Love letters to Cornwall places tourists rarely tread

What have veteran BBC broadcaster Chris Blount, former Grand Bard Ann Trevenen Jenkin, Kneehigh actor Craig Johnson and photographer Dave Penprase got in common?

What, for that matter, links Bugle, Siblyback, Cotehele and Gorran?

The answer is that all of them – people and places – are featured in a new book celebrating some of Cornwall's lesser-known locations.

Based on a popular series published in the Living Cornwall section of the Western Morning News during 2011, the collection has now been published as a Kindle ebook, with all proceeds being donated to Cornish charities. Downloadable for just £1.91, Kernow Kerensa: Favourite Cornish Places features sixty "love letters" to specific locations.

Business Cards From Only £10.95 Delivered www.myprint-247.co.uk

myprint-247

View details

Print voucher

Our heavyweight cards have FREE UV silk coating, FREE next day delivery & VAT included. Choose from 1000's of pre-designed templates or upload your own artwork. Orders dispatched within 24hrs.

Terms: Visit our site for more products: Business Cards, Compliment Slips, Letterheads, Leaflets, Postcards, Posters & much more. All items are free next day delivery. www.myprint-247.co.uk

Contact: 01858 468192

Valid until: Wednesday, May 22 2013

The subjects chosen cover towns, villages, beaches and hills which are often bypassed by visitors and are sometimes known only to the writer and a few others. The eulogies cover the River Gannel, Nancothan Valley, Carleon Cove, Tregarrick Tor, Hayle Towans, St Clether, Trewiggett, Hooelake, Mount, Stara Woods, Castallack, Troon, even Bodmin Road Station and Twickenham.

And the eulogisers themselves are equally diverse, ranging from poet Ann Alexander, geologist Colin Bristow, silversmith Eddie Williams, artist Robert Jones and Eden co-founder Jonathan Ball to children's writer Charmian Hussey, musician Carlton Crouch, clergyman Father Anthony Maggs, nationalist leader Dr James Whetter, public relations supremo Sue Bradbury and the late novelist E V Thompson.

Living Cornwall editor Simon Parker, who commissioned the original series of articles for the Western Morning News and has edited Kernow Kerensa, said the intention was to gather personal tributes from every corner of Cornwall.

"Kernow Kerensa is intended to be an authentic and wholly personal celebration of Cornwall's less-loved locations by the people who know them best," he said. "Some of the authors, along with some of the locations, may be familiar, while others will hopefully come as a revelation and surprise."

The youngest contributor was Carys Barriball, a journalism student from Upton Cross, while one of the oldest was wartime naval lieutenant, auxiliary coastguard and retired schoolmaster Cyril Hart, who writes about his native Coverack. Here, we reproduce his contribution in full.

Coverack by Cyril Hart

I may be nearly a nonagenarian but the same heart-stopping moment grabs me when I glimpse Mears Point and the Manacles as I descend the one-in-five hill to the beach road at the bottom and I have to tell you once more how much I love you.

I know I have been saying it every time I have seen you since I left to go to sea in 1941 but that feeling has not diminished, it has grown in intensity.

I think of those beautifully rounded bays, curves which any woman would be proud to own, but yet I know how, as any woman, you can be cruel in rejection and repulse any craft which dares to approach you when driven by the uncontrollable passion of the sea and is thrust upon your cruel talons.

How well I remember, when the sea was in angry mood, we would come back from school, wondering how we were going to cross the beach road to get home without being grabbed by the waves and carried out to sea. There was never any need to be concerned because Mr Roberts would be there waiting for the bus and we would pile into his coal lorry, heedless of the black dust, and be taken home safe and sound, if a trifle damp and dirty. That is the kind of devotion you inspire in those who live in your lovely timeless village.

What better example could there be of the heedless passing of time your beauty inspires than to be greeted, after two years in the Far East, with the question, as I carried my bag across the beach road: "Hello, my 'andsome, home again?" Those two years, when I dreamed of you, my lovely Coverack, every single night, were but a passing moment to my ancient village friend.

Similarly, just as any other woman, when you are in a receptive mood, no man can resist the urge, on a hot summer's day, to race across those silver sands, plunge into your calm waters and swim out to sea until the need to stop and lie on your gently heaving bosom becomes so urgent that one turns on one's back and with eyes shut, enjoys the gentle swell of your breast while dreaming of taking one's love along your shores as darkness falls, seeking a sheltered spot where one can lie with her and watch the flooding tide cover the multi-coloured serpentine stones.

My love for you does not stop there. It has been transferred gently into my children's hearts and their love for you is as strong as mine. My youngest offspring once described you as "the place where the houses have fur hats". That is the phrase used in our family to describe Coverack's thatched cottages ever since. They enhance your natural beauty and the secret chambers they contain, where contraband was stored and able-bodied men hid from probing press gangs, adding to the mysteries of your lovely contours.

Yes, my lovely Coverack, I really do love you.

Kernow Kerensa is available by visiting www.amazon.co.uk