Category Archives: Uncategorized

08/13/15

Thursday Thought: More Synchronicity

Last week I told about Steve Hoskin of Boulder, Colorado, and his interest in genealogy and linking our Hoskin families. However, when we first met him he showed us a picture of his ancestral home in Perrancombe in Cornwall.

Sarah and I determined to find the house during our trip and take a photo for Steve. It was really hidden away, but we found it with the help of our new friends Anna and Mike Parris of nearby Trewellas. Where do they fit into the story? Well, I’ll tell you about that synchronicity next week.

Sarah sent the photos to Steve and here is his reply:
Steve Hoskin's ancestral home.

Steve Hoskin’s ancestral home.

“Thank you so much for  the photos of my Grandpa Hoskin’s birthplace that was called Trusla until about 1937 when his cousins purchased it from the Duchy.
“It had been built on land leased from the Duchy of Cornwall for the span of 3 or 4 lives, and when Grandpa’s uncle died in 1933 his was the last life on the lease and it had to revert.
“It is grand that you have had such a welcome to Perranporth and environs. We did enjoy Richard’s book and the talk that he gave in Boulder.”
Like so many Cornish, the Hoskins emigrated to America to seek work in the mines. They had a blacksmith business and the first Perrancombe Hoskin to arrive in Colorado became captain of three gold mines in the Rocky Mountains owned by Belgian investors.

 

07/9/15

Thursday Thoughts: The Turk’s Head

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Here in Cornwall, Sarah and I came to Penzance where I will be speaking at the LitFest. One of our first ports of call (an appropriate idiom!) was the Turk’s Head, which is reputed to have been built in 1233. As Chapter 72 in “The Miner & the Viscount” describes, it’s the place where the miner Addis Penwarden was locked up in the gaol after the disturbance in the magistrates’ court.

“You say that Penwarden is here at the Turk’s Head?” asked Polkinghorne. “That seems strange, why here?”

“This is an old building, and the constables use the cell as the town gaol,” said Perry. “It’s the first inn in England to be called the Turk’s Head you know; it’s used for many purposes. It was built over five hundred years ago. They say that a party of Turks from Jerusalem invaded Penzance back then when they were excommunicated during the Sixth Crusade. Imagine that! Might be a bit of a tall yarn, more likely Barbary corsairs. Anyroad, there are still priests’ holes upstairs. And the floor above that is a fisherman’s loft used to store nets.”

I tried to find the old lock-up in the garden behind the inn, but it has been pulled down and the stone back wall is all that remains.

The bar is snug and offers a fine selection of hard ciders. Gary the publican recommended Old Rosie, a local favorite and delicious, but half a pint was enough. The alchol content was 7.4%!

06/18/15

Thursday Thoughts: Boulder Gold!

Next week I’m off to Colorado for a very full visit. I will participate in the Historical Novel Society conference in Denver. My mentor is best-selling historical novel author, Diana Gabaldon. I will give talks on my book in Boulder and Brighton. And best of all I will be with my children and grandchildren.

There is great history of the Cornish in Colorado. Perhaps one of the most interesting times was the mining era.

Beginning in 1859, Cornish hard rock miners flocked to Colorado to mine gold, silver and lead. Dr. A.L. Rowse, the Oxford historian born the son of a clay worker in St. Austell, Cornwall, wrote in The Cornish in America:

“Cornish miners, with their long experience in underground work, contributed much to the improvement of mining technique. . . by their skillful sinking of shafts and tracing of veins and . . . their mechanical aids like the Cornish pump for removing water from the underground recesses.”

Cornish Miner Boulder, CO

Cornish Miner
Boulder, CO

The Cornish miner is commemorated by the famous statue on Pearl Street in Boulder.

 

06/11/15

Thursday Thoughts: Cornish Saffron Bun

I’ve been invited to talk about my historical novel at Wild Sage in Boulder. Why go all the way to Colorado? Well, I so enjoy the audience reaction when we discuss my book. The trip coincides with my visit to Denver for the Historical Novel Society conference. And the hosts are my daughter Sarah Hoskin Clymer and my son Nicholas J.C. Hoskin; they both live in Boulder with their families.

But here’s the kicker — Saffron Buns will be served. Such a treat! They are a bready mixture stuffed with dried fruits and candied peel, flavored and colored with saffron. They are different, delicious, some say an acquired taste — but  like the pasty characteristic of Cornwall.

Saffron is the dried stamens of a special crocus, plentiful in Spain. To buy it in England you had to sign the poison register. In Cornwall you just went to the chemist’s shop (drugstore). They say that when Phoenician traders came to Cornwall centuries ago they traded for tin with saffron.

Come and try some! My talk will be at Thursday, June 25 at 7:00pm MDT in the Common House, Wild Sage, 1650 Zamia Ave, Boulder, CO 80304.

Could anyone share a favorite recipe?

Cornish Saffron Bun

Cornish Saffron Bun

05/21/15

Thursday Thoughts: John Wesley

One of the most imposing and most important historical characters in The Miner & the Viscount is John Wesley, founder of Methodism.

John Wesley

John Wesley

He visited Cornwall 32 times. The horseback ride from London took 5-6 days. He often stayed at Diggory Isbell’s cottage at Trewint, near Altarnun — which is close to my birthplace at Liskeard.

One of his favorite preaching places is Gwennap Pit with its amazing natural acoustics. In his journal he writes of once preaching there to “two and thirty thousand people, the largest assembly I ever preached to.”

Chapter 68 tells of John Wesley’s first time at the Pit in 1762 when he spoke eloquently against slavery, and reminded his audience of his practical advice about money: “Earn all you can; save all you can; give all you can.”

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05/14/15

Thursday Thoughts: John Caddy

John Caddy

John Caddy

 

John Caddy grew up in Hibbing and Virginia, iron mining towns on the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota. His great-grandfather, Tom Caddy, was one of the Cornishmen who came to Upper Michigan for the copper and iron mines in the 1870s and 80s after the collapse of hard rock mining in Cornwall. 

John describes himself as “an aging poet whose spirit is more lively all the time.” He first visited the land of his roots in 1992, performed his poetry and formed close attachments that led to his being made a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh.

Here is one of his poems about Cornwall and the spirit of its miners. It was published in the book With Mouths Open Wide, New and Selected Poems in the section “Presences the Blood Learns Again”.  Learn more about John at http://www.morning-earth.org

 

COMING TO GRASS

Cornishman: a man at the bottom of a mine, singing.

They came to grass at the end of the day.
They climbed from the Dark to grass
and carried the Dark up with them.

After a long day of night with only
the head’s candle for light,
after aching hours of sledging iron
against candle-gleamed borer,

Grass was the surface they climbed to
through a thousand feet of Dark—
Over and over they pulled their weight up the rungs
as their hearts rang the ribcage,
to come up to light and grass-green,
but to carry Dark with them unseen.

Dark changed the strong men,
shortened their tempers, stubborned beliefs,
roughened their tongues—
Dark led them to think
they were the ones who could see.

But in the mine, in chapel, in pub,
Bearing this Dark is what taught them to sing.
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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04/16/15

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

 

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!

 

04/9/15

Thursday Thoughts: China Clay

Charleston Harbour, Cornwall

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/KernowPhotos for this photo and some of these notes.

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 Lanhydrock House and churchmany 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.

With Paul Holden at Lanhydrock in the Long Gallery

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.