Summercourt is a sleepy village in central Cornwall, in the parish of St Enoder. For eight hundred years there has been a Michaelmas fair held here (now centred around 25th September each year), founded on an ancient royal charter. I remember my first visit, when I was about four years old. My mother and I were walking near our house when my grandfather appeared in his car on his way to the fair. Apparently, my grandmother was not interested in it. Anyway, I asked whether I could go too and so off we went. I recall enjoying my first toffee apple and how I wanted a goldfish too. We stayed until after twilight and I sensed, for the first time, the strange spookiness of fairgrounds and then he took me home. Eight years later, on 25th September 1972, my sister came to me in the garden to tell me that my grandfather had died that afternoon. This is one date that I will never forget.
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Let me tell you something; well it's about my son and my mother. She died when he was 10. She always loved to hear him play his violin. She said her father (who suffered badly with shell shock in WW1) loved two things; the violin and cricket. It seemed to make her a different person somehow when he played the valetudinarian. Song without words it was; just a small piece. Sad and haunting. Percipient too because he played it at her funeral; and you know something? He sang in front of the PM, international statemen, the Queen, The Prince of Wales, was filmed for this that and the other, I heard him on national radio one Christmas singing a solo from the cathedral; but that performance, for my mother, was the bravest and the most beautiful of all of 'em. The church was fairly packed and there wasnt a single soul or good relation who didnt see the man in him that morning.
ReplyDeleteLater I recall he heard the clog dance on the radio and like a typical boy brought up on classical music heard on the radio, he danced along to it holding on to the armrests of a chair and the sofa and using the floor space inbetween. He was just a child you see and sorrow was and must remain only a passing breeze.
Wow...what evocative writing.
ReplyDeleteFrom your blog name, we might be related :).
Welcome, Savage.
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