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However, that aside, it is a useful and valuable supplement to the
existing Newlyn Trail.Compiled by Ruth Simpson, Helen Burnham, Ron
Hogg, Pam Lomax, Ann Pilcher, Judith Porter and Claude Wilson, and
published by the Environment Group, Newlyn Fish Industries Forum, among
other things, it tells of how towards the end of the 19th century the
water 'shoots' were romanticised by the Newlyn School artists and by
the emergent tourist industry keen to encourage visitors with
depictions of village life.
Many paintings of the Newlyn School and many contemporary photographs depict pitchers and other containers.
Obviously neither the painters nor the photographers in question had to carry water from well, shoat or pump, to home.
If
they had, they would have realised very quickly how heavy water can be,
and would have painted and photographed the carriers of water and their
containers with a greater depth of feeling than they did. One of the
water sources I remember, neither well, shoat nor pump, but one which
only rates a mention in Appendix 1 in the book which is devoted to
standpipes, was the tap in the Fradgan.
"In 1913 (long before my
time, I hasten to add) there was a request for a standpipe from 18
ratepayers at the the back of Messrs Dunn's fish curing store in the
Fradgan. The remains can be seen at the back of the large building in
the Fradgan."
One of the many photographs in the book shows
Gwavas Slip and Quay where my great grandparents lived, but, sadly,
nothing now remains of the Gwavas shoat which was "an important water
supply as this part of Street-an-Nowan housed a thriving boat building
business and allied trades". An extract from the diary of Blanche
Brown, included courtesy of the Pilchard Works, and entitled, "Washday
was always on Monday", begins with, "If the boys were old enough to
fetch in the water before they went to school, they had to fill all the
baths and buckets, so mother could start the washing".
Although
we were more fortunate than some in the Fradgan, in that our
grandparents had a pump just across the street from us, it was the
daily job, Sunday to Monday, of my brother and I to carry water from
that pump or from the tap at the bottom of the street to home.
Happily,
it was not all hard labour. More often than not there would be an
artist with his easel near the tap and we would enjoy watching him at
work, and when there was no one there we would have even greater
enjoyment, as naughty boys will, 'skeeting' one another, and anyone
else who happened to be passing by, with water, I'm sure, all the boys,
and maids too, for that matter, who carried water in Newlyn Town must
have been guilty of similar naughty behaviour.
With this book in
hand, Newlyn's water trail, from Chywoone Well to Stone's Shoat, is
well worth following. But, while it helps keep alive something of the
past, be warned, and be prepared to shed a tear, to join those already
in the small bronze jug which marks each of the extant water features,
for all that has disappeared in Newlyn, people as well as places.
copyright THE CORNISHMAN
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