to Cornwall

Pierhead painter Reuben Chappell watercolour arrives at the NMMC

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The Jane Slade watercolour by Reuben Chappell

Mrs Adams presents the painting to museum staff

The National Maritime Museum Cornwall has been presented with a watercolour of the Jane Slade by Reuben Chappell. The donation came from Mrs G Adams, whose husband was given the painting by Ernie Slade of Slade’s Boatyard, and came with book entitled Practical Navigation.

The museum’s notes on the painting reveal that the Jane Slade was named after the only woman shipbuilder in Cornwall, and that she who took control of her family’s business on her husband’s death in 1870. Her legacy lived on through successive generations of shipbuilders, repairers and mariners and in this ship named after her. Jane’s story inspired Daphne du Maurier’s first novel The Loving Spirit.

Reuben Chappell (1870-1940) is one of this country’s best known pierhead painters. An artist who spent his entire working life making portraits of ships for seamen, his work is in the best tradition of pierhead painting painted not for galleries or art collectors, but for the men whose lives and livelihoods were intimately entwined with the subjects of the painting.

Chappell lived and painted in Cornwall from 1904 until his death in 1940.

The book dated 1852 is believed to have been owned by Jane Slade’s son Thomas, one-time captain of the schooner. Inserted inside are four pages which relate to Thomas receiving his Master Mariners Certificate headed Plymouth School of Science and Navigation – these are an extremely rare find.

Byron on a Falmouth packet

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Byron, from the Wikimedia Commons

He may have been an extraordinary character and famously ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ but the Romantic poet and Greek war hero Byron seems to have rather enjoyed the sea and boating, and even had a favourite dog called Boatswain.

An epitaph for the dog has become a favourite poem and can be found at the Wikipedia entry for Byron above.

Clearly Byron was a pretty wild character, but I’d guess that these two themes – the sea and dogs – are things many of us more modest folk can identify with without too much difficulty.

While wandering around the National Maritime Museum Cornwall an exhibit drew my attention to a jolly if rather nauseous poem of Byron’s that I hadn’t heard before, and I thought I should include it here. It comes from Ambleside Online, and I hope none of you suffer a bout of sympathetic emesis…

Lines to Mr. Hodgson Written On Board the Lisbon Packet

Huzza! Hodgson, we are going,
Our embargo’s off at last;
Favourable breezes blowing
Bend the canvass o’er the mast.
From aloft the signal’s streaming,
Hark! the farewell gun is fir’d;
Women screeching, tars blaspheming,
Tell us that our time’s expir’d.
Here’s a rascal
Come to task all,
Prying from the custom-house;
Trunks unpacking
Cases cracking,
Not a corner for a mouse
‘Scapes unsearch’d amid the racket,
Ere we sail on board the Packet.

Now our boatmen quit their mooring,
And all hands must ply the oar;
Baggage from the quay is lowering,
We’re impatient–push from shore.
“Have a care! that case holds liquor–
Stop the boat–I’m sick–oh Lord!”
“Sick, ma’am, damme, you’ll be sicker,
Ere you’ve been an hour on board.”
Thus are screaming
Men and women,
Gemmen, ladies, servants, Jacks;
Here entangling,
All are wrangling,
Stuck together close as wax.–
Such the genial noise and racket,
Ere we reach the Lisbon Packet.

Now we’ve reach’d her, lo! the captain,
Gallant Kidd, commands the crew;
Passengers their berths are clapt in,
Some to grumble, some to spew.
“Hey day! call you that a cabin?
Why ‘t is hardly three feet square;
Not enough to stow Queen Mab in–
Who the deuce can harbour there?”
“Here’s a stanza
On Braganza–
Help!”–“A couplet?”–“No, a cup
Of warm water–“
“What’s the matter?”
“Zounds! my liver’s coming up;
I shall not survive the racket
Of this brutal Lisbon Packet.”

Now at length we’re off for Turkey,
Lord knows when we shall come back!
Breezes foul and tempests murky
May unship us in a crack.
But, since life at most a jest is,
As philosophers allow,
Still to laugh by far the best is,
Then laugh on–as I do now.
Laugh at all things,
Great and small things,
Sick or well, at sea or shore;
While we’re quaffing,
Let’s have laughing–
Who the devil cares for more?–
Some good wine! and who would lack it,
Ev’n on board the Lisbon Packet?