A-Z Challenge 2017 - Houses, some real, some not - 'J'

J - Jamaica Inn

Jamaica Inn

Jamaica Inn, in the middle of Bodmin Moor was built as a staging post for changing horses for stagecoaches crossing the moor.

It was made famous by Daphne du Maurier in the fourth of her novels. Jamaica Inn told the story of Cornish wreckers led by a parson.

On a winters night in 1930 stayed at the Inn with her friend Foy, the daughter of Sir Arthur Quiller Couch.

While they were  there they went riding on Bodmin Moor. Finding themselves lost in bad weather they apparently sheltered for some time in a derelict cottage on the moor being eventually led back to Jamaica Inn by their horses. 

During that stay at Jamaica Inn Daphne also met and talked to the parson from the nearby church at Altarnun. 

Her story tells the tale of Mary, an orphan who goes to live with her Aunt Patience and Uncle Joss Merlyn, the terrifying landlord of Jamaica Inn and the mystery surrounding her uncle’s business - smuggling along the Cornish coast.

Today Jamaica Inn is both a pub and a museum, alongside the A30

Hitchcock's 1939 film of Jamaica Inn had its ending altered due to restrictions of the American Hays Production Code - the leader of the wreckers could not be seen as a man of the cloth and was changed to the local squire.

Daphne did not appreciate the changes.

Recently Jamaica Inn was made into a BBC TV series, ruined for me and hundreds of viewers by mumbling, inaudible  dialogue.

Drink up! - Thematic Photography

The theme this week is drink up, celebrating any form of consumable liquid, and a theme that can be interpreted in many different ways.

This summer in the UK has not given us many chances to sit out and celebrate in the sun so there has only been the odd day like this.

A Half Empty Glass

Or is it half full?

One of my favourite books begins with the line, "It was a cold grey day in November." - the day that Daphne du Maurier's heroine, Mary Yellan, arrived here.

Cornwall's Jamaica Inn

For one reason or another it's several years since I had an alcoholic drink but not so long ago as when this source of water was in everyday use.

Stocks Hill monument, Ketton

The monument at Ketton, the village where I grew up, was erected including the cold water tap to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897. Forty years later I was born in a house a stone's throw from Stocks Hills. The only water available twenty years after that was still from a cold water tap on the outside of the house.

Many years later with two children as well the opportunity came to drink up something stronger abroad.

Who's been in the sun

You should be able to date this pair in the process of drinking up from the size of those shoulder pads.

Eat your heart out, Sue Ellen

Just occasionally I managed to get in on the act too, when home from Norway for Christmas.

Brandy, Sir?

They say you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink - not true in this case at least.

Police horses - Rochester, Michigan

There really is only one way to finish this post.

So grab your glass and go over to Thematic-photographic-217-drink-up

A Cornish Interlude

While in Cornwall earlier this month we visited the city of Truro where I’m pleased to say we avoided the shops.Inside the cathedral we found this painting which shows an aerial view of the county:

Cornubia -Land of the Saints (John Miller)

You cannot fail to be impressed by the city’s beautiful cathedral, of which more in later posts. It’s very difficult to get a picture of the cathedral’s exterior as it is surrounded by buildings. I did my best, but this model from inside the cathedral itself was the only ‘complete’ view I managed.

Truro Cathedral model

While we were there it was also time for the annual Daphne du Maurier festival at Fowey. Inside Truro Cathedral I found this memorial plaque to ‘Q,’ Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch .

Memorial Plaque - Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (Q)

In 1930 Daphne, and Q’s daughter, Foy spent the night at an inn on Bodmin Moor; that visit and her meeting with the white-haired vicar of Altarnun inspired Daphne to write ‘Jamaica Inn.’

The Daphne and Quiller-Couch connection goes further. Daphne spent the last years of her life in a house call Kilmarth. From the picture windows of the house it was possible to see the sea and onwards beyond towards Frenchman’s Creek. Daphne wrote, a few years after ‘Jamaica Inn,’ what she called her only truly romantic novel. Its title ‘Frenchman’s Creek’ – a title previously used by ‘Q’.

The link continued after Q’s death when Foy asked Daphne to finish Castle Dor, a book started by her father.

Fowey

A-Z Challenge – ‘F’

I went to Fowey in Cornwall for the first time after my son moved there to live. In May 2007, not only was it my 70^th birthday but it was also the time of the Daphne du Maurier Festival which celebrated the centenary of her birth.

I had read several of her books, including Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, but otherwise was fairly ignorant about her connection with Fowey. I finished up writing an article on her life as an assignment on a creative writing course.

 Ferryside

At Fowey I could see first hand the house Ferryside where Daphne wrote her first novel, The Loving Spirit. Daphne was inspired to write the book after discovering the wreck of the schooner Jane Slade in Pont Creek. The Slade family were shipbuilders in the village of Polruan which lies across the estuary from Fowey. The figurehead from the schooner was added to the house later.

The opening of Rebecca, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” is world famous. The fictional Manderley was based on a house near Peterborough and what Daphne called her ‘house of secrets’, Menabilly, the home of the Rashleigh family just outside Fowey. Daphne was to move into Menabilly and wrote many of her books there, but not Rebecca. 

 Menabilly

In 1943 Daphne lived at Readymoney in Fowey after Ferryside had been requisitioned as a naval HQ. The gardens of the cottage at Readymoney Cove are open to the public on occasions. The house carries a plaque recording Daphne’s time there.

Readymoney

St Catherine’s Castle stands on the point to the seaward side of Readymoney Cove and used to guard the entry to the estuary. The Fowey estuary was one of the deepwater harbours from which American troops departed for the D-Day landings in 1944. 

 St Catherine's Castle

Container ships and large cruise ships now visit Fowey and it’s a haven for boating enthusiasts; if you wish you can have a trip in a little steamboat.