That first hitch hike down to Cornwall took just one day though all subsequent hitches up and down wer to take two. I arrived in Launceston and knew I had a 7 mile walk ahead. The lane to Trebullet is tiny and withou sign post so I wasn't wholly convinced of where I was heading. It was pitch black. The night there was always so clear; we would stay up all night watching meteor showers or the heat lightening that lights up the horizen. Once I found the house I felt safe. The smells were both strange yet like some long forgotten childhood conection. The Cottage was past Trebullet, down a narow hill where the roadside is banked high up with soil that is covered in wide varieties of wild plants and flowers that support an abundance of wild life. Ladybird glow worms speckle these at night with luminous green dots of light. Perched to the side looking out across the valley with a platform of a small untended garden fom where you could look out across the River Inny to the oakwood that spread in a vast mass. I moved down shortly after. We jokingly called it Leeds recovery centre. Here, no one took drugs but this didn't stop the police coming round 15 times in one year until we wrote a letter of complaint; no reply but no more police. Two occassions spring to mind. The electric meter took ten pence coins which we would feed it. Once full we borrowed the key, walked in to Launceston, changed it to notes in the bank and sent these to the landlord. I had, one time, changed the coins then walked two shops down to sit in a cafe. Four police came in and dragged me out. Sibyl, who I was with was sent to the cells whilst they drove me back to the cottage which they searched without a warant. After finding nothing they were pissed off and took me to the cells where I was brutally treated annd questioned about a series of robberies in a town I had never heard of. Finally they realised I was innocent and they grudgingly put me out.
Even Christmas eve was spoilt as I split wood to start the fire they arrived again.This time they said a tree had been taken from a nearby garden. I pointed out that the tree I had got fom some wodland, a mile away was a Larch, the stub he showed me was fom a Spruce. I took PC Turner up in to the woods to show him the stump. After our long walk back he was satisfied thugh non plussed as my freinds had decorrated his car with tinsel and paper chains.
I got my interest in wood here. The oak wood across the valley had many still standing dead oak trees seasoned and perfect firwood. Each morning I would cut one down and cut it in to three 7 foot lenghths about 8 inch diameter. Three journeys back through field and track with the logs on my shoulder. We had a backgarden where I used a bow saw to cut these in to burnable lengths the split them with a felling axe. The quallity of the matrial was incredible. English oak has a wonderful texture.
Salmon came up the river to spawn. Lizards and sloeworms, huge moths, buzzards circled overhead. In the summer our spring would run dry so we bathed in the river, carrying beer buckets of drinking water from a man down the lane and used buckets from the nearby stream to flush the toilet. Nature was my inspiration, new plants and animals I never knew before broadened my knowledge. I read voraciously. The Falklands war passed by unnoticed as we had no telly. A wonderful time of my life.
Ultimately, the loneliness and closeness to each other became too much. We all got to know each other too well. I left with Sibyl, returning to leeds. Aged 19.
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