Rod Lyon reveals the hidden history of Cornwall

Rod Lyon, BBC Radio Cornwall presenter and former Grand Bard of the Gorsedh Kernow, takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the ages, and through the forgotten wars between the Cornish and their old enemies, the English, revealing a history not taught in schools, and one missing from the 'official' history books. From the early wars with the Saxons, through the rebellions of 1497 and 1549, and on to the Civil War, Rod traces the bloody events which helped to shape the culture and national identity of the Cornish people. This book is essential reading for all those who want to learn the truth about Cornwall's hidden history.

Paperback, 112 pages. ISBN 978 1 908878 05 2. Published in September 2012.

The paperback can be ordered from Lulu.com for £8.99 plus p&p and will soon be available to order from most bookshops and online stores, worldwide.

Professor Charles Thomas gathers the fragments

Charles Thomas is rightly acknowledged as an expert in numerous fields relating to the history, archaeology and folklore of Cornwall and he is indeed widely regarded outside of Cornwall for his work on the Celtic peoples, the early history of Christianity in the British Isles and for a lifetime of dedication to archaeology. But as this, his latest book, will testify, his interests lie in an even wider range of subjects than those generally ascribed to him. This selection of work by Professor Charles Thomas, Cornwall’s leading historian, focuses on the more elusive titles from his long and illustrious career and covers the whole range of his output from folklore and archaeology to military and local history, and from cerealogy to cryptozoology. The book also includes unpublished material, as well as specially composed introductions to each chapter, a full biography and a select bibliography.

Chapters featured include: A Plea for Neutrality (New Cornwall, 1955); Youthful Ventures Into the Realm of Folk Studies - Present-day Charmers in Cornwall (Folk-Lore, 1953), Underground Tunnels at Island Mahee, County Down (Ulster Folklife, 1957), Archaeology and Folk-life Studies (Gwerin, 1960); What Did They Do When it Rained in 1857? (The Scillonian, 1986); Home Thoughts from Abroad (Camborne Wesley Journal, 1948); The Day That Never Came (The Cornish Review, 1968); Camborne Festival Magazine - The Camborne Printing and Stationery Company (1971), The Camborne Students’ Association (1974), Camborne’s War Record, 1914-1919 (1976), The Camborne Volunteer Training Corps in World War One (1983), Carwynnen Quoit (1985); Jottings from Gwithian (The Godrevy Light) - How Far Back Can We Go? (2006), Ladies of Gwithian (2007); Two Funeral Orations (unpublished) - Charles Woolf (1984), Rudolf Glossop (1993); Archaeology and the Mind (unpublished) (1968 inaugural lecture, University of Leicester); The Archaeologist in Fiction (1976); Archaeology, and the Concept of Cornishness (unpublished) (1995 memorial lecture, Cornwall Archaeological Society); A Couple of Reviews - Lost Innocence: Archaeologists as People (Encounter, 1981), The Cairo Trilogy (Literary Review, 2001); An Impromptu Ode - To A.L. Rowse (1997); The Cerealogist - An Archaeologist’s View (1991), Magnetic Anomalies (1991/92); Two Cryptozoological Papers - The “Monster” Episode in Adomnan’s Life of St. Columba (Cryptozoology, 1988), A Black Cat Among the Pictish Beasts? (Pictish Arts Society Journal, 1994).

Professor Charles Thomas CBE DL DLitt FBA FSA is a former President of the Council for British Archaeology, the Society for Medieval Archaeology, the Royal Institution of Cornwall, the Cornwall Archaeological Society and the Cornish Methodist Historical Society. He is currently the President of The John Harris Society.

Edited by Chris Bond. Hardcover: ISBN 978 1 908878 02 1; Paperback: ISBN 978 1 908878 03 8. Published in March 2012.

The paperback can be ordered from Lulu.com for £9.99 plus p&p and is also available from all reputable online retailers including Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Waterstone's, Foyles and The Book Depository. The book can also be ordered from most bookshops, worldwide.

The hardback can only be ordered from Lulu.com for £17.99 plus p&p.

Rod Lyon reminisces about fishing out of Newquay

Our latest publication is by Rod Lyon, well known throughout Cornwall as a member of the Cornish Language Board and for reading the news in Cornish on BBC Radio Cornwall every Sunday evening.

In his latest book, "Shut away!", the former Grand Bard of the Gorseth Kernow, recollects his early days fishing in Newquay, “in the days before modern electronic aids, man-made fibre ropes, twines and cords, plastic ‘skins’ and floats instead of cork … when navigation to and from the gear was by dead reckoning, using only a watch and a compass, with only experience telling you what to allow for with the tide.” As Rod says in the book, "Dangerous and frightening times these!"

Rod illustrates, in both words and pictures, the techniques and the equipment used in those bygone days, and along the way remembers some of the more notable characters, both Cornish and Breton, who frequented ‘down Quay’. The book also includes a gazetteer of his favourite fishing grounds.

Further titles by Rod Lyon are also in the pipeline, including books on "Cornwall's Historical Wars", due to be published at some point in the next few months, and "Cornwall's Playing Places", a fully revised and improved edition of his self-published booklet of the same name.

This book, full title "Shut away! My early days fishing out of Newquay and things in general 'Down Quay'", can be ordered from Lulu.com for £9.99 plus p&p, with delivery usually guaranteed within 5-7 days.

A new journal dedicated to Cornwall's archives?

It has, for many years, been the desire of The Cornovia Press to produce a journal devoted to the subject of Cornwall's archives. The journal would feature scholarly articles wholly or mainly based on original historical sources, such as the manuscripts, maps, photographs and similar records held at Cornwall Record Office, Courtney Library, Morrab Library, Kresenn Kernow, Devon Record Office, Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru, The National Archives and the British Library. Similar institutions around the British Isles, and beyond, also hold modest collections of documents relating to Cornwall. Information relating to these would be particularly useful, as access to these documents is, understandably, more difficult for researchers based in Cornwall. 

It is true that journals and periodicals such as Cornish Studies, Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries and the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall already feature such articles on a more or less regular basis, but these are few and far between. These same journals also occasionally feature content relating to archaeology and yet, thanks to the Cornwall Archaeological Society, this subject has its own dedicated annual journal, Cornish Archaeology.

Archives cover a very wide subject area; much wider than that of archaeology. Everyone must surely be aware of the use of such documents for the research of family history, but archives can be used for so much more: local history, social history, military history and the history of industries such as mining and fishing are all given a more colourful and meaningful frame of reference when original sources are utilised. References to original manuscripts and maps can give context to a subject in a way that is not generally possible in articles by those writers whose citations are limited solely to other printed sources and, of course, there is a vast amount of information contained within Cornwall's archives that has never been published. It is true to say that archaeology is a very popular and widely read subject, but new compositions based on archives have the potential to be even more popular and widely read.

 

Submissions of material for inclusion in any forthcoming journal is most welcome. It is uncertain whether or not enough suitable articles will be submitted for any journal to be made an annual publication, but anyone who considers that they have something which might be suitable for inclusion, or has any ideas for articles, is requested to contact us by e-mail at cornovia@live.co.uk.

Historical Descriptions of Camborne

Back in 1700 when Edward Lhuyd jotted down his notes about Camborne, along with several other parishes in Cornwall, the town was but a village; a small churchtown surrounded by small villages, but the mines were already there, and had been for some time. Lhuyd had journeyed into Cornwall from Wales, his main purpose being to record and learn more about the Cornish language. Lhuyd's notes on the parish of Camborne, the first, and earliest, of the selection featured in the book Historical Descriptions of Camborne, record details of customs and antiquities, the villages, the seats and about some of the people, some of it not recorded elsewhere.

The following account in the book, by William Penaluna of Helston, is a topographical survey of the parish and is taken from The Circle, published in 1819. Penaluna was a man of many talents: publisher, printer, author, book-seller, mine-broker, insurance salesman and a devout reformer; an instrumental cog in the wheels of the early West Briton newspaper. Another topographical account featured in the book is that penned by Joseph Polsue, the author of Lake's Parochial History. These two accounts are included, primarily, to give some background and context to the other extracts included in the book, such as Richard Edmonds mini-biography of Richard Trevithick; full of interesting details concerning the life of the great Cornish inventor, the man whose inventions had such a profound effect on the town and parish of Camborne; or the great folklorist Robert Hunt's typically poetic account of the enigmatic and eccentric Rudolph Eric Raspe, the author of The Travels of Baron Munchausen, who was, for a few years, employed as a copper-smelter and chemist at Dolcoath Mine.

Dolcoath Mine was, of course, one of the most important mining concerns on the planet at the time, and Albert Bluett's fascinating description of the mine, first published in 1898, is also included in the book. Bluett's account is full of stark details about life deep underground and also includes valuable details of the history, the ups and downs, of the concern. His account is accompanied by photographs taken by J. C. Burrow of Camborne, a pioneer in the field of underground photography.

Also included is Thomas Fiddick's 'The Public Charities of Camborne', an essay which records Fiddick's attempts to track down what happened to the various charities and bequests which had, in the past, been left to the parish by members of the elite local families such as Basset and Pendarves. Fiddick's painstaking research for the piece is extremely thorough, and is far more interesting than would be expected with such a subject.

Perhaps the most valuable account in the book, though, is William Tuck's 'Reminiscences of Camborne', written at some point close to 1880. Tuck's portrait focuses on the ecclesiastical, educational and social aspects of the town and is tinged with humourous anecdotes and interesting facts; the most important of these, arguably, is the first hand account of his meeting Joseph Emidy, the West-African-born slave who became famous as one of the finest virtuoso violinists of the age. Details concerning Emidy are scarce, but the original edition of Tuck's pamphlet is even rarer still and there are only a handful of surviving copies. All the more reason why anyone with the slightest interest in Camborne, or even Cornwall, should own a copy of this book, the proceeds of which have been donated by The Cornovia Press to the Camborne Old Cornwall Society.

The book (hardback) can be purchased for £15.99 plus p&p from Lulu.com.