Rainbow Journeyman’s diary

Travelling as a Journeyman can be interesting. As I think I have mentioned before, you can meet some very entertaining people when you travel as much as we do.

Just like the guy with his English family who was on tour from the colonies, Australia. We met him on the beach at Trebarwith Strand. Good looking fella, little grey on the top but bright with it and charming to talk too. But Australian.

Now I am not knocking Australia. Or Australians. It was my cousin Greg from Australia who told me… “The maker (what ever your belief) made a beautiful land under the Southern Cross. He made it green, fertile and full of wealth; tremendous natural resources and a surfers coastline to live for. After the maker gave it its final touch to finish what was already perfection, he looked at it and thought to himself that it was too perfect.
So he took it away from the appointed gardian keepers, the aborigines, and gave it to the Australians. And they have been wrecking it ever since.”

Whoa now! Before you start digging trenches, I have family out there somewhere. After they got off the prison ships…..

As I was saying this rather distinguished Gentleman had come from the Aus to see his Grandchildren. (His words). We met on a tricky piece of shaped rock full of holes (See Trebarwith Strand) and water bridges that needed us to grasp hands to pass each other. Or go walk about on water.
We chose the friendly bit. Poppy, our dog, thought we were nuts. Her fours legs offered ample grip for the occasion.
Passing that close involves some niceties and with two cameras slung round my neck I either had to be a fellow tourist or an eeejiot. I think that he settled for the latter. Anyway we got chatting about England and Australia. As a time served Aussie he was very complimentary about our heritage. He was also very interested in our Journeyman’s Diary as he felt that too many people spent more time burning up tarmac with fast cars and too few got out into the remains of our Heritage to take a real look at what we have left. He and I had a common bond although we had never met before. His and my ancestors had graced the hold of a prison ship and been transported to the colonies for minor misdemeanors. Mine stole a chicken, his a sheep. The Judge at Bodmin Court thought a boat trip and a holiday would improve their health. Many died waiting in Prison Hulks.

Now to me, and my hard working office-bound team, that is what Journeymen are all about. Meeting with history. It’s not the dates to fill the history books, 1066 and all that. That’s for purists and bores at dinner parties. It’s the people behind the dates. The real people, who’s hard won ambition under terrible conditions was to raise a few kids, dig a plot of land, live under a non-leaking roof; have a few beers (If that is your tipple) and live a long life for life itself.

Few of these people who built these landscapes that we have photographed did all of that. Life expectancy was too short. The Judges sentences for minor demeanors too harsh. The prison boats too handy.

Now what’s he at…I can almost hear you say it! (Or as some Devonians say “Where’s he too”) OK, you have a point but let’s look at the photographs that we have taken. Let’s look at Morwhellan Quay for starters. It didn’t just happen.

Would you build a jetty and a boat yard on a river that can walk through your land whenever it chooses? I don’t think so. So why build a processing plant and dig a deep hole in the valley to pull out mineral ore where it floods all too often?
At a guess, and I have to say it’s pretty shrewd guess we come back to the profits for the mines and a reverse cargo for their boats; Lime. Neat isn’t it. Products extracted from ore go out, lime comes back in, and someone made a profit. But it was the skills of the Journeymen who put it together. The guys who were paid in scrip that could only be cashed in at the company shops.

So trade grows and you repair a few ships as well, when they get bent. Ship worms bore holes in boat planking, and bumping into nasty sharp pieces of rock do make bigger holes, as you are aware. And you don’t nip down to Plymouth to get the odd plank welded into position, that’s too far away. It’s at least a day’s journey, there and back by boat - if you look out for the tides and the wind, longer. But you as an owner, you are a smart cookie, you have the staff captive, you now run an MOT yard for all river boats. Repair your own, and invite others in. And, as you have got the skills from these voluntary captive workers living in your tied cottages benefitting from your little enterprises, you knock together the odd sea going vessels. Make a few barrels for other trades. Run a foundry. ………….. But who does all this? Who left all these wonderful works of architecture around for us to see?

Why, people of course, your people, my people. (Before the excise men got them to travel in chains voluntarily of course to Australia for finding a little extra food to feed their children). Or the judges hung them!

Oh, without doubt there was a Lord or Master at the top of the pile, away in the big city looking after the affairs of the estate. But don’t give him/her a thought they took their profits then. Take time in your thinking while you look at this site and think of the craft skills that were developed.

Look at the Great Overshot Water Wheel at Morwhellan. Look at the solid built boat sheds and the craft trade shops, each built for their own profession. Feel the steel of the over head railways, horse drawn wagons feeding ore to the boats bumping and nurdling on the slip way below. Look at the huge Lime Kilns. The remains of the boilers and the rusting hauling gear. The Rail tracks running to the Jetties from deep in the mines.

Twasn’t the Jack me lad in London’s work who supplied the skill or the brains. It was Travelling Journeymen and skilled local craftsmen wot did it. And left us a Superb Heritage to see. Our “Jack-me-lad” in London was to too busy developing his jaw muscles and gambling the profits.

So while you look at these pictures and of others in our gallery remember… It was people from our heritage that dug the holes and cut the poles that staved the barrel and climbed the mast to build what lasts. Your heritage.

Enjoy the pictures. We enjoyed taking them.

Mike Tyrrell for Rainbowjourneyman South West.
Oh and if you want a short cut to our site. Try rjsw.co.uk