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We were living at Mount View by now and my father had left the mine and was working for a Mrs Pearce at Nancedan Farm close by. It was quite a large house on the top of a hill. It was very wild and lonely but Bill and I liked the open spaces and Father could keep quite a few poultry.
Farmers for miles around would remove the fish offal from Newlyn fish market to manure the soil and one day Father was going for a load with a horse and cart, I had not yet started school ( must have been four and a bit) and I wanted to go with him, of course this was not on ( smelly stuff) but some how I managed to escape and ran after him, I kept the cart in sight for over 2 miles when he chanced to look back and saw me of course he had no option but to take me along with him. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip, but just imagine mother’s feelings, for Newlyn was quite seven miles distant, and the heavy drag- horse only walked, we must have been absent at least five hours, and there was no way of letting her know where her dear little Jack was.

At the age of five I started school at Ludgvan Church Town. It was quite a walk for a five year old about a mile and a half across country. There were no other children, not even brother Bill, for he was very delicate, having had Rheumatic fever and therefore scarcely attended school. (I can’t ever remember him going) Bill’s task was to watch me cross a rather deep stream by a plank bridge with an iron rail on one side, from the top of the hill a quarter of a mile away. What would happen if I fell I don’t know, I guess he would run back and tell mother. I would have lunch at Grandmother’s, cooked by her youngest sister Catherine, often fried spuds and an egg which I would drop in on the way to school in the morning. I remember on one occasion I forgot to take the eggs out of my pocket. You can guess what happened to the ‘hen fruit’ and I had to make a mad dash down to Aunt Catherine’s for a quick clean up.