To be objective about it when I have so much in common with its author is impossible, but this must be the jewel in the crown of books yet written about Newlyn. I cannot praise it highly enough.
Like John Cecil Jenkin, I am a Bucca (Newlyn man) and, like him, I was born and bred in Street-an-Nowan.
His mother and mine were pupils at the Wesleyan School under its headmaster Henry Fleming, while his father and mine both worked at Penlee Quarry.
We were born within three days of each other, shared the same chapel and christening ceremony and later attended the same schools – Tolcarne, where we sat in dread of its headmaster "Pa" Butler's savage cane "Dr Sharp", and then Penzance County School for Boys where we made new friends, some of them from as far away as St Just and St Ives.
We played in the same streets and, if nothing else, such a shared childhood places me in the position and grants me the privilege of being able, and without prejudice, to confirm the veracity of all that John Cecil Jenkin says about the Newlyn in which we grew up.
Far from being "a quiet, pleasant community, lapped by gentle waves and breathed upon by warm zephyrs, with sturdy weather-beaten but healthy characters standing by picturesque white-washed cottages, flowers round the door, everything fresh, clean and neat, all against a background of brown-sailed boats and perennially blue skies", his portrait of the place and its people – from Medicine For The Soul to People With Wooden Noses – could not be more faithfully drawn.
The village in which we were boys, the world within which we grew up, was so small, so sequestered and parochial, even Newlyn itself boasted three distinct areas, each of them almost a "no-go" area from the other. There was Newlyntown, Tolcarne and Street-an-Nowan.
Yet, while he subtitles his book as a view from the last-named, Cecil John Jenkin's vision is far from narrow and he embraces just about every aspect possible in all three areas to come up with a picture of the village which could hardly be more accurate or rounded. This is how it was – warts, smells and all.
It sometimes seems that everyone in Newlyn, within the last century or so, was either a fisherman or artist. And while it is true that its fishermen and artists have played important roles in its story, it is with some relief that he sets the record straight and includes all those who have contributed to its development throughout the years. He does not neglect "the butchers, bakers and candlestick makers: the builders, school teachers, parsons and labourers".
As informative as it is intriguing, he lifts his history lesson about Newlyn beyond the ordinary to the extraordinary. A Bard of the Cornish Gorsedd since 1960, he was actually received into Gorseth Kernow as a disciple when only 11 years old. He was its secretary for several years and enjoyed a long and distinguished career in education as a head teacher in Cornwall. His book is worth having for his personal reminiscences of the village in the 1930s alone, not to mention his grandfather Edwin Chirgwin's memories of Newlyn in 1900.
From the story of The Hulk, the ferro-concrete ship Cretehill which for almost 30 years was an ugly presence in Newlyn harbour, to the full and fascinating account of the refugees from Belgium, who spent the Second World War years in Newlyn; from Newlyn's fondness for nicknames to samples of the local dialect, it is all here.
Although a cause for celebration, at the same time his book reminds us forcibly that Newlyn in 1939 and Newlyn after 1945 were very different places and that, for various reasons, it lost "the well-defined village character and identity it once had".
Dedicated to the memory of his late wife Dorinne, who contributed much to it but, sadly, never saw the finished work, John Cecil Jenkin's Newlyn: A View From Street-An-Nowan first saw the light of day in 2002 in a limited edition of only 10 copies. The response was so favourable and the requests for further copies so numerous that, together with the changes that had happened in Newlyn since, plus the discovery of one or two hitherto unknown pieces of village history, a reprint was inevitable.
Having made the necessary changes, added even more photographs – at a guess there must be about 150 of them now – and a more attractive cover, he modestly hopes that the reprint "will be acceptable and enjoyable, not only to native Buccas, now declining in numbers, but to anybody living in Newlyn and interested in its story".
Simply stunning and excellent value, a clinker of a book, not to say a classic of its kind, which should not only be "acceptable and enjoyable" but also on the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in Cornwall in general.
Newlyn: A View From Street-An-Nowan by John Cecil (Chirgwin) Jenkin is published by the author and available at £26.50 plus £4.50 p&p from him at Avalon, 6 Gilbert Road, Bodmin. PL31 2BY. Further information concerning the book can also be obtained from him by phone on 01208-79115 or e-mail: avom49@dsl.pipex.com
article published by THE CORNISHMAN