Cornish Dreams

Well Trevor Grills dreamt of making his fortune perhaps, or bringing the wonderful voices of Fisherman's Friends to the world, and his dream cost him his life in a freak accident.  Would he have changed anything?
I didn't know Trevor but I knew Port Isaac and Cornishmen and so I don't think he would have done.

Cornwall invades my Oxfordshire home, with paintings from John Miller, Judy Trevanow, and many others, and a pottery lamp made by another Fisherman's Friend on my sideboard to match the vase on the table.Seven years working and living there, cleaning my own holiday cottage and marketing it, selling my business of print and design alongside working as a temp to make ends meet.  I had three jobs in Cornwall most times.

It made me ill, the damp sea air creeps into your bones if you are not Kernow born and bred, but I loved it. Those who emigrated long ago for work, the Scots and the Welsh and the Yorkshire miners descendents live and are almost as accepted as those born and bred in the craggy land that drops spectacularly into the sea.

This time of year the sea fog crept in and stayed until March, the Pendeen Watch howled soulfully into the grey cold night, During the day Polish men and women pick daffodils and vegetables for the supermarkets on the hills above Marazion living in cold caravans and spending the pittance they earn in Lidl in Penzance.

The fire would crackle and spit and I would put potatoes into the embers and they would cook a smoky delicious crispy coat with a fluffy inside. Cornwall lives in me, the colour of the sea, the smell of the air,
my own pet seagull called Barney, so old he couldn't fish so we fed him and he became a member of the family.

I hope Trevor goes to a Cornish heaven, where he can sing to his hearts content and hear the waves crash onto the beach and listen to the seagulls circle and see his family and friends in Port Isaac getting on with life like they have always done, but without him, and missing him.

God Bless and God Speed Trevor and keep singing.