Thursday Thoughts: John Caddy
John Caddy
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05/14/15
Author Archives: rhoskin
05/8/15
Thursday Thoughts: Stellar Review
Another heart warming review. This one from an old school friend with high standards of writing, and indeed scholarship:
“I’ve spent most of the last few days reading ‘The Miner and the Viscount’, here in Normandy looking out on the sea and across to Jersey.
“It is a splendid read. A tour de force. I can only guess at the hours of writing.
“The Piran story starts it off with a real bang, and I found everything thereafter deeply absorbing and believable as a portrait of life in that place and at that time. I especially enjoyed the details of mining and of community festivities, your pictures of justice and authority, the class society and position of women, the difficulties of travel, and much else, convincing and informative. And at the end, while the goodies win and the baddie gets his come-uppance, and there are prospects of huge social and economic improvements soon to come, private tragedy reminds us that for most people life was to remain a struggle, full of pain. An absorbing read.
“Congratulations.”
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04/30/15
Thursday Thoughts: Cornish Language Comeback
From “The Miner & the Viscount” Chapter 1
“He prayed, without a book for sustenance and forgiveness. Ro dhyn ni hedhyw agan bara pub-dydhyek; ha gav dhyn agan kendonow kepar dell evyn ni ynwedh dh’agan kendonoryon. They resented the English church that was whittling away at their own language. A hundred years ago their forebears had rebelled against the new prayer book of the established church that made them say it differently: Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Readers have asked about the strange looking dialog that they see in my book from time to time, such as this prayer from Preacher Perry at Gwennap Pit. The language is Kernewek, the ancient Celtic tongue that once was the community language in Cornwall. The last “monolingual” speaker was Dolly Pentreath, a fish seller in Mousehole, who died in 1777.
Cornish has enjoyed a revival sparked largely by the Cornish Gorsedh, and especially since Europe last spring recognized the Cornish as a distinct ethnic group. In 1967 the Gorsedh joined with the Federation Old Cornwall Societies to create the Cornish Language Board, Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek, charged with encouraging teaching and publishing in the language. They stressed developing a standard system of spelling and pronunciation, Kernewek Kemmen.
Grand Bard Maureen Fuller leading Gorsedh procession
Maureen Fuller, Grand Bard of Cornwall and a board member of Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek, was kind enough to provide the translations for my book. They added greatly to the colorfulness and authenticity of the dialog.
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04/16/15
Thursday Thoughts: Natural Amphitheater
The foreboding opening scene of The Miner and the Viscount is set in a magnificent natural amphitheater, Gwennap Pit, just southeast of Redruth. At the time the story opens, and into the early 19th century, Gwennap parish incorporated the great Poldice mine and was dubbed the “richest square mile in the Old World”. Stannary Rolls record sales of tin back in the 14th century. The intensive felling of trees for charcoal to smelt the ore has left a stark moorland landscape. Today Gwennap forms part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site.
Gwennap Pit
Gwennap Pit may have been formed by the collapse of a working mine. Mary Fryer is from Illogan in Cornwall, and she told me she had played in the Pit as a girl. Mary is a Tangye and her family is connected to mining. Her great great grandfather Sir Richard Trevithick Tangye manufactured hydraulic pumps used to drain the mines. He was named after the great Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick.
My wife Penny and I went to Gwennap Pit during our research visit to Cornwall in 2012. I stood at the rim opposite her some 200 feet away and we conversed in normal speaking voices. She said, “I can hear and understand every single word you say.”
I whispered to myself, “First time in years.” She shouted back, “I heard that!”
Gwennap Pit’s acoustic properties made it a marvelous place for meetings. John Wesley visited Cornwall 32 times and preached at the Pit many times. He wrote in his Journal of preaching there to “two and thirty thousand souls.” Read Chapter 68 for a description of one of John Wesley’s great sermons, when he charged the gentry to pay heed to those in great need.
Gwennap was owned at one time by the Williams family of Scorrier House, respected Cornish mine operators, who gave it to the Methodist Church in 1978. The famous Lt. Col. J.H. Williams was a descendant who was born in St. Just. He served in World War II with the British Fourteenth Army in what was then known as Burma. He was skilled in training elephants and played a major logistical role in the campaign. After the war he joined a teak company. I remember when I was a boy at Clifton reading his wonderful book “Elephant Bill” about his experiences.
Researching an historical novel turns up so many connections!
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04/9/15
Thursday Thoughts: China Clay
Charlestown Harbour, Cornwall
This is Charlestown Harbour, near St Austell in Cornwall. It was planned by the great engineer John Smeaton, who also designed the Eddystone Lighthouse. Readers of The Miner & the Viscount met him as the innovator of improvements in steam engines and water wheels for the hard rock mines.
Smeaton was helped by William Cookworthy, a Quaker and a pharmacist, who developed hydraulic lime, an essential ingredient in building the lighthouse.
The port was built to export copper from the nearby mines of Crinnis Hill, South Polmear and United Mines, Holmbush. However, it later became an important port for the export of China Clay.
William Cookworthy again played an important part. He developed a process for making china clay and built a factory to produce porcelain. One of his early backers was Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc (later the first Baron Camelford). It was on his land that deposits of saponaceous clay were found.
When I visited Boconnoc for research on my book, the present owner, Anthony Fortescue (whose family married into the Pitts), told me he had managed the family’s china clay pit when he was a young man.
Thanks to www.facebook.com/
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04/2/15
Thursday Thoughts: Mystery unveiled at Lanhydrock
AN ANCIENT book has been discovered at Lanhydrock that helped Henry VIII to build his case against the Pope and annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, first of his six wives.
We can connect threads here. As readers of The Miner & the Viscount know, Lanhydrock is the great house that is the home of my fictitious villains, the Trenances. Like 
many Cornish estates, there is a church right by the house. Why? Because it was originally a priory. When Henry VIII brought about the Dissolution of the Monasteries (the greatest real estate scam in history) many priories plundered from the church were sold to wealthy laymen.
The book (dated 1495) is a summary of works by philosopher and theologian William of Ockham who was a major figure in medieval intellectual and political thought. Its contents help explain the persuasiveness of the arguments Henry VIII’s advisers made against the Pope.
The book has been at Lanhydrock for many years, but what has just been discovered is its direct connection to the royal library at Westminster Palace. There is an inventory number inside which corresponds to the inventory prepared in 1542 for Henry VIII’s chief library.
To help gather evidence to support an annulment to Henry VIII’s his marriage, his agents scoured the country for texts such as Ockham’s which questioned the authority of the Pope and argued for the independence of the monarch. The volume at Lanhydrock contains marginal notes and marks which were made by Henry VIII’s secretarial staff to draw his attention to relevant passages.
So was the Reformation at its root motivated to sweep corruption from the Roman Catholic Church? Or was it Henry’s cover story for schemes truly driven by sex and money? We know he wanted to get rid of his Spanish queen so that he could marry the lusty Anne Boleyn. He also created the opportunity to seize the property of the Church of Rome.
Richard Hoskin with Paul Holden at Lanhydrock in the Long Gallery
Lanhydrock is now in the National Trust. Paul Holden, house and collections manager, said: “To have such an interesting book in the collection is fascinating in itself but to find out that it was once owned by Henry VIII, and played a part in a pivotal moment in British history, is very exciting.
“It’s thrilling to discover that the book at Lanhydrock is from the Royal library. The book is important not only for its provenance but for the notes entered in it by Henry VIII’s advisers and no doubt intended for him to see. They draw attention to precisely the sort of issues that were so relevant to the King’s policies in the years leading up to the break with Rome.”
On a personal note, I owe much to Paul for the expert information he provided me about Lanhydrock and the Robartes family. He added much to the richness of my book.
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03/25/15
Thursday Thoughts: Megaliths
Cornwall is rich in neolithic monuments. The famous Cheesewring is near the village of Minions, which was once a tin and copper miming center. The village is some 3 miles from Liskeard, my birthplace.
How was this extraordinary structure created? Was it an example of the engineering feats of our ingenious Celtic ancestors? There is a simpler explanation. The Cheesewring was formed when the saints and the giants were both inhabiting Cornwall. The giants had lived there longer and were annoyed by the saints moving in and ‘taking over’; putting more stone crosses up, making wells holy and taking too many tithes (taxes) from the harvest.
One day St. Tue heard the giants discussing the best way of ridding the county of the saints so he decided to challenge the leader (Uther) to a trial of strength. This took the form of a rock throwing contest and if the saints won then the giants would have to renounce their wicked ways; but if the saints lost then they would have to leave Cornwall, never to return. Uther was a champion rock thrower whose specialty was balancing larger rocks on top of smaller ones, and St. Tue was very small so in theory there should have been no doubt about the result.
After gathering twelve flat rocks of varying sizes Uther took first throw. The rock landed about 100 feet away towards Stowe’s Hill. St. Tue picked up a rock, looked to the skies and suddenly the rock felt as light as a feather in his hand. He cast it toward the first thrown rock and it landed neatly on top. So they continued until there was only one rock left and it was St. Tue to throw. This too landed perfectly on the pile and, not wanting to admit defeat, Uther suggested that they throw ‘one more for luck’.
He picked up a huge stone and using all his strength threw it. It fell short of the pile, rolled back down the hill and landed at the saint’s feet. As the saint prayed for holy intervention an angel, visible only to him, appeared and carried the stone to the pile. Placing it neatly on the top the angel then vanished and the saints had won.
Uther promised to mend his ways and so did most of the other giants, although some went into the hills muttering about revenge.
Cheesewring
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03/22/15
Eclipse the Eclipse?
Here’s a new poem from Bert Biscoe, Cornish poet, songwriter, mover, shaker and getter of things done. Bert wrote it at the end of the day which had been heralded as one when we would experience a partial eclipse of the sun. Bert reports: “In Truro it was a bit of a damp squib; the light adopted a slightly steely quality, as if it was about to rain, and the gulls were stirred to great anxiety overhead. Many shops closed and staff stood around in the street. Then we all trooped off to our meetings and our counters and our commerce.”
By way of background, Bert adds: “Passmore Edwards was a Victorian philanthropist who made a couple of fortunes and built libraries, convalescent homes and schools – many of which still stand and are much used throughout Cornwall today.”
I remember as a boy spending hours in the Passmore Edwards Library in Liskeard, borrowing the adventure yarns of G.A. Henty, the “Biggles” stories by Captain W.E. Johns about the heroic air ace, and the Leslie Charteris tales of The Saint, dashing adventurer and doer of good. Art Snell was the librarian, and he told me that the first volume of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was often borrowed but the next 5 volumes stayed on their shelf.
Edward Gibbon was Member of Parliament for Liskeard from 1774-80. This was thanks to Edward Eliot (the main character in The Miner & the Viscount) whose wife Catherine was Gibbon’s cousin.
Here is Bert Biscoe’s poem:
A break in the monotonous day
From Eclipse Street we step through philanthropic doors
Flanked by grandly composed declarations in marble
Of generosities – we talk and think thanks under-tongue,
Inward, least spoken gratitudes, slight quips of breath,
Marked for Octavius and Passmore –
Such men may never grace the Lodge again!
Engineers wrought plastic art to break the great wall
Between Library and Education, Dream and Occupation,
And we stride past catalogued shelves,
Through carousels of earnest commendation –
A civilian copse of titles chanted –
Light from flourished stairwell glass defies eclipse
And austerity dries the lips of book-worn maids
Outcast by despots of digital modernisation –
I stand-to and seek a face, recognition,
A faded eye, one who,
From some distant exchange long-passed,
Mouths ‘Hello!’ over supervisory epaulette –
We each blink a question, resign
Response, accountants cluck, indicators
Flicker, Time consumes librarian-prey,
And marks threaten a second already
Blemished sheet ‘Upstairs!’ I turn away!
The stairs pass borough arms stained by donor’s will,
Each Cornish town’s tale etched in mystic creature
And Herald’s bridges, castles, harbours, fields –
At halfway first-floor-landing Cornish light illumines
Cornish cities set in Victorian glass, they flood ‘Old School –
Trurra Tech!’ and its young artisans’ technical minds –
Masterly voices echo times’-table and foreign verbs
Decline in shadow – outside, disappointment grasps eclipse,
Imperious spires disperse suited toe-capped officials
And coffee-chatty-patent-heeled shop assistants.
Still the fear of established church,
The faithless might again
Erect druidic stones and clasp
The star’s satanic hand and dance – but……
These boroughs’ stamps impress our cards,
A photographic light of pinhole failure
Brightens, order shrouds we sheep, our fold –
The town returns to cold stairs climbed,
Colleagues gather in the Medium Room:
We begin our essential discourse of process –
Lights in salaried hearts flicker, hangovers
Wash over brown memories between trees
Through tumbled inner woods, talk turns
To technicalities, we trade our bargained time.
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03/20/15
Duke and Duchess of Cornwall visit Kentucky
Duke and Duchess of Cornwall
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall are visiting Louisville, KY. Just around the corner. As the eldest son of the monarch Prince Charles also inherits the title of Duke of Cornwall. In 1337 Edward III set up the Duchy of Cornwall to provide an income for his eldest son. Edward, the Black Prince was the first to benefit.
Today, the Duchy is a huge source of wealth for the Duke. Its work includes development of admirable new towns with traditional architecture and quality materials, such as Poundbury in Dorset. Might there be such a development in Cornwall?
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03/19/15
Thursday Thoughts: Book Club
How stimulating it is to have an in depth conversation with enthusiastic readers!
I recently shared this pleasure with The Rosebuds, a long established group of widely read women who got together to discuss The Miner & the Viscount.
The Rosebuds take it in turns each month to choose the book they all read and to share dinner. Mary Beth Heil was our hostess and she put on a tasty spread complete with cottage pie and hard cider. So appropriate for a conversation about Cornwall!
And a lively conversation it was. Where did you get the idea for the story? Where did the fictitious characters come from? Were you or your family part of the characters? Were politics really like that? Sounds worse than today. We followed the map in the book, the places sound beautiful. What do they actually look like? What was it like growing up in Cornwall? What parts of the story were true and what parts did you make up? Did the story of the great diamond actually happen?
Gourmets that they were, they wanted a recipe for a Cornish pasty. They pronounced it “paysty”. I said “pahsty” is the proper way. “Paystyies” take practice: they’re what you twirl in opposite directions.
They so enjoyed meeting with the author and getting insights into the process of writing a big book. As Mary Beth wrote, “Richard, It was so wonderful for you to come to our book club. Everyone enjoyed hearing the ‘story behind the story’ and how personal the book is to your life. Thanks again and I will pass on the info right now to all the members. We will spread the word.”
Let me know if you would like me to talk to your book club. I would enjoy it; such fun. I hope you would too.