The light in St. Ives, so they say, is perfect for artists. I have a painting of the seafront and harbour over the fireplace in my sitting room, Barnwell station ‘s former waiting room. I bought the painting while riding and researching Cornish branch lines for RAIL magazine a dozen or more years ago. However, my acquaintance with the four-and-a-half miles branch line from St. Erth goes way back before that.
I ought to hate St.Ives. As a child, I cut my foot on the metal ‘blade’ of my spade while jumping on sandcastles on Porthminster beach. Seventy years on, I still have the scar. On another occasion I was the subject of an attempted abduction. In the crowded street I managed to give the guy the slip. However, none of that detracts from my love of the place, based on hours spent watching the trains arriving and departing from the station perched above the beach, and the occasional evening watching the Lifeboat practice.
One summer we must have stayed in accommodation at Carbis Bay because I remember the walk back over the headland and across the railway bridge. Strangely, I think we took
