Tom Cottage’s lead lady has finally been persuaded: she’s sharing her antipodean adventure from 40 years ago. The solo expedition is a tale of many things, including an especially poignant realisation about Cornwall.
So over to Juliet: what makes a place special – the people or the place?
I need to tell the tale to answer the question, so here goes…
In my early 20s I had an open-ended ticket to New Zealand, a backpack and a contact in Auckland. Head of a farming organisation but a total stranger. Pre mobile/email era I left Tom’s Cottage on a cold January day and was waved off from Bodmin on the London train.
I knew I was going to be homesick, 2 years at agricultural college had taught me that. But I made a deal with myself: not to come home till I’d weathered the worst of it. Generally a dry-eyed sort, I silently wept most of the outward flight. Matters were probably intensified by the previous night’s send-off in London by an old flame. I’ve not drunk whiskey since.
I was met most warmly the other end and looked after handsomely. Passed between farming families spending up to a week with each, I travelled the length and breadth of both North and South Islands. It was the north of the South Island that really resonated – the place and the people.
The absolute best home-cooked Sunday roast: because it was the only one I’ve ever tasted as good as my mother’s. The weekender ‘batches’ (boat/bunk houses) of Marlborough Sounds, like a 1930s Camel Estuary where locals took a mini break.
Driving over sub-tropical hills into Nelson district – oh, the trees and birds! Swiftly followed by being legged-up into a random liming plane for a roller coaster ride, just because I’d commented ‘wow’ at its aerial acrobatics from the car.
Further south and Christchurch on a summer’s day – the only city I’ve felt at home in (think an underpopulated Oxford). The helicopter flight up Franz Josef glacier (another breakneck ride) and the salty porridge of Scottish descendants in Invercargill.
Somehow the people and their hospitality made it feel like Cornwall in a bygone age. The countryside varied and stunning, I marvelled in the sparseness of population. One particular family became my home from home. They subsequently made a couple of trips over to the UK and brought their campervan to Tom’s Cottage.
There were also some not-so-great moments: the domestic flight that rattled so hard the loo door fell off. Momentary silence preceeded an eruption of raucous laughter. And the uncomfortable taxi ride at 4.30 am when my youthful self eventually enquired ‘why do we keep passing airport signs without turning off?’
Only twice did I regret travelling alone: the first when lost in a strange town at dusk; but remembering my father’s advice I asked a policeman. He hailed a cab and sent me home to his wife for the night. She was more startled than me by the turn of events, but I made myself useful domestically.
The other instance happened in a seedy hostel with multiple bunks per room. A chap (with foot-rot, my nose swears) insisted his luck was in. I was saved by the heavenly timing of a gaggle of girls bursting in on the scene.
Crocodile Dundee was in cinemas and I had one compilation tape playing in my wonky Walkman: Reete Petite, Walk Like an Egyptian, Don’t Get Me Wrong and There Must Be An Angel are, to me, synonymous with that summer.
In Auckland I was taken to the opening game of the inaugural Rugby World Cup and came away with an All Blacks shirt. I went to the trots and the dogs. I regularly stood for the 2-minute silence in a particular RSA Club, to remember the fallen (every evening at 9pm, complete with bugler). The locals called me Arizona because it was easier than getting a grip on the Cornish being different from the English.
There was a month’s foray to Aus for a week at the Royal Sydney Show and 3 weeks up the Gold Coast. I only got as far as Byron Bay – the place I discovered early one Sunday morning. Stumbling off the overnight train with some other bleary-eyed backpackers, we were each given an Easter egg on arrival at the hostel. Oh, was it Easter? I phoned home, reversing the charges!
By previous standards, this place was gold-plated and even had an outdoor pool. A combination of the place and the people just jelled. Day trips into the interior - because someone knew somebody with a van - that led to roadside kiwi stalls (sublime fruit) under a canopy of eucalyptus trees. Discovering I was goofy-footed (surfing) and a fair-haired Californian, that both of us knew would never be seen again.
Back to New Zealand I went for a pre-arranged clerical job with that agricultural organisation – 2 months topping up funds. I settled to it well enough to receive a glowing reference but it wasn’t the cow milking jobs I’d loved while travelling the country’s farms, the sheep gathering, the rubbing along with earthy folk that moved with the seasons.
The sort whose bachelor son on an off-farm chucked his undies in the dishwasher ready for a night out with Young Farmers. The type that asked me on day 1 ‘you got a driving license?’ as they chucked me the pick-up keys; followed by: ‘grab your swimmers and take the farm student – the pair of you should see the Bay of Islands’.
New Zealand in the ‘80s had all of the Australasian can-do attitude, but struck me as mellower than its Australian neighbour. Maybe it’s climate-led, with a subtle knock-on amongst the people. If my Cornish roots weren’t so strong, I’d have stayed; and found a way to farm there. But was it the place or the people I found so enduring?
It’s the combination, and it took me nearly a year away to figure out. Finding a place that you truly love is rare, but to be totally happy I also needed loved ones around me. Because family, and the people I grew up with, are a part of me. People make a place.
With this realisation I released myself from that original deal – I could return to Cornwall. Without the Cornish tie I don’t think I would have used that return ticket. It was a very different flight home: I smiled the entire way. I was coming home, to the place and people I love.
Tom’s Cottage: it’s a special spot, still surrounded by the Tom family. We’ve preserved the ambiance that drew me home, so the enjoyable becomes extraordinary.
Tom’s Cottage Cornwall is available to book with Classic Cottages 013266 555 555
