1984 - 2007
Redcap, 16, Henver Road, Newquay
When I was posted to St. Mawgan, we had no intention of buying our own house and were allocated a four-bedroomed Married Quarter in Calshot Close, St. Columb Minor, Newquay. Virtually as soon as Maria saw it she wanted to go back to Cherry Willingham; as that was not an option we needed to find somewhere of our own. This proved to be a problem despite the fact that we had nothing to sell and had money for a deposit. The problem was the cost of housing in Cornwall. Our house in Cherry Willingham had sold for £28,000 but we could get nothing close to the correct specification in Newquay for that sort of money. A three-bedroomed bungalow was about £37,000 and the third bedrooms were not much more than box rooms. We then looked at older semi-detached properties with four bedrooms. They cost about £40,000 but had the advantage of being big enough for all of the family and with the possibility of letting out a room in the summer for Bed and Breakfast. We found one that we liked but which needed a lot of work to bring it up to date, however the elderly couple who owned it couldn’t make their minds up where they wanted to move to, then wanted extra money; at this time we started looking again. We had a budget of £40,000 but thought that we could stretch to £42,000 if we got exactly what we wanted. My word did we look at some rubbish. One of the Estate Agents said that we should look at Redcap but we said no because it was on the market for £44,750 and was too much for us. Anyway, we were persuaded to look and it was by far and away the best proposition that we had seen despite some very garish wallpaper schemes. After we dug our heels in on the price we agreed on £42,250 and moved in on 16th March 1984.
A brief description of the house is appropriate here. On the ground floor were an entrance hall, WC and wash basin, front lounge, rear lounge, small sun lounge, dining room and kitchen. On the first floor were four bedrooms, bathroom with WC and a separate WC. On the second floor was a large bedroom and walk in access to the attic and roof space. Outside was a single garage with wash basin and water heater; this converted into a bedroom in the Summer; attached to this was a brick built shed with WC compartment. Alongside that was an 8ft x 6ft wooden shed and also in the garden was an 8ft x 6ft greenhouse, in which grew a grape vine.
Because of the cost of the mortgage, we had accepted that using the house as a Bed and Breakfast establishment would be necessary to pay the bills. The previous owners had used it as such and each of the five bedrooms had its own wash basin. We decided that, unlike our predecessors, we would keep the main bedroom for ourselves. Previously the owners had slept outside in the converted garage and shed. Our children did sleep outside for the Summer months and appeared to quite enjoy it even though they had to come in for a bath or shower. One year we had an extra boy staying with us when a friend of Nick’s had a problem at home; he and Nick slept in Bunk Beds. This was Tim O’BRIEN, with whom Nick remains in regular contact. He was recently at a party to celebrate our Granddaughter’s 18th birthday.
All except one of the bedrooms were furnished and we had been left all the bedding for use as a guest house. The sheets turned out to be all nylon with the colours being garish shades of turquoise, orange and purple. (Does anyone remember ‘Brentford Nylons’?) Maria quickly got rid of those and replaced them with cotton. For the first time in our life we had a Dishwasher; the trouble was that the first time that we used it, the kitchen became flooded. The dishwasher immediately went to the local tip and was replaced.
The other problem that we had was that we had moved in with all the furniture from our four bedroomed house in Cherry Willingham and, as I have said, Redcap contained a lot of furniture. The walk-in attic proved very useful and very quickly filled up. Somehow Maria got the house ready to take guests and we opened for business.
We learned a lot very quickly that first year. Firstly, after making evening meals for a week, we decided that there was no future in that and became purely Bed & Breakfast, which was at a cost of £6 per person per night. I think that it was in that year that the mortgage rate went up to 15% briefly and how we survived I am not sure.
Over the years we made some very good friends of people who stayed with us but they probably don’t make for such good reading as some of those who are memorable for a variety of reasons. Some of those stories are as follows:
• We woke up one night to a terrible racket with doors banging and toilets flushing. When we investigated, we found a female guest sitting on a toilet moaning loudly. Further investigation showed that the room in which she was staying was covered in blood. We called for an ambulance and a doctor and whilst we waited, changed the bed and put all the sheets in the bath to soak. The ambulance crew arrived and whilst they were there, the doctor came. He declared that the girl had miscarried and that she was OK to go back to bed and rest. He then sent the ambulance away. Unfortunately she wasn’t OK and during the night haemorrhaged and lost a lot more blood. We rang the doctor who refused to come out but said to get her to the hospital at Redruth. The chap that she was with carried her to his car and drove to the hospital and we heard that she had lost so much blood that she nearly died. As she was carried out of the door, she was heard to say “don’t forget my fags”. She was in hospital for a few days and when she came back she insisted on staying some extra days to make up for those she had lost. Quite a character. She was not married to the lad she stayed with, nor was it his baby that she lost. One last comment on this story was that the carpet in the room they were in was stained with blood but when I tried to claim on my house insurance I was told it didn’t cover miscarriages!
• As I have said we only had one bath/shower and I needed to use that early before I went to work. One day I got up and the bathroom door was locked so I went downstairs and had my wash and shave and then tried again; it was still locked so I knocked but got no reply. Fearing the worst, I went outside, got my ladder up to the bathroom window, which fortunately was a sash window and open a little. When I pulled the window down there was a body on the floor. I shouted and the body moved, stood up, opened the door and wandered out back to bed. I have never been quite so relieved to see someone only asleep on a Bathroom Floor.
• I had gone to work one day, which happened to be the day of the St. Mawgan Air Day. We had some boys staying in Bedroom 5, which was on the second floor. They did not come down to breakfast and further investigation by Maria found that they had been sick all over the bedroom. They were swiftly ejected complaining that they wanted their money back. There was no chance of that, considering the state of the room. Fortunately Nick & Tim were around to help clear up the mess and I carried on with my Air Day duties in blissful ignorance.
• Bedroom 4 was a single room that was not used very often, however it had come in very handy for coach drivers from neighbouring hotels. Unfortunately we had one who drank too much and one night he wet the bed so badly that the fluid reached the floor! Maria threatened all sorts of dire consequences for him and he eventually paid for a new bed. Probably he should have been reported to his company because it seems likely that he wasn’t fit to drive in early mornings.
• We had one woman staying with us who acted rather oddly throughout her stay and when she and her husband or partner came down to book out, Maria noticed that one of our towels was sticking out of her bag. There was no attempt to hide it or deny that it was ours so it seems likely that she had a medical condition of some sort.
• We learned that renting rooms to single girls was not a great idea after we put four young girls in Bedroom 5. Trying to clean and sort out the room was the next thing to impossibility.
• We were woken up one night with the sound of flushing toilets and footsteps up and down the stairs to Room 5. Maria investigated and found that the two boys staying had found a couple of girls and were having a bit of a party. Even though everyone was fully clothed, Maria decided to throw them all out, however on reflection we got the girls to leave and the boys stayed until the morning before leaving.
These last two incidents and the one where sick was involved persuaded us that no matter how much we needed the money, we were going to be very much more selective about who we invited into our home.
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| 1989 - Burton-on-the-Wolds Ann & Mick MARTIN |
Two people that we got to know really well were Ann & Mick MARTIN from Burton-on-the-Wolds, near Loughborough. Over a number of years not only did they stay with us but we stayed with them and had a lot of meals out together. One of the memorable evenings was the night before they were due to go home after staying with us. We had a few drinks in our front room and then I found some homemade Raspberry Wine. Mick didn’t like this but Ann certainly did and she and I polished it off in short order. The following morning, Ann came down to breakfast looking rather the worse for wear and then decided, after breakfast, that she could not possibly travel that day and went back to bed, thus staying an extra day; fortunately we didn’t have that room booked for that night. On our way back from watching Nick’s Passing Out parade at RAF Swinderby, we stopped for the night at their house. Overnight there was a huge snowfall and power cut. As they had no gas, cooking was a bit of a problem. In the end, they found a barbecue and cooked some frozen Fish Fingers; in itself this was strange considering that there was a freezer full of all sorts including steak. I decided that it was worthwhile taking a drive out towards Nottingham in the hope of finding somewhere with power so that we could have a hot drink, but Mick and Ann decided to stay at home. As it happened, the roads outside of the village were not nearly so bad as might have been imagined so when we returned, I said that we were going to try and get home as I was due at work the following day. There was some discussion about the advisability of doing this but I made the decision and we left. Despite some ice most of the main roads were more or less clear and we arrived back in Newquay very late at night. When Maria spoke to Mick and Ann the following day they were very upset that we hadn’t let them know when we arrived home. It wouldn’t have been a problem these days because of being able to stay in contact at any time via the medium of mobile phones.
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| 1985 Annette TURNER in a Bin Liner |
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| 1986 - Maria TURNER |
Over the ensuing years we gradually became more selective with our guests and also decided to have a ‘No Smoking’ household. This did not appear to have any effect on the number of people staying and occasionally I would smell smoke on people’s clothes. When I reminded them that we were No Smoking, they said that they preferred it that way.
Also over the years, some improvements were made to the house and gardens. In 1986 we had the driveway covered in tarmac, which improved the look of it no end. Despite the fact that it was done fairly cheaply, it still looked good when we moved out 20 years later. The only problem we had with it was that about three months after having it done, the Gas Board came round and told us that we had to have a new Gas Main, which meant that they had to dig a hole halfway down the drive. Towards this hole they started a ‘mole’ digger so that the whole of the drive did not need digging up. Something went wrong with that and it went off course, and downwards, so that by the time it reached the hole it was about five feet down instead of two feet. Although the hole was recovered in tarmac, it was never quite the same and there was always a little depression that collected water. Before and after photos are shown.
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| 1986 - Redcap |
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| 1986 - Redcap with new Drive |
In two stages we had all the windows and doors replaced with PVC and the old front door we had fitted to the rear shed at the back of the garden.
A word about our neighbours at number 18 is appropriate here. The house was occupied by the SKINNER family. Jack, Ethel and Winnie were unmarried siblings. Jack died shortly after we moved in and although I didn’t have much to do with the sisters I used to cut their lawn and get Winnie’s car out of the garage. She could drive it straight in but there was a fairly long drive beside the house and she had terrible trouble reversing it out. I remember that the car was a brown Austin Allegro or, as they were known, ‘All Aggro’. In 1984 Winnie was 83 and Ethel 86. Ethel became ill and was taken into hospital never to return home until she died in 1988. Winnie lived by herself and one winter when it was particularly cold, the water pipes in her house froze and she moved in with us for a while until such time as I could organise a plumber to come and repair a number of leaks in the attic. After Ethel died, Winnie decided to sell up and move out. The least said about our new neighbours the better but the chapter on Moving House will give some idea of our final dealings with them.
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| 21st June 1999 - Eclipse Day |
On 21st June 1999, we did have a ‘once in a lifetime’ event in Cornwall , that being a Total Eclipse of the Sun. The day was eagerly anticipated but unfortunately the Cornish weather conspired against us and the day was a very disappointing climax. Nevertheless, when the eclipse did happen it was a very strange feeling that I am not clever enough to adequately describe. I did manage to take a photo but, sadly, it is an indifferent picture that does give a real indication of the event.
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