Complementing our previous title, Women of West Cornwall (ed. Pam Lomax, 2016), Growing up in West Cornwall describes the experience of childhood in West Cornwall, from the seventeenth century onwards. It documents childhood memories, mostly from the early years of the Twentieth Century, set in the context of institutions that structured the children’s lives – the village schools and the workhouse. The recollections captured here deal with schooldays, holidays, home life (sometimes when the father has gone mining overseas, or when the parents are busy Newlyn artists); and starting work, as an undertaker’s apprentice in a spooky situation or a cabin boy preparing meals for the crew. How many of us regret that we did not ask our grandparents more about their childhood? This book helps us to understand how it felt to be a child in West Cornwall in the very different world in earlier centuries. Family historians will welcome the surname index.
The main chapters:
Chapter 1 Clifford Harry’s Recollections of Carnyorth Schooldays 1908 -1916 (Carlene Harry)
Chapter 2 The Decline and Fall of the Village School in Lamorna (Sally Corbet)
Chapter 3 St Erth Wesleyan Day School 1900-1922 (Cedric Appleby)
Chapter 4 Memories of a Mousehole Childhood (Susan Soyinka)
Chapter 5 Young People of Zennor 1600-1750 (Jean Nankervis)
Chapter 6 Children of the State (Sue Nebesnuick)
Chapter 7 The Artists’ Child (Pam Lomax)
Chapter 8 Word of Mouth (Jenny Dearlove)
Shorter articles:
Children’s Books (Dawn Walker)
Pamela Smart remembers (Caroline Baker)
Children’s Toys (Dawn Walker)
Jean Mitchell remembers (Dawn Walker)
May Day Celebrations (Carlene Harry)
George Care remembers (George Care)
Bad Boys up the Rec (Linda Camidge)
The eleventh publication of the Penwith Local History Group
100 pages, A4, illustrated throughout in colour and black and white
Published July 2019
Editor Sally Corbet
ISBN 978-0-9954940-1-5
RRP £10 from local bookshops, Morrab Library, Penzance, or from the Penwith Local History Group
Here is one old tradition that used to take place at Man’s Head the other side of Porthmere from the Island in St Ives
penwithlit 