Gran at Hemmick Beach

 

We have been staying in Cornwall, paying visits to my parents and going cliff walking.

Being high season, it was difficult to find accommodation.  By chance, we ended up in Charlestown, close to where both of my father’s parents came from, and near to Holmbush Cemetery where they are buried.  I would have liked to visit their graves, but my parents do not recall the location of their plots.

Instead, I pursued remembrance in a more active way. My gran, Winifred, grew up at Gorran where her father was headmaster at the little school which lies between Gorran Church Town and Gorran Haven.

Cornish author, Ann Treneer named it ‘The Schoolhouse in the Wind’ and we visited it.   The original building burnt down in 1967 but the current school is thriving with an ‘outstanding’ from Ofsted and its own swimming pool.  We walked the tall-hedged, butterfly-fluttering lanes that my grandmother once walked.  I wondered what she would have thought of the dense crowd of tourists at Gorran Haven, making the harbour into some sort of human soup.

When I saw Dad again, he said that Gran told him her favourite beach was Hemmick, near the Dodman Point.  He himself had never been there, and I hadn’t either.

The next day, Nigel and I walked to Hemmick. It turned out to be lovely, with tongues of slatey rock running into a shallow sea, excellent for bathing.  On the sand were broken sea-smoothed shards of Venus shell and dog cockle which had a sculptural quality.  While Nigel swam, I did a water colour where, once again, I failed to capture the Cornish rocks.

I don’t know what Gran used to enjoy doing at Hemmick – I don’t believe she could swim, although one of the scant photos does show her paddling.  Perhaps it was somewhere her family went for a picnic.  Perhaps she just enjoyed the view of the distant Lizard, and the regular hush of the sea. 

However, for me, a pilgrimage to Hemmick was a way to stand for a moment in her shoes, or at least in her bare feet.