Over eighty years ago, a Vicar was appointed
to St. Keverne, a man who loved words and who
came to love the village. He undertook to
compile a history of the parish taken from many
and varied documents. When he left in 1913, his
work was still unfinished, and it was left in
the care of Mr. P. D. Williams of Lanarth.
For years it remained forgotten in a cupboard
- it seemed no-one was interested in all those
carefully written words. Finally they came into
the hands of Frank Curnow, and over the past
years he has referred to many of the individual
articles in the collection of manuscripts, when
writing one of his essays for the Parish
magazine.
When I came to live in St. Keverne, being a
keen amateur historian, I began to ask many
questions. Most were answered in the following
way, "Ask Frank."
I soon discovered what nearly everyone else in
the village takes for granted, Frank nearly
always does know, or knows someone else who
does. Frank was born in the village and has
lived here all of his life. One can easily
detect that the words 'village' and
'life' in Frank's personal
dictionary are one and the same. He is a
generous, open-hearted Cornish gentleman,
always with time to spare to answer any
questions. Throughout his life he has made
scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings, recorded
village events with his camera, meticulously
made notes and remembered minute facts.
When the appeal was made for the renovation of
our Church spire, it presented just the
opportunity to bring Canon Diggens'work
into the public eye for the benefit of his
Church. He intended this word picture to be a
comprehensive one, so together, Frank and I,
have enlarged on his original notes. We have
added memories of older villagers, some who
remember him in the long off golden days of
their childhood - we are sure he would have
approved. He died at Saltash on the 15th
April,1916, perhaps saddened by the fact that
one of his ambitions had not been
fulfilled.
So this is a miscellany of words, words used
in official documents, parish poor accounts,
history books, private letters and notebooks,
recorded conversations and essays. Words that
tell of sorrow, work, play, happiness and fear
- words of a Cornish village.
We hope for these words - the time is now
right.
Jill Newton. March 1981.
History
of St. Keverne Church, by Frank Curnow,
Churchwarden for 29 years.
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