I’m having my lunch and watching a solitary magpie fuss about in the heather before it appears with a silvery squiggle in its mouth. The magpie flicks its head vigorously from side to side in a little blur of energy while the shining squiggle contorts into different shapes.
Surely that strategy doesn’t work to try and stun or kill a slow worm – for I’m sure that’s what it is although its scales are actually more gun metal grey than silver. It must be the reflection of the sun. I guess the bird is unused to discovering such a thing. As for the slow worm why hasn’t it performed its wonderful magic trick where it ‘automises’, in other words removes its tail as a decoy to distract a predator before it makes its getaway. I guess it didn’t have time.
Before I have time to wonder what the outcome of this mini drama will be the magpie suddenly flies out of sight, the legless lizard still in its mouth now curled up into a perfectly formed spiral.
It’s about 1pm and I’m at Pen Enys Point about a mile from Carn Naun Point where I stopped last time. That was Valentine’s Day this year. Seven months ago. That time it was choughs with their flashy red legs I was wondering at who like magpies were historically seen as troublemakers and in the chough’s case firestarters with their habit of stealing lit candles.
I remember when I reached Carn Naun Point wondering when I’ll reach Somerset and the end of the path. According to the SWCP distance calculator from St Ives (my next stop) to the end of the path at Minehead is 232.5 miles. If I take a break of 6 or 7 months between each visit and average 10 miles each walk it will be 11 years until I finish it. I will be 60. It has taken me over 7 years so far so perhaps completing 232.5 miles by the time I reach retirement age is a good target to aim for.
‘Come on slow coach’ as my dad used to say. No no, there is no rush. All in good time. It may not sound like much but taking it steady, going gently is the most valuable thing in my life right now.
Today feels like autumn: a stiff, fresh wind coming off the Atlantic and the sun appearing intermittently from behind large drifting clouds before disappearing again.
Below the cliffs near Pen Enys Point autumn swells are arriving at an angle to the land, rearing up and then breaking onto the rocks creating blindingly bright white surf. After each wave breaks the surf slides over itself in thin layers like cream being spread over a cake. The power of the waves stirs up sand from the bottom so beige clouds appear below the surface like small explosions. All around the sea is the colour of jade.
Above Burthallan Cliff the path becomes a walkway of huge uneven rocks. Stepping from one to the other I notice a man with white hair and a walking stick sitting on the side looking askance at the path. He tries to stand up, his hand and arm wobbling as he leans on his stick and then sits down again.
When I reach him he asks me the way to Burthallan Lane ‘as I’ve got a bit lost’.
I will call him Robert. He has neat white hair, the forelock blown by the wind. He is diminutive and slightly hunched but his face is fresh and his eyes lively. He wears a shirt and slacks with Clarks shoes. His grey jumper is tied round his waist but slipping down, its neck almost touching the ground. Over his shirt he wears a Mountain Warehouse padded jacket.
He is from Risca near Newport. As we start walking I ask if I should call his daughter.
‘Oh no. Don’t do that. I’ll be in trouble.’
I imagine her reaction when he gets home.
For over thirty years he worked for the local government in Derby where he moved to with his wife. She had died two years ago. He tells me that he used to come to St Ives with his parents as a child and now he’s come back with his daughter and son-in-law. As a child he stayed in a place “in Downalong near Smeaton’s Pier. It was just a one-up-one -down place and we only had a basin to wash out of. Nothing else.”
“It was owned by a woman called Honor Stevens. There was a ship called the SS Alba. It was carrying coal from Wales and it was wrecked just off the island at St Ives.”
“There were 8 crew and 7 were lost. Honor lost her husband, her father and her brother that night. Some people just seem to have tragedy in their lives.”
Imagine it. How quickly our lives can change and how transformative that would have been for her. However he tells me she still always seemed cheerful despite her loss.
When I look it up later Wikipedia tells me that the SS Alba sank on January 31st 1938. Apparently the ship got caught in a northwesterly gale and the captain “mistook the lights of Porthmeor for the lights of St Ives, and Alba went aground on the Three Brothers Rocks.” The rocks are just off Porthmeor Beach on the western side of the town and according to a local guide, stivesbythesea.co.uk “all that now remains of it (the Alba) are the boilers which can be seen at low tide on Porthmeor Beach.”
All the crew (there were actually 23) were rescued by an RNLI boat but it was this boat that then turned over and 5 of the crew died, all of whom were Hungarian. Were Honor’s loved ones in a different wreck or had Robert just got his facts wrong? I’ll never know.
He asks me about my life and I tell him about the period of transition I’m in, leaving teaching and starting journalism. He tells me about a school his daughter works in which is Catholic and they have assemblies every morning. Somehow we get onto faith and I tell him about being brought up a Christian but now a non-believer although still a lover of some of the traditions of the church.
I lead him up the cliff to Burthallan Lane him linking arms with me when we have to walk over rocks and stopping frequently so he could catch his breath. Halfway up the cliff I offer to take his jumper and put it in my ruckcask. I wonder what he was thinking setting off on the coast path.
Near the top I ask how old he is. “I was born in 1932. I served the King and then the Queen doing my National Service.” 91 years old and mucking about on the coast path. I had to admire it even if it did seem a bit rash. I would be doing the same if I was lucky enough to make it to that age. Will I complete it before I reach 90? Who knows at this rate but if not it’d be something to be proud of: half a lifetime on the path!
At the top the path started to flatten out and I could see the beginning of a road beyond the gorse. Robert turned to me: “Oh, I know this now. For someone who said they didn’t have belief you’ve been more kind to me than many Christian people would be. I’ll remember this.” And so will I.
A pause as we shake hands and as I’m about to walk off he gives me a half smile and in his lilting Welsh voice:
“And now if you don’t mind I’ll have my jumper back. You can never be too sure about these Bristol people.” We laugh and turn at the same time.
When I get to the bottom of the cliff I finally get my first sight of St Ives and there is Porthmeor Beach and the grave of the ill fated SS Alba.
The Slow Walker 