CORNISH DREAM
The story of this holiday begins right at the end of our previous trip, last year. Rose’s cousin Fran, to whom we had paid a flying visit while in Cornwall for the New Year, invited us to return for longer in summer. We were only too happy to oblige and by late February, all of us had got as far as booking some time off work in late July.
We all know what happened next. A certain pesky virus saw all non-essential travel prohibited, brought the entire hospitality industry to a standstill and meant that a planned weekend in the caravan for my birthday in April had to be abandoned.
The lockdown continued into May, and it started to seem possible that summer holidays might not be a feature of 2020. But in June, things began to look up, of course: restrictions on travel and social interaction were eased, until it was finally confirmed that campsites would be allowed to reopen from 4 July. Unthinkable as it had seemed a few weeks earlier, we would be able to take our summer holiday as we had planned.
Our first evening
We booked two sites, planning a week’s stay at each. A prompt start on Sunday morning saw us arrive at the first, East Crinnis Holiday Park, near St Austell, by early afternoon. The staff gave us a warm welcome, showed us to a beautiful pitch and advised that the nearest beach, Carlyon Bay, was a 20-minute walk.
With the sun blazing in a manner quite unsuited to a typical British summer, we lost little time in making our way along the cliff path. My swim in the sea turned out to be the first of many I would take in the coming two weeks, and the presence of a bar and pizza oven on the beach really was the icing on the cake.
Walking to a film set
The next morning, we had a look at a map and realised that if we were to walk past Carlyon Bay and continue along the cliff path for about another 20 minutes, we would arrive at Charlestown.
Built as a model Georgian ‘New Town’ at the end of the 18th century for the export of copper and china clay and the import of coal, Charlestown is named after its
