My father is 80 years old, and he is writing a novel. His first. The Miner and the Viscount. And I know it's not his last. It's become the first in a trilogy, The Cornish Chronicle, a series of historical fiction novels based in 18th and 19th century Cornwall.
My father's family is Cornish, and he grew up in Liskeard, in the eastern half of Cornwall, not far from Plymouth. My grandfather, "Granfer" was the editor of the Cornish Times. He then went on to school in Bristol and then onto Oxford University where he read History. I love that through writing these novels he gets to integrate his Cornish heritage and roots with his love of history and storytelling.
Last fall, he spent several weeks in Cornwall, exploring the sites and settings of his novel, such as the mines, manor homes, and pubs so that he could bring a real life quality to his writing and descriptions. I had just completed walking the next section of my Celtic Camino walk in France, and timed it so that I could come over to England, meet my husband in London, and then come down to Cornwall to be with my father and stepmother. While I was there, we visited Lanhydrock, a beautiful estate home south of Bodmin, Lostwithiel and Restormel Castle, Polperro as well as Liskeard, Wadebridge, and Polzeath on the north coast where my father had many of his summer holidays as a child.
He spent this winter re-writing and editing his novel, and including his hands on experiences of these places into his novel. It should be done this summer, with a view to self publish it at first. It's a great read, and very interesting and real. You can hear the miner's deep Cornish accents in their conversations, the homes of the "viscounts" has come to life since the edited descriptions have been included, and best of all, you get an exciting, interesting, dramatic yet real experience of life in 18th century Cornwall. His dream is for it to become a popular and much loved PBS mini-series, perhaps something like Downton Abbey!
Last October was my first visit to Cornwall in over 30 years. I spent a little time there when I lived in England for a year back in 1981-82, when I visited my Great Auntie Hilda in Wadebridge, and went to Port Isaac with my dear friend, Diana. While I knew that I wanted to spend my time in England more in the south where my families are from - Dad's family from Cornwall, and my mother's family from Somerset, I somehow forgot that was what I wanted, and ended up spending most of time in London and up in northwest England with my boyfriend's family. As I look back, I have to accept that it was all good, and that if I had been ready and able to deeply reconnect with my roots and ancestors, I would have. Perhaps it is something that I really need to long for and desire that is making it so important and essential for me to claim and own it for myself now.
No more giving it away. No more grafting myself on to other's roots, dreams, ideas of who I should and can be.
I am going home to walk the sacred and ancient pilgrimage paths of Cornwall and southwest England to reconnect with my roots, my heritage, my ancestors, my people, my land.
I want to have my own deep roots, connected on one end to the core of the Earth through the land of my peoples and connected on the other end into my core.
I am rooted, connected, alive and nourished. I know who I am. I trust who I am. I trust my Self. I know when I am on my path, and when I am not. I have the courage, awareness, and strength to know that right now, I am a pilgrim who walks to come home to herself.
