What do you do to get blackberries?

Have you ever had a snake uncoil underneath you? Quite daunting for a six year old little girl – well I was once! It slowly unwound as I reached up get my blackberries .. they were just within my reach .. I needed to stand on tippy toes and reach upwards and forwards .. then the worst thing happened .. the earth moved, the sleepy warm coils unwound .. I wasn’t happy .. and off I ran and ran and ran, screaming all the way down the hill to the bus stop.

The poor baby sitter, I think just a local young friend, had to collect my brother, his pushchair, bundle them up and anything else we’d left behind from our afternoon out and hare after me – despairing in flight that disaster might strike as I got to the road – though I’d had enough of a disaster for one day.

By then at aged six I was quite grown up and did not like dirty things or creepy crawlies, though I’d had my fair share of dung cakes, mud pies, frog spawn etc .. snakes and worms were definitely not my favourite .. and NOT NOW!

We’d been recovering from whooping cough, our youngest brother just a baby escaped it, and we were sent to Cornwall from just west of London to my grandmother. I expect we got over it pretty quickly .. but to this day I can feel the unwinding coil beneath my little feet!

Reptiles like this grass snake, and in particular adders emerging from winter hibernaculars, can be vulnerable to controlled gorse fires in February, but this was probably late August ...

Was it a grass snake or an adder? I didn’t stay around to find out! Our bus ride had been to take us to one of our favourite spots, Knill’s Steeple, above St Ives, where we could run around, in and out of the scrubby, bracken covered track, hiding behind the granite rocky outcrops.

The lane winds its way up to the high point above St Ives, commanding outstanding views across St Ives Bay to Godrevy Lighthouse, through gorse and rhododendron scrub, coloured yellow during summer and purple in spring, when the rhododendrons’ blooms arrive. Knill’s Steeple is a granite mausoleum built in 1782, and towers as a triangular pyramid some 50 feet high; it has a wonderful granite ledge, ideal for small children to tentatively walk round or jump off.


Footpath on Chun Downs - Looking towards the hamlet of Chun
© Copyright Rod Allday

This western end of England was a hidden world tucked away, hardly explored though heavily traded and smuggled, until the coming of the railways opened it all up at the end of the 1800s.

These trails of steam allowed avant garde artists seeking a communal way of living and working, to move south, north, east, and in this case west to Cornwall , to the very west to establish artist colonies in the Cornish fishing villages of Newlyn and St Ives.

The extension of the railway, known as the Cornish Riviera Express, to Penzance and its local branch line to St Ives were essential to opening up a window on the wonderful clear seas, stunning light in the sandy coves, the backdrop of harsh, sparkling granite rocks, the beauty of the scenery, the simplicity of life and drama of the seas.

An artist paints a sloop

They began arriving in the 1880s and slowly began to colonise the villages, bringing their creative ideas to life, giving us new inspiration, drawing other visitors to this fresh unexplored part of their homeland, to see the craggy landscape, experience the warmer climate and the older less advanced ways of life.

“This Riviera” has warm golden sandy beaches that we all dream of, ancient villages dependent on the seas and land, cobbled streets winding between pretty fisherman’s cottages, hiding history, legend and tradition from its ancient past.

Above the steep sided hills of St Ives, often walked by us – up and down from my mother’s uncle’s house to swim on the beach below, and back up for a well deserved thunder and lightning Cornish cream tea, then a game of tennis, lay the sparse moorland heath.

The heath’s characteristic landscape, of invasive scrub, gorse and rhododendrons provides a colourful splash of colour – bright saffron or purple – and sufficient sandy cover to keep the land warm: an ideal haven for reptiles ..both grass snakes and adders.

From high at Knill’s Steeple this Cornish land of coloured hues, bejewelled seas, dark foreboding land, with splashes of colour: bright green ferns, sunny yellow, prickly gorse, patches of tyrian purple, grey stone walls, sparkly granite outcrops, scuttling grey and white clouds, across a sometimes ciel blue sky offer so much to artists seeking inspiration, to holidaying families and to a poor reptile seeking the best habitat – a warm sunny patch, where the blackberries spread out....

It’s good to see you today Mr Postman with a card from a friend in the Isle of Wight, as well as our letter – my mother will be pleased. The card has a toppling lady and her Ouija Board, with fellow members trying to rescue her .. but with the immortal words “she’s with the spirits” and underneath “Gin and Vodka mostly”!! My Ma laughed – so that’s good.

Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters