Cornish pastimes

I would like to make it clear from the start that my name is not Daisy! Neither is my wife's but she created the Daisy Roots blog and never used it so we seem to be stuck with it but in a way it might well depict the general content of what might follow, as I am, at 86, mostly looking back, so perhaps the name is not so inappropriate. But I will sign everything 'Fieldfare' as he was my favourite journalist in the heady days of the 'News Chronicle' You see that I am already looking back a long way!
As a boy of thirteen I spent all my school holidays in Cornwall and this has very influenced my writing. As a family we spent the six weeks with my Uncle Arthur and Aunt Mabel in a tied cottage on Lower Tregantle Farm near Torpoint.
The very air was different; how many times since those days has a certain fresh breeze and smell conjured up the Torpoint Ferry and once again I am leaning out over the side watching the bow wave and hearing the rattle of the chains my heart pounding with excitement at the thought of the long holiday stretching ahead.
From Tregantle Farm, where my sister eventually married the farmer's son, the lane to the beach remains very much alive in my memory :-
     
     
A steep lane led up to the gates of Tregantle Farm from my aunt and uncle's cottage, huge hedges high on either side where the chickens laid their eggs and fields beyond climbing into the blue sky ; even steeper still the lane to the beach bore left at a little triangle of grass and hawthorn. Here where the sun was brighter and warmer the hedges left the ferns and shade loving plants behind and were bursting with flowers, red campion, stichwort, buttercup, cow parsley, sorrel and primrose. The air now  would be filled with the scent of the sea and wild honeysuckle and a fresh breeze; Either side were fields of golden corn and newly cut hay bound and placed in little stooks each bundle leaning companionably against its neighbour. Rabbits tumbled into the safety of the grass verge and the hedge white tails bobbin and it was here that the yellow hammers and the whitethroats sang and the larks climbed into the azure blue sky. Soon the sea sparkled in the distance as the lane evened out and began to drop gently towards it. Tregantle Fort, Napoleonic stark and grim hugged the cliffs to the right where my father practised on the ranges in the first world war; a long path a series of steps led down to the beach below it. 

Sometimes if the tide was in, an alternative way to the beach had to be sought, a steep precipitous path that dropped off the edge of the cliff into seemingly empty air but once ones feet was safely on solid ground then it became less daunting, bramble and hawthorn proving a safety net as it twisted and teetered down to the sand and rocks below. Halfway down a cave was carved out of the rock and small indentations in the face of the cliff was thought to be where the wreckers of old placed their lamps to lure the sailing ships inshore and onto the jagged rocks. The beach here in those days that I recall was wide and empty even at the height of summer, perhaps a small group or two in the distance with their picnics. We would gather firewood from the tideline and soon the huge black kettle that my Uncle Arthur had carried down, filled with water from a spring that ran down the cliff would be boiling merrily and with a makeshift bat and wicket a game of cricket with my brothers and sister and uncle would commence, my parents joining and even sometimes my Aunt Mabel although she preferred to sit and read. Later after our picnic my father would bathe but my mother preferred the deep warm pools that had formed with the outgoing tide. Uncle Arthur his trousers rolled up to his knees would sit companionably with his wife a floppy hat pulled down over his eyes. As for the rest of us we would climb the huge rocks and explore the rock pools. The day was long and it was forever sunshine.