Cornwall
Updated
Monday, 30 March 2009

I have just published a book to go with the tours and I am very pleased with the result.

BECAUSE I WAS BORN HERE

A tour around the area of Penwith

Copyright © P H Glasson January 2008

Printed by C A Print & stationers Ltd

01209 719277 Fax: 01209 612433

Camborne

Cornwall

This book is not meant to be an in depth history book for academics but an informed guide to the area around Penwith. Within these pages I have tried to cover the subjects we usually discuss on my tours. I hope you will find it informative and that it will inspire you to discover more about this unique area.

I would like to thank my wife Ann for the drawings in this book; in fact I think they are better than the writing. I would also very much like to thank her and Anita Foley for proof reading and editing this manuscript. I would also like to thank all of the people who over the years have taken tours with me and have added to my understanding and enjoyment of my own country.

Harry ‘Safari’ Glasson

Friday, 18 January 2008

Biography

My surname, as you may have guessed, is not Safari but Glasson, which means 'grass plot' in the Cornish language. It appears to come from the Cornish 'glesyn'¹ and is prevalent in West Cornwall. My forebears, except for my paternal grandmother who was from Limerick in Ireland, were from this far western part of Cornwall. My grandfather was born at a place called Copper Bottoms, a mining area just outside the small village of Praze an Beeble². Grandfather, also called Harry, worked as a stable lad and groom to the St.Aubyn family of Clowance,³ then became a postman making his deliveries on horseback. When he retired from the post office he worked as a groom again, this time for a Mr. Simms, who has a tin lode named after him in Geevor mine of which he was a principal shareholder. I remember as a boy going with grandfather to horse shows around the county, we had to sleep in a small partitioned space between the horses, on blankets laid on the straw.

George Reed, my maternal grandfather, was a Leedstown man, born at a place known as Lambo, a half a mile from the village. He started life as a miner and later worked for the electricity company as a line man until the 1930s when he was killed by a falling pole. My mother was only eight years old at the time. My grandmother, his wife, was Athena Rebecca Roscorla and her family were from the town of Hayle where her father worked as a boat builder in the boat yards of Harvey and Co who were also founders, engineers, timber and coal merchants. Along with their great rivals Messrs Sandys, Carne and Vivian (known as the Copperhouse Co.) they were the main employers in the town until the late 1920s.

I was born on a smallholding known as Cows Cramp on the Clowance estate near the village of Praze an Beeble. It is said that to be truly Cornish you have to be born west of the Hayle River. I was born one hundred yards the wrong side of the river which ran along the bottom of our garden. My father at the time was farming for the Gwennap family and Cows Cramp was a holding that was tied to the Barton Farm. Father was also a long distance lorry driver so I spent my formative years in his company in the cab of a lorry, on a tractor seat and in the cow sheds. In other words I grew up with itchy feet and smelling of cows and diesel. My father died of pneumonia at the age of only thirty eight leaving my mother to bring up eight children of which I was the eldest at fourteen, the youngest being only three. I had always been fascinated by the ships that sailed up and down our coast and with the Merchant navy being good payers, especially on tankers; I decided to go to sea. So at the age of fifteen and a half I left home and went to see the world and what did I see? I saw the sea. I spent the first six months at Gravesend in Kent at Training College and two days after my sixteenth birthday I joined the SS British Ensign, a B.P tanker at Falmouth. In common with many sailors I saw very little of the countries I visited after the first bar or the first pretty girl. I spent most of my time on tankers with BP Shipping Co. and at that time we were on the Persian Gulf run around the Cape as the Suez Canal was still closed.

I was lucky enough to visit Rio de Janeiro in South America and was amazed by its beauty and saddened by the gulf between rich and poor, on one street casinos, night clubs and restaurants and on the next there were entire families actually living right there on the street. In between leaving the merchant navy and getting married my itchy feet took me on a hitch-hiking tour around Europe.

A good friend, Jonathon Ryan, and myself started our journey in April 1974 by crossing to Brittany and making our way down the West coast then across to the South of France. We continued on to Monaco, up to Switzerland then through Germany and Holland arriving home about three months later. We met many wonderful people who we still remember with great affection.

On my return, I found employment at a local nursery which grew tomatoes, cucumbers and cut flowers. In July 1974 I met Ann Tredrea⁴ who was to become my wife. Our families had known each other for years as my mother and Ann’s father had attended school together at Leedstown. In 1990 l decided l needed a change of direction and the idea of showing people the Cornwall I love seemed like a great way to earn my living.

I have always had a deep interest in local history especially industrial archaeology and with the tin trade reaching as far back as the Bronze Age⁵, there is so much to be interested in. I now live at Goldsithney, about 5 miles from Penzance, in a granite cottage dating from the early 1600’s. Goldsithney village is surrounded now by disused mines, the Wheal Neptune group to the south, Wheal Caroline and Tregurtha to the west, Trevabyn and Trengothal to the north and Nanterras and Halamanning to the east. This little village was a thriving community 120 years ago, with butchers, bakers, cobblers, two banks, two pubs, a church, a chapel, and a school.

The pubs, the chapel, the church and the school are still here, there is also a newsagents/grocery store, a post office and a gallery. Now, although many people no longer find their employment within the village, it still has a great community spirit.

This is the first chapter and the book is available from me at £6 plus post and packing.
harrysafariuk@aol.com

Luckily for me the book has been well received by locals and visitors alike.

Harry