Posted by kate crosby on June 12, 2000 at 17:47:55 from spp-068176.cho.cstone.net:
In Reply to: Re: Falmouth posted by Peter Willis on June 10, 2000 at 23:25:16:
Hope Charles Pears is not too far off the AR track. He was quite a well-known Marine Artist, also illustrated books. I have a Masefield Saltwater Ballads illustrated by CP. I don't know much about the art world but he might be due for a 'revival' one of these days. He & his (second?) wife lived in a converted sail loft at Polvarth, round the corner from St. Mawes. They didn't sail together, they ecah had a battered ketch(?). One day CP took my father & me out in Wanderer, he made wonderful tea with condensed milk and the smell of paraffin, in the Helford River. Then we had a cracking good reach back across Carrick Roads, but when my father said how much he had enjoyed this, CP said he'd been worrying that the gear was going to carry away all the time!
I'd be interested to know more about CP - any other TARS have some of his art on their walls?
Apropos AR & Cornwall, I have been looking into this for a small note for the Cottage. It appears that the Swallows really did get there before AR himself! Hugh Brogan thinks the West Country was difficult for AR because Ivy & Tabitha were there. Miss Sidgland, Mrs Edith Ransome's companion, came from Ivybridge on the edge of Dartmoor, and she is thought to be the source of AR's West Country knowledge.