Allow me to Reminisce

An incident occurred the other day that has prompted me to write this post and it brings up memories that i will never forget and treasure forever so....

So, the other day I was sat at a set of traffic lights and i notice in my rear view mirror that the driver and passenger of the car behind me are looking at the rear of my car laughing and chatting about something. I didn't really think much of it until the passenger then takes a picture of the rear of my car. Realisation hits me and I remember what I have on the back windscreen of my car. This window sticker....

Mystery solved!

Now Fat Willy's Surf Shack is a retro lifestyle clothing store dealing in beachwear, hoodies, T-shirts and more and is based in South West England. Now if you have never been down to Cornwall or Devon more likely than not, you will never have heard of this store/brand. I believe I first came across it as a child back at the end of the 80s and early 90s and when I see this logo it reminds me of all the great times i had down in Cornwall on family holidays. Hence this post, so let me continue...

Cornwall

Cornwall is the end of the "leg" of England and is a place that enjoys some of the best weather in the UK due to being the most southerly point and is a place with some great tourist attractions, quaint fishing villages, crafty shops, beautiful scenery, amazing beaches and some of the best places to surf without hopping on a plane.

It is almost another country as it has its own flag and language which is similar to Gaelic and Welsh. Now from my current location is is about 360 miles to Helston located in the "ankle" as I always put it, so its not really a day trip location but for a week or longer it is well worth the trip.

I know nowadays going abroad with the family for a summer vacation is the norm, however as a child with two sisters going abroad was not really an option for my parents and it is something we never begrudged them for, in fact it is something we were and still are eternally grateful for. Not everyone get the chance or opportunity or can even afford to take their families on holiday. So really we were the lucky ones. We got two whole weeks to spend with both our Mum and Dad, go to the beach, go to places we hadn't been before and all the places that we had and loved.

Now when we stayed in Cornwall it was in two locations, a large campsite outside Wadebridge that had the feel of an old military base or airport and a family friend's farm just outside of Helston. On the Friday night of the start of our holiday we would pack up the trailer and roof box of my Dad's car and then about 11pm we would all pile into the car. The backseat off the car was folded down and us three kids would lie down and sleep through the journey, mostly. I would wake often and like to sit up backwards watching the other cars and landscape in the darkness and I think that is where I get my love of travelling at night from. Over the course of the night my parents would swap places so the other could rest and then we would stop at about 4am or so at a service station where we could see the Severn Bridge for a quick refreshment and toilet break. Now I know travelling 360 miles should only take about 6 hours or so but the roads in the UK are nothing like the roads inn the USA where they are virtually straight, plus we would go during the last two weeks of the summer vacation which were often the hottest and busiest. A few hours later we would stop at a roadside restaurant called Little Chef for breakfast.

Now there used to be a time when these restaurants where everywhere but over the years a lot of these closed down, but don't worry there are still some around. We loved coming here as kids as the food was tasty and plentiful and when finished there was a free lollipop for the kids from the cashier. The restaurants had a cosy feel with plenty of wood veneer and red gingham.
Another hour of two later and we would be at our destination and then came the trial of setting up the tents and unpacking.

Now over the course of our vacation we would visit numerous towns and villages, the beach virtually every other day and some of the more touristy places that Cornwall had to offer such as the old tin mines and other National Trust Locations. I have chosen a couple of locations to write about here mainly due to these places having stronger memories attached and maybe also these were places we visited more often.

So let's continue..

Newquay

One of our favourite places to visit was the seaside town of Newquay, home to some of the best waves in the UK. I can always remember that we would park in a car park close to the centre of the town outside an attraction called the "Tunnels of Time" which was home to all the myths and legends of this area of the UK, including stories of dragons, giants and the fabled King Arthur. From here we would walk down one side of the high street going in and out of shops, some normal, some crafty and some that i would describe then as weird and wonderful and now as holistic in nature. We would stop at a place called Pauline's which was a cake store downstairs and a cafe upstairs for cheesecake and a milkshake. After our Elevenses, our explorations would continue finishing one end of the high street and then back down toward the car where we would have a picnic in the car. Much better than it sounds to be honest and then back out to it!

And at the exit of the car park was this place. Fat Willy's Surf Shack. Every year we came here I would get a t-shirt. even till only a couple of years ago as my parents would still holiday down there after us kids stopped going. This was a place unlike any of the other clothing stores and I think it was the logo and colours that attracted me to it. Ok and maybe the name too as it is a little silly.

Photograph by Pennie McCracken

On days when we didn't have to wear our school uniforms I would often wear a Fat Willy's t-shirt or sweatshirt and some kids would ridicule me due to it having "Willy" on it and some would ask me about it. The ridiculing was more pronounced in my teen years, but it never bothered me because it was a cool brand and I loved the clothes and no-one was going to change my mind.

The Newquay store was the Original store opened in 1985 and has even recently had a bit of refurbishment but keeps the same feel and clothing as they always had. Now, its not cheap, £20 for a t-shirt and £40 for a hoodie, but its not an item you would be buying all the time. But i digress...

We would continue on to the other side of the high street browsing through all the stores until we reached the end and then work our way back to the car and on to the next location we always visited after Newquay, without exception!

Padstow

Now this was our favourite place in Cornwall. We would either eat at a Little Chef outside the town or at one of the pubs in the centre while exploring. You park down at the quayside in what would have been the old loading and offloading areas as it was and still is a working fishing port. As you walk down to the town, you pass these old storage sheds that instead of storing the catch of the day, now contain fishmongers with pools of live crabs and lobsters and huge counters of fresh fish, prawn and shrimp. So with a pot of fresh prawns in hand and a toothpick we would walk into the main harbour area. Padstow at the age we were was a wonderful place place full of touristy shops, leather working workshops, "holistic" shops, and homemade fudge shops (made with real Cornish Clotted Cream, yum!), and all the shops were open late, a thing unheard of to us back then! We would walk around the place eating ice cream, looking at the trinkets, getting belts made, buying a new wallet or purse, crab fishing of the side of the dock and more. When it got to 10 or 11pm we would then leave this amazing place and make our way home to our campsite with dreams of the beach the next day, which leads me on to.....

Praa Sands

This beach is gorgeous! Simple as. This mile long beach is located between Penzance and Helston on the "sole" of the foot of Cornwall. South facing, you get the sun all day long with a cool breeze off the Atlantic Ocean and is a popular place for holiday makers and surfers alike. In the middle of the beach is a cafe and store for all your beach needs along with a store for rental of wetsuits and boards. We would often spend all day here surrounded by windbreakers securing our little piece of beach sunbathing while my Dad sat under his parasol (you wouldn't believe it if you saw the colour of him now) until it got too cold as the sun started going down.

The beach was soft warm sand and little to no trash for a public beach. The waters were warm (British "warm") and crystal clear, one of my favourite things to do was snorkel and dive down to the ocean floor. Admittedly there was no corals or forests of seaweed but there was the occasional fish and plenty of shells to investigate. Being fair skinned I would always get sunburned without fail regardless of the mountains of sunscreen I would put on, or should I say have put on me.

 Portleven

In the evenings we would often spend time in the harbour town of Portleven visiting all the craft shops, getting ice cream from a store called "Nauti but Ice", taking in the views and often there were faires and markets to peruse too.

I remember one year visiting and there was a prop car from the Sylvester Stallone Judge Dread film, though unlike this picture the one I saw was black with silver and pink decals.

You may even remember from a couple of years ago when a hurricane came close to the UK and waves battered our coastal villages. This is one of the pictures taken and shown on the BBC News that shows the ferocity of the waves caused by that storm.

St Ives

Last but not least we have the town of St Ives. Yup another coastal harbour town. Now this place has its own unique memories. You maybe able to see in the picture above a rather large car park. This town has a park and ride scheme were essentially you parked just outside of town on top of a hill and took a bus down to the town proper. Like many small coastal towns, St Ives while having some wide streets, mostly it has narrow streets lined with 3 storey building where people and storefronts flow out onto the street, but without the feeling of claustrophobia. Being on a hill the streets are rarely level and its all downhill to the water.

Down at the harbour we used to get subs made and walk along the quayside. One year i even got attacked by a Seagull trying to steal my sandwich. It got half and I got a scratch along the back of my ear. While we would visit a couple of times during our two weeks vacation, we would always visit St Ives on the same day as the Radio One Road Show without fail. When they used to do Road Shows. You could hear the music and the crowd all the town, it was quite the event.

The last time I visited Cornwall with my parents was back in the year 2000, and I wouldn't visit again until 2009 when I took a camping holiday and unknowingly stayed at an 18 to 30s campsite outside of Newquay. In all honesty, for the majority of all the places we visited as children nothing had changed. There were some new stores, updated store fronts and the like. But I did for the first time get to experience the nighttime scene of Newquay as an adult and visit the bars and clubs.

However Padstow had changed quite a bit, Rick Stein (TV Chef) had opened a restaurant there and I can remember seeing the queue for the take-out part stretching out for about 100 yards. Sadly a lot of the weird and wonderful stores and craft stores had closed down and had now become bars and cafes. The place appeared to have become swamped with bars and cafes. I wandered round, bought fudge and ice cream and had a pub dinner. However where we used to spend all evening here, now i lasted around 2 hours. For me place had changed and no longer had the same feel I got as a child. Not being much of a drinker I feel the influx of bars changed the atmosphere for me, however do not let my displeasure dissuade you from visiting, minus the drinking the place is still a beautiful quaint touristy village with much to offer new visitors.

So.... I hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane and if you stuck to the end I'm grateful you did.

As always, add a comment down below with any of your memories or thoughts and I'll catch you later!

https://www.visitcornwall.com/

https://www.fatwillyssurfshack.co.uk/

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/days-out/regionsouthwest/cornwall#

https://www.cornwalls.co.uk/Praa-Sands



Here's a Cornish Pasty for your trouble!