Trevose, Cornwall

Our Picnic While Boscastle Flooded

On the day of the Boscastle flood I went with my wife Carmela, and our kids Molly, Libby and George for a walk up to the lighthouse on Trevose head above mother Iveys Bay. The sun was shining beautifully though the wind was strong (as it always is on the cliffs). We stopped halfway above the lifeboat station to eat our picnic lunch and looked along the coast towards Tintagel and Boscastle. The sky was black in that direction and as we sat in the sun on the grass around the high mounted bench at the top of the hill we remaked that someone was getting wet over there. It was only when we got back to our tent where we could get a phone signal that we started getting messages from worried family who had been trying to contact us for hours because they had heard and seen news of terrible flooding and cars washed into the sea. We told them the weather was beautiful and not to believe all they heard on the news and only later realised what had happened a few miles from our lovely picnic as we watched on. God only knows how none were killed that day. That would have spoiled our picnic !

Rowing our boat

My children, Molly, Libby, and George loved taking turns with me rowing across from the shallower of the two beaches the short distance across the calm bay to the lifeboat station which as we got closer loomed large like something from a James Bond adventure. We came ashore on the small beach under the lifeboat station that appears at low tide and explored under the legs and hulk of the boat store and slipway. On the way back a seal popped up alongside to inspect us but finding us thoroughly uninteresting lay on its back in the water to bask in the sun.

Summer of ''67

I won the Cornish longboard championships at Constantine Bay in 1967. I was the profesional lifeguard at Treyarnon Bay in 1967 and 1968. Friendships established then and still true include Anhtony Richards, Robert Ede, David Powell, Peter Andrews, Rick Stein, Steve Bond, Andrew Blight, Rip Kirby, John Ball, John Jewell, Mike Hannaford and others. Brilliant years never to be experienced again

My favourite place in the world!

I was fortunate enough to live at Trevone and then Padstow from 1951 - 1964, living at Craig-y-Mor which is the white house with the big balcony right down on the bay. I have very happy memories of my childhood there, looking in the rock pools at Rocky Beach and walking to Harlyn Bay with a picnic ... Watching the visitors on the beach all run for cover if there was a shower of rain ... Collecting car numbers from the car park during the summer holidays ...

Having spent my adult life in Hampshire I retired (early) back to Cornwall with my partner and am now living in St Columb Major.  
Trevone still has the same attraction for me as it did all those years ago ... sadly Padstow does not!!