Red-Coat
Gold Member
When I was a small kid, we would habitually set off as a family for a summer holiday in Cornwall, renting some self-catering accommodation at the seaside. My parents, brother, uncle, aunt and cousin in a disorganised rabble conveyed in a two-car convoy for an excursion that my uncle always referred to as “Muldoon’s Picnic” (after the music-hall act of the same name). Very much in pirate and smuggler territory, as reflected in the names of many of the small coves along the coast and the names of pubs in many of its ports.
At some point during the holiday, we would always find an old rum bottle with a cork stopper near where we were paddling on a beach. Inside would be a rolled-up treasure map with various pirate-related drawings such as skull & crossbones, mermaids, sea-monsters and such, plus an ‘X marks the spot’ with directions detailed in paces leading to a cave in the cliffs. Unbeknown to us the paper had been dipped in tea and baked in the oven to ‘antiquate’ it.
After a thrilling hunt and some digging with buckets and spades, what we would find was a pirate-like chest. It would be filled with shiny foil-covered chocolate coins, plastic gem-bead necklaces, small cloth sacks filled with gold nugget-shaped bubble-gum pieces and things like plastic crowns and tiaras, elasticated eye-patches, toy cutlasses, or cap-gun flintlock pistols. All lovingly assembled by my father and uncle from clandestine trips to the local toy and sweet-shops and secreted in the sand early in the morning before we were out of bed.
Both men are sadly long-departed, but those days live long in my memory.
[My uncle was a real-life smuggler! He was chief engineer on an oil tanker plying the Middle East and had naively agreed to deliver a small package to an address in London on behalf of a ‘colleague’ in Saudi Arabia. This wasn’t an era when drug-smuggling was common, but the package proved to contain several thousand pounds worth of gold watches when he was stopped by Customs. He got six months in Pentonville Prison. Not exactly considered a high-risk criminal, he was allowed out on day-release and used to pop home for lunch].
At some point during the holiday, we would always find an old rum bottle with a cork stopper near where we were paddling on a beach. Inside would be a rolled-up treasure map with various pirate-related drawings such as skull & crossbones, mermaids, sea-monsters and such, plus an ‘X marks the spot’ with directions detailed in paces leading to a cave in the cliffs. Unbeknown to us the paper had been dipped in tea and baked in the oven to ‘antiquate’ it.
After a thrilling hunt and some digging with buckets and spades, what we would find was a pirate-like chest. It would be filled with shiny foil-covered chocolate coins, plastic gem-bead necklaces, small cloth sacks filled with gold nugget-shaped bubble-gum pieces and things like plastic crowns and tiaras, elasticated eye-patches, toy cutlasses, or cap-gun flintlock pistols. All lovingly assembled by my father and uncle from clandestine trips to the local toy and sweet-shops and secreted in the sand early in the morning before we were out of bed.
Both men are sadly long-departed, but those days live long in my memory.
[My uncle was a real-life smuggler! He was chief engineer on an oil tanker plying the Middle East and had naively agreed to deliver a small package to an address in London on behalf of a ‘colleague’ in Saudi Arabia. This wasn’t an era when drug-smuggling was common, but the package proved to contain several thousand pounds worth of gold watches when he was stopped by Customs. He got six months in Pentonville Prison. Not exactly considered a high-risk criminal, he was allowed out on day-release and used to pop home for lunch].
