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BACK TO THE FUTURE
“Life Sucks”,
“Life’s a bitch”……on and on it goes! Every
day, endless negativity, stoked by dismal,
panic-mongering media channels, fanning
the flames of alarm. Without doubt, life
for many is bleak. Long Covid isn’t as
simple as a medical condition; it’s more
complex than that and has left a lasting
legacy. Along with the rest of the nation,
Cornwall has altered so much because of
economic pressures and social mobility.
Years ago, I was
enchanted by the magic of Cornwall;',
more recently, the spell has broken; it
was notional. Winter darkness was endless,
rain fell, my spirit and motivation
trodden into the ruts of Cornish mud; I’d
become more introspective, avoiding
crowded places and aware of playing
Russian roulette with my health, spinning
the barrel to dodge the bullet between
having a normal social life or the safety
of being reclusive. And then, one mizzly
afternoon, while walking my dog, something
so funny, so wacky, so uplifting happened
that the future beyond post pandemic
paranoia became brighter.
I met a woman
along a woodland track. I’ll call
her Elowen, the Cornish word for the elm,
for the sake of anonymity; not just
because it’s a pretty word, but suits her.
I knew her vaguely, but hadn’t spoken at
any length. As she walked alongside me, we
fell into step. I couldn’t not notice that
she had a lump of grey clay in her hands
and was gently kneading and moulding it
into a wonky bowl shape.. I’ve known a
number of ‘alternative’ women…the kind
that would have been burnt at the stake
back-along, but never a wandering potter.
We chatted; well,
she talked and I listened; her
life wasn’t easy; a messy divorce,
difficult teenage daughters, little money;
she spoke about herself and why she’d
given up conventional nursing and trained
as a phytotherapist, a medical herbalist.
Her theory is that by an holistic approach
to medical conditions and using the
traditional, healing power of plants,
complementary to scientifically developed
drugs, the whole body can heal rather than
targeted medicines.
As we continued, I
had to ask the obvious question,
‘Why are you kneading a lump of clay?’. I
thought it might be some kind of anti-
stress therapy. “It’s Gabbro. I dug it out
of the ground up at Crouza Down”. She
explained that in making her tinctures,
balms and syrups, she wants to be as
physically close to the source of the
plants she uses and incorporate the
essence of the very soil in which native
flora grew to make her medicines, and by
crafting pots from the local clay in which
to blend the plants that she’d foraged,
there would be more authenticity to her
remedies.
She asked if I
knew about the unique Gabbroic clay,
found within an area of a few miles, near
St.Keverne on the Lizard Peninsula.
Telling me that the clay was used by
prehistoric people and that she’s picked
up sherds of pottery where the local
farmer had ploughed the clifftop fields.
Apparently, a feature of the Gabbroic clay
is that it contains felspars, olivine and
augite; the felspars wouldn’t have melted
on bonfire firings at 900c, and would have
needed a heat of 1400C from a modern kiln
firing. The crystals are found in pieces
of pot as old as 4,000 years and is solid
evidence that people living on the Lizard
made pots from this local clay.
I did know a
little of this. I had a friend,
Margaret Hunt, who invited me to a ‘dig’
at Poldowrian, a farm on the east side of
the Lizard, where there is a multi -age
site from the late Mesolithic to the
Bronze Age; a range of around 5,500 - 200
BC In 1967, Mr. Peter Hadley, the
land owner, made remarkable discoveries;
evidence of an Iron Age fort, close to
Lankidden, built on a rocky promontory,
called Carrag Luz, high above craggy
cliffs. A year later remains of a
prehistoric round house, thousands of
worked flint tools and pottery sherds were
unearthed from the surrounding small
fields, which are enclosed by protective
granite ‘hedges’. These ancient field
systems, evident in remote areas of
Cornwall, eluded the ripping out of hedges
throughout the Agricultural Revolution and
remain today.
I asked Elowen
about the plants she gathered for her
remedies; the bark of the elm is
made into a salve for treating wounds and
skin infections, feverfew to help migraine
and arthritis, St. John’s wort for
depression, valerian to aid sleep. She
explained that the flowers of camomile
contain a chemical compound, Apigenin,
that has a sedative effect. She was
waiting for summer and the camomile to
bloom along the path we were walking, as
she liked to practice her yoga exercises
in the open air as the crushed fruity,
slightly minty fragrance enhanced her
calming, meditative state of mind. At this
point, my innate scepticism is nudging;
but then I thought, I drink camomile tea
at bedtime and who doesn’t rub a dock leaf
on a nettle sting. And research has proven
that turmeric and black pepper added to
food can help inflammatory conditions….
oh, and by the way, what was she
wearing..a jumper made from the fleece of
her Merino sheep!
Being realistic,
I have no illusions Cornish labour has
been exploited for centuries and not being
able to afford to live here isn’t new; the
famines of 1800’s and decline in mining
drove starving families to seek lives in
gold fields across the world, and today
the cost of living is beyond the means of
young families who have to move away just
to be able to make ends meet as Cornwall
has a huge differential between wages and
property prices. The health service is
stretched to its limit, the little cottage
I had In Mousehole fifty years ago and
sold for £5,000, is on the market for
£500K; our villages communities are dying
as cottages are being bought up by second
home owners and investors, who think
Cornwall is a pretty playground, but have
no intention of living here and augmenting
the traditional way of life. I read a
ridiculous article that Truro doesn’t have
enough charging points for Teslas…..is
that truly an indicator of Cornwall’s
future?
We reached the end
of our walk and went our separate ways.
Elowen had no idea that she’s woken
me up from my gloomy frame of mind and
reminded me of what I already knew - that
we can step outside the world of spinning
turbulence we’ve been plunged into and
live life at our own pace, dancing to the
rhythm of a different beat ….. it was as
if I’d stepped through a gap in the
hedge…and whoosh..time- shifted thousands
of years into the past; two women,
comfortable in each others company, taking
a potage of barley and beef, flavoured
with wild herbs, cooked in clay pots to
their men, protecting the land from the
ramparts of the cliff fort. They would
have taken the path from the round house,
through the wooded valley along the track,
now the coastal footpath, leading out to
the headland, picking herbs and flowers
along the way; looking to the horizon
across a platinum-silver sea for ships
sailing from the Mediterranean to trade
oil and wine for tin……fanciful maybe…but
the magic is still there if we take time
to look in the right places…
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