Idea IS the format

This is Prussia Cove – part of a private family estate on the south coast of Cornwall, named after the 18th century smuggler John Carter who lived and traded there. (History records that he called himself the King of Prussia when playing toy soldiers with his brother Harry.)

We used to head there for our family holidays some twenty-five years ago. We stayed in one of the Coastguard Cottages (below), a listed terrace of seven cottages built by the government in 1826 in an attempt to suppress smuggling in the area, as a result of which they have pretty much the best sea-view the architects could muster.

Each year we’d fill a scrapbook with pictures, postcards, and the memory of each day documented in our respective scrawls.  Memories of foraging for cowrie shells amidst the shingle, and chasing gobies around the rock pools; building fortifications in the sand and trying to turn back the tide on the nearby Kennegy Sand; trawling for mackerel in one of my dad’s first boats, Ariadne; then cooking up the catch over a huge fire made of driftwood, singing songs like this one to a chorus of fast-made-friends and extended family.

The prospect of taking our little ones down there for a week has me smiling like a seven-year-old.  Of all the family holidays, those were my favourites. I’m not sure if it’s how I’ve distilled those memories over the years, but the place has taken on a timeless quality.

When I daydream about one day outrunning the rat race, this is the corner of our green and pleasant land I plan to flee to, to live out my days trawling for mackerel, growing fresh vegetables, and writing pages and pages of meandering and inconsequent prose.

Or, at the very least, keeping up the old scrapbook.

Tags: family

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 17th, 2009 at 11:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.