I stood near the gate of Fer Kernewek on Moonta Oval, admiring the two Clydesdale horses, patiently waiting for young folk and old folk to get on their wagon. I was looking at them and thinking how my blacksmith wheelwright Great Grandfather had put shoes on such horses and built wagons which their ancestors would draw in the fields. A man came up alongside me with his camera ready.
I commented to him that they were magnificent animals and he replied, with a marked Cornish accent,"We have them at home". "Where do you come from?", I asked and he pulled back his jacket to reveal a Kernow Choir monogram on his shirt. "Yes, but where in Cornwall?"
Photograph: Courtesy Yorke Peninsula Country Times
"From Polperro", he replied. I commented that he would therefore know the Crumplehorn Mill on the high ground up the hill from Polperro. That was where my Great Great Grandfather Richard Clogg had been a miller around the 1800 period. Space and Time suddenly vanished. He called out to his wife Evelyn and his choir colleague David and friend Mavis to hear the story.
 The Crumplehorn Inn today Once was The Crumplehorn Mill |
 The old Crumplehorn Mill Wheel today |
I asked his name and it was Dennis Julian. I told him that I had a maternal ancestor from north of St Austell and her surname had been Julyan. Not only that but my son's second given name was Julian. He explained that he did not live down in Polperro itself but on Kellow Farm on the high ground too. I knew that farm too!
 Talland Parish Church above Talland Bay |
 Cornwall Flag flies proudly from Talland Church Tower |
His friend turned out to be David Philp from East Looe. I said that we had better claim to be Cousin Jacks and Jennies because my blacksmith Great Grandfather James Caust had been born in East Looe, baptised at Talland Parish Church between Polperro and East Looe. Not only that but my Great Grandmother was the daughter Ann of miller Richard Clogg. She had also been baptised at Talland Church and they had been married at Morval Parish Church, just north of East Looe. They had emigrated to South Australia in 1838, lived in Adelaide and finally at Chain of Ponds in the Adelaide Hills. To cap the story off, the name Philp was well known to me as the innkeeper at the Chain of Ponds Morning Star Hotel had the surname Philp.
 Talland Bay from the Talland Church Yard |
 Chain of Ponds, South Australia The Morning Star Hotel (now demolished) |
The people around us were looking at us, surprised at the laughter and talk we were generating. But it all had to come to an end as they were called to get ready for their appearance in the Kernow Choir on the stage. I had to depart for my return home to New South Wales. As I was walking away into Moonta town, I could here the Copper Coast Mayor welcoming everyone and the Kernow Choir. I would that I could have waited until they had sung though it was not to be.
As a physicist by training, I do know something about Space and Time and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Time however had shrunk to bring two centuries of Cornish History down to a few minutes and Space had shrivelled a half world apart to a few metres!
If you would like accommodation there during a visit, their Web site has all the requisite information about email and postal addresses and a telephone number. Go to the West Kellow Farm Web site.
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