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Clifford Lugg Remembers
Anecdotes from the book "Leaning on a
gate"
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 I was born at Porthallow in 1909
and had three sisters, two of which died very
young. It was a great loss to my parents.
My other sister was called Olive.
I think I was very lucky to have lived in this
part of Cornwall, with so many strong-armed men
and lovely ladies.
There are good living people all around St.
Keverne parish.
They are second to none in any walk of life. I
lived with these characters all my life and
enjoyed their company so much for so long. I
thought I should like to keep these names as
characters as long as possible.
I hope the people that read these little stories
will respect and remember, they worked very hard.
They were always happy in those days and they
were nearly always singing and dancing.
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The memories of my young life days. At the
age of seven I remember being told about a lot of
things and seeing things about the First World
War. I can remember my uncle going out coast
watching with a walking stick to spy for
submarines, and we had to darken the windows
because of submarines.
There were no aeroplanes then.
I used to go up
with my Auntie to light the Chapel oil lamp for
prayer meetings three times a week. It was good
fun. The men would start praying in very low
voices and finish up nearly jumping over the
seats. When people came to chapel they would have
to close the door quickly because the wind would
blow out the lamps.
On Sunday evenings, the young men would sit in
the back seats of the chapel and Mr. Bryant, when
the services started, would go to sleep and sleep
until it was collection time. Then after the
service he would count the money in the
collection box and he would find a lot of
washers.
Mr Bryant was a shoemaker and his boots would
last for a long time.
The fishermen would have their sailing boats on
the beach all ready to go to sea for a shoal of
pilchards. The huer, watching for shoals, would
call "hobo" when he saw them.
He would need to have good eyesight to see the
colour of the fish in the water and then he would
direct the course to go and if they had a good
catch they would put them in the salt
containers.
Nearly every housewife put 100 pilchards in salt
for winter - they were lovely because they were
very fat fish and delicious.
There were two tugs in Falmouth. They were
called "The Victor" and "The
Tridon" and when there was a boat in
distress they would race to see which could get
there first for the job. The ship
"Volene" was torpedoed in the English
channel and "The Tridon" took her in
tow hoping to get to Falmouth but she sank
outside Porthallow with a cargo of flour,
cigarettes, tobacco and chocolates which was for
the troops in France. After a while the east wind
came and most of the cargo came to the beach.
There was a pleasure tug at Falmouth called the
"Queen of the Fal". The Band of Hope
would hire it for an outing for the day and
nearly all came home drunk.
It was a very busy village and the cove would be
full of fishing nets which the women would mend.
The fishermen would be making their crab pots in
their sheds. They would grow their withies in
different places. Nobody would be doing anything
on a Sunday and when the wind was blowing from
the north you could hear the Falmouth Dock's
hooter and train whistle, and when the wind was
south east you could hear the Porthoustock
quarries blasting.
They were all sailing boats and big sailing
yachts at that time. There were four-mast grain
ships from Canada and Australia. There were very
big sailing yachts for the regattas at Plymouth
and Falmouth - they were great days then.
Mr. Louis Hayden told me that he would be
reading a series of stories and he would go up to
"Nance Cross" and wait for the mail
horse trap to come and he would read the stories
before he got home.
The sea would bring a lot of big stones on to
the beach and Mr. Eddy Williams lost a part of
his leg at the quarry. He used to hire a farm
horse cart from a farm and bring the stone in a
pile and then he would crack them to a certain
size with a hammer. The council would then buy
them and when the steam roller came they would
carry them to repair the road. He would also make
"spars" for thatching houses and all
for just a little money.
Then the barges would come in with the cargo of
coal, sometimes manure and sometimes maize. They
would have to hire three farm carts to unload
them. I think it would take about three tides to
unload.
Mr. Si Reynolds would be working at the mill -
it had the water wheel working at that time and
it made a lot of noise.
One day when my cousin Willy Lugg and Elvet
Tripp came home from school, the carts were
carrying the grain to the top doors of the mill
on the hill. There were about fifty fowls picking
up the corn which had been lost from the bags as
they were unloading. Most of the fowls were in
the mill eating and they closed the mill doors.
They said they had heard nothing like it. The
feathers of the fowls were coming out of every
hole in the mill because the belts on the wheels
were pulling the feathers out of them and some
fowls had very few feathers left. Mr. Si Reynolds
was swearing and shouting at the top of his
voice. In the end he found out who it was, and
watched with his stick for them passing. He
chased them but they were glad he could not catch
them.
I have been told that Mr. Ike Sobey went to
Helston Harvest Fair to buy a pony to drive in a
trap and soon after that he changed his mind and
was going to America in the "Titanic"
and was drowned. He had put his pony with Mr.
George Tripp at Halwyn and they called it
"Sobey" and looked after it until it
died.
Nearly all the people in the village had big
gardens. They kept one or two pigs in the corner
and fed them on small potatoes and barley flour.
They were very fat and there were special men to
kill them. When they were opened up children
would go with our mothers to pump the water to
clean the skins and we would have them stuffed in
a roasting pan. They were very nice and children
would have the pig"s bladder for a
football.
My father Nelson Lugg used to play very old
tunes to which to dance on the concertina and
accordion. I heard him say that he played for Mr.
Hancock of Mullion to step dance to and he was
the champion "rassler" of Cornwall.
They had a brass band in Porthallow in 1890. My
grandfather John Rashleigh was the bandmaster and
I have been told by my father that they had very
smart uniforms and even had small oil lamps on
their shoulders by which to read the music
cards.
Billy Scoble could not read music. He never went
to school, he said. He did not like to learn too
much in case he went off his head. He could play
any music - he used to play "The
Circle" Bass. He had two nights extra to
keep up with the rest of the bandsmen and they
had a big engagement in Helston under the town
clock, something to do with royalty. When they
came to finish the Kings Anthem, Billy had the
bass part to do. He missed the right note, the
band stopped playing and the band master started
to sing.
There was a large article in the papers about
the incident.
Just after the First World War the Prince of
Wales came to St. Martin, near Helston to see the
ex-servicemen from the war and all us children
from the schools in St. Keverne Parish went in
harvest wagons to see him. We were very excited
over it and after the parade he went to
Trelowarren to lunch.
He was a very smart looking young Prince.
There were three brothers living at Roscorwell
and they were called the Mildren brothers. Back
in those days they had toilets outside in the
gardens. One of them had a friend in London and
he had rheumatism very badly. He had a letter
from his friend in London who wanted to come down
for a little holiday and he asked Mr. Mildren if
the church was far from the house. Mr. Mildren,
not knowing that his friend was thinking of the
outdoor toilet, said the church was a mile and a
half from the house and if he was not able to
walk, he could have the donkey trap to ride
there, not knowing that the friend from London
called the toilet the "church". They
had a good laugh when they realised the
mix-up.
I have heard my uncle, John Lugg, say that years
ago they used to have a private oyster bed at
Bosahan, Manaccan and Sir Vile had a keeper for
all the oyster beds which were private. The two
Lugg brothers (one was a dwarf and the other was
a big man) went down to get some oysters one dark
night. They were doing very well when the keeper
came from nowhere and caught hold of the small
brother (Josie). He was going to put him up
before Sir Vile but the big brother thought it
would not do. The gamekeeper had a very long
nose, so the big brother put a hand of mud on his
face and duelled on the mud. The big brother
threw the gamekeeper's face down into it and
then the two brothers ran as fast as they could
home. Some people say today that the hole is
still in the mud from his nose.
We lived at Tregarne Mill in 1916. I can remember
my uncle selling a horse to an army officer for
the war for £100 and to Mr. Hoskin from
Treleague for £110 and they both went away
to the war together. We were all very upset
because we liked our horses and we did not like
them to go to the war.
We had a very hard winter in 1917. We had a lot
of snow, birds were dying all around us and they
were poor as coots.
Miss. Queenie Harry from Kestle Farm used to
collect the rabbits and birds for the troops in
France. The lapwings were fetching a shilling
each and we used to pick them up and sell
them.
My uncle had to teal corn down in Tregarne Mills
which was hard work for man and horse. The corn
was sown by hand and cut with scythes. There were
contractors in those days. There were three men
for cutting with scythes and when they had
finished cutting the last swish with the scythes,
one man would pick up a handful of corn and say
"I 'ave' ee". The second man
would say "What 'ave' ee?" and
the third man would say "the neck".
Then they would shout "hooray" as loud
as they could and neighbours around would all do
the same. Then there would be a good supper.
The farmers would leave their corn in the scythe
dram all cut so straight and nice for nine dews
before they would bind the sheaves and there
would be about eight or nine men and women and
the women would roll them into sheaves and the
men would bind them. Nearly all the tradesmen
could bind sheaves.
The young children and wives would carry the
sheaves in a circle and then the harvest men
would make the 'knee mow'. They would
leave them in the fields to dry until September
with the Harvest Moon and as they were making the
corn ring they would have a jar of cider.
They drank a lot of cider when harvesting and a
good many of the harvest men would drink too
much, go in the hedge and go to sleep.
Nearly all the farms around St. Keverne parish
would have orchards and they brewed their own
cider. When a tree blew down it was always
replaced by another of a good sort. Most farm
houses had an 'apple chamber' and pears
and plums were also grown in quantity. It does
not look like the same parish now with the
orchards all overgrown or gone. |
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