Trebetherick

We used to picnic where the thrift
Grew deep and tufted to the edge;
We saw the yellow foam flakes drift
In trembling sponges on the ledge
Below us, till the wind would lift
Them up the cliff and o’er the hedge.
Sand in the sandwiches, wasps in the tea,
Sun on our bathing dresses heavy with the wet,
Squelch of the bladder-wrack waiting for the sea,
Fleas around the tamarisk, an early cigarette.

From where the coastguard houses stood
One used to see below the hill,
The lichened branches of a wood
In summer silver cool and still;
And there the Shade of Evil could
Stretch out at us from Shilla Mill.
Thick with sloe and blackberry, uneven in the light,
Lonely round the hedge, the heavy meadow was remote,
The oldest part of Cornwall was the wood as black as night,
And the pheasant and the rabbit lay torn open at the throat.

But when a storm was at its height,
And feathery slate was black in rain,
And tamarisks were hung with light
And golden sand was brown again,
Spring tide and blizzard would unite
And sea come flooding up the lane.
Waves full of treasure then were roaring up the beach,
Ropes round our mackintoshes, waders warm and dry,
We waited for the wreckage to come swirling into reach,
Ralph, Vasey, Alistair, Biddy, John and I.

Then roller into roller curled
And thundered down the rocky bay,
And we were in a water world
Of rain and blizzard, sea and spray,
And one against the other hurled
We struggled round to Greenaway.
Blesséd be St Enodoc, blesséd be the wave,
Blesséd be the springy turf, we pray, pray to thee

Ask for our children all happy days you gave
To Ralph, Vasey, Alistair, Biddy, John and me.

"Old Lights for New Chancels" (1940) by John Betjeman

Other Local Literary Links

Another poet, Laurence Binyon wrote the Remembrance Day ode “For the Fallen” in 1914 while sitting on The Rumps, Polzeath or "Polseath" as it was then called, during World War I.

The authoress Joolz Denby lived in a caravan in Polzeath for a year while researching her novel Borrowed Light in February 2006. The novel is largely set in Polzeath, though the town's name is changed to Polwenna to allow some artistic licence with locations and buildings.

The cartoonist Posy Simmonds created a fictitious place in Cornwall called Tresoddit. When the BBC made the short film "Tresoddit for Easter" in 1991, it was filmed in and around Polzeath.