Welcome to Cornwall, where rugged landscapes are an artist's paradise,
and quaint, coastal villages are picture perfect.
I'm Caroline Quentin and I'm spending this summer meeting the people...
Great to meet you. What a fantastic spot. It's so beautiful here.
...and discovering the places...
Oh, what a view. Oh, Pete. It's absolutely lovely.
...that capture the true spirit of this treasured county.
So join me as I weave my way through the fabulous Cornish countryside
on a trip you won't want to miss.
From the crashing waves of the north...
Therapeutic qualities of living with the water and being by the sea is just amazing. Awesome.
...to the scenic south...
It's a magical place, it really is.
I look at it every day and I tell myself, 'Do not ever take this for granted'. It's beautiful.
...and out to the far, wild west.
Enjoy the views. I know I will.
Welcome to Cornwall. This is the north coast,
where there's some of the most rugged and beautiful scenery
you'll find anywhere in the world.
Now, the north coast is also famous for smugglers, because here there are coves
where they used to drop off from their ships and climb up onto the land,
and most notorious of all these smugglers was Cruel Coppinger.
He used to tie his wife to the bedstead, then call his mother-in-law in and say,
'I'm going to whip her to within an inch of her life, unless you give me money.'
What kind of a son-in-law's that?
More about smugglers and pirates in a minute but, coming up,
we'll be dropping in on the village of St Issey,
where one of the residents has a bout of stage fright.
Scared. Very, very scared. Ooh!
And I'll be lending a hand at one of Cornwall's best kept culinary secrets.
- Swizzle it round. This is looking good. - Oh! It's lovely this side, rubbish that side.
Another day has dawned bright and clear in the west Cornish village of Marazion.
It's a bank holiday but, for one of the residents, it's business as usual.
My name's Pete and I'm the liaison officer for St Michael's Mount.
I'm also the visitor service manager, which means I take care of the ticket office
and the ticket checkpoint, and what have you.
I do tour guiding throughout the winter and turn my hand to painting, anything that comes up.
I was fortunate enough to be born in Penzance.
I've always been able to see the Mount from my bedroom window.
We've moved to Marazion, the town here just opposite, and I've got no desire to leave.
It might sound like I haven't got aspirations
but, frankly, I think I live in paradise already, so I'm quite happy where I am.
Pete's paradise is one of Cornwall's most iconic landmarks
and the second-most visited attraction in the county.
When I was growing up, St Michael's Mount was a sort of iconic figure out in the bay.
Once I did end up working here, and having a life here, and getting married in the castle,
it was a dream come true, really.
I've never had a job where it's three modes of transport just to get to work,
when you live less than half a mile away.
- OK, Dave. - All right, mate.
But this is no ordinary day on the Mount. It's the busiest day of the year.
It's pirate day on the island today and there's a timetable of events,
including live music, Duelling Kazoos, there's a storyteller on the island.
Most of the staff you'll see will be dressed up as swashbuckling characters.
Hopefully, there'll be thousands of people here, and we're looking good for a cracking day.
Job number one is to put on some make-up and get pirated up, so see you directly.
There we go. Happy days.
And it certainly is happy days.
Pete has just become a father again and his family have come along to offer moral support.
My wife Lucy, these are my little girls Delilah and Tallulah - five weeks today.
Yeah, she's good as gold though, so...
She just threw up all over Lucy's pirate outfit.
But there's no time for a chat. The Mount is open for business,
and already the crowds are swarming in.
Welcome to St Michael's Mount. Enjoy your visit. Thank you.
Cornwall relies heavily on tourism, and rightly so.
It brings around £2 billion into the economy each year,
so Pete must shine to earn himself some gold treasure.
Ah-har!
- I'm a pirate as well. - You are a pirate. A piratey pirate.
He's good at this.
- He wants to know if you're a real pirate. - A real pirate? Of course I'm a real pirate.
What sort of question's that?
You get a kite. Look at that. That's a proper prize, that is.
That's for having an amazing outfit.
Pirate!
With the shift on the ticket desk complete, Pete now has to swap hats.
His first love might be this Mount, but he has a second passion
and he's about to unleash it on the crowds.
Jack and I, the bass player, both worked here on the islands, so we formed a duo,
and started doing a few gigs, and what have you.
Then Dave the drummer got a job here on the island and we formed the Slap Dash Trio.
But all that kit isn't going to come together on its own.
Abracadabra!
OK, skip, hit the power.
It's on now.
The thing I enjoy most about being in a band is playing live,
getting out and playing to a crowd, getting a good reaction from a crowd.
There's no buzz quite like it.
It's times like this that you can just relax and appreciate where you are
and your environment, and it's a peaceful place to be.
I think I got pretty lucky.
Well, that's another pirate day that seems to have been a huge success
and Pete's taken to the mic like a pro,
but there's much more to this Mount than pirates.
I'll be stepping onto the island for my own private tour later in the series.
Although for some, singing is a pleasing pastime,
elsewhere, there's an unlikely candidate gearing up for the performance of her life.
Where's Eddie? Let me find Eddie. Eddie!
Say hello, Eddie.
No, not Eddie, this is 18-year-old Lucy Babb,
a member of the fifth generation of a farming family in the north Cornish village of St Issey.
Can we get kisses?
Can we get kisses? Kisses.
Lucy grew up on the farm, but she's hoping to swap muddy boots for a microphone.
I love singing, I've always done it, ever since I was little.
I've got two different parts of my life, I've got the singing bit and then I've got the animal side.
Even though they're lovely, all the animals,
I'd rather just come out and give 'em a stroke and give 'em a pet.
It's a hard way of life, farming. Good boy. Good boy.
He's a beast, aren't you?
St Issey is a neighbourhood that, like many other villages,
has been struggling to revive the community spirit since the local Post Office closed down.
Now Lucy's doing her bit to bring the residents back together.
I love St Issey. It's lovely. It means absolutely everything to me and I love it to bits.
I'm Cornish, not English. That's the way it goes with me, I'm afraid.
Lucy has just started singing at the weekends
and, tonight, she's got a big gig in her local pub the Ring o'Bells.
She's expecting about 100 of the villagers to turn out.
I am excited. I do enjoy doing it and I love it, that's why I do it.
But, at the same time, very nervous.
I'm scared to muck up, I suppose.
It's not the biggest of pubs, but you can fit quite a lot of people in there.
And there's an added pressure too, Lucy is also a part-time barmaid,
so the regulars all know her well.
That's handy, as she's got lots to do and needs to rope some of the boys in to help her out.
These aren't heavy, they're just awkward.
Yeah, she's got these chaps right where she wants them.
Thank you. Lovely.
I think he's gonna drop down in a minute. Have a sip of your drink.
- Are you trying to kill off the village? - No, I'm not trying to kill off the village!
Right. Got to do a sound test, make sure everything sounds all right.
Men are useful for something.
He's gone across the road to his house to get me an extension lead. Lovely, isn't it?
That's what St Issey's like.
I don't want to force it. I don't want to break it.
I've got a left and a right socket for speakers, but which?
- That's left. - But it depends which way you look at it.
Hello. Ooh, echo.
Never mind tonight, she's putting on a right performance now.
Let's see if everything goes to plan later.
Now, over the years, folks have found many ingenious ways to make a living off this land.
There's china clay, Cornish stone, there's roasted coffee,
there's tea that's been grown here...
Most famous of all is the clotted cream
and one family - the Roddas - produce over 80 million dollops of cream every year.
And that's just for me.
So the Cornish know all about living off this beautiful countryside.
Just a few miles inland from the south Cornish coast, amid 15 rolling acres,
is the home of farmer Robert Hocking.
It's sort of away from the world. I always switch my phone off.
It's a nice place to relax and chill out and stop the world, that's what I think.
Stop the world.
With his son Harry, Robert runs Buttervilla,
growing some of the best produce in the country.
He grows on a small scale, concentrating his efforts on top quality and taste.
Oh, look, that's a beauty. It's got a real shine on it, hasn't it?
Boo-tiful.
Selling the very specialist stuff like we do, hunting out the old varieties,
then developing ways of actually growing the things so they taste amazing,
with dung and spring water and all that stuff, that, to me, is the future.
Robert has spent more than 20 years evolving methods of growing heirloom tomatoes
and, this summer, has produced over 14 different, unusual varieties.
Understandably, every tomato in the crop is precious.
To find the ripeness on a tomato, you just run your thumb over the surface, like that.
You don't bruise it, but what you can feel is you feel the skin just give a little bit.
Robert's award-winning tomatoes
end up on the plates of some of the best restaurants in the country.
Today, he's going to see exactly what the chefs can do with them - and just down the road.
There's an expression they use here in Cornwall,
the traffic means he'll be there "dreckly".
So this is what you meet in the back roads of Cornwall.
Tractors trimming up the hedges.
Most of us would be shouting by now, but that's just not the Cornish way.
If you got worried about tractors, I don't think you'd last very long.
You'd probably end up stressed out with a heart attack.
You've got to be chilled out and not worry about the odd tractor that's gonna slow you down.
20 minutes later and he's back on track.
And we're off.
Robert is bringing his beloved tomatoes to the team behind Jamie Oliver's restaurant Fifteen,
at the annual Port Eliot Literary Festival,
where they'll be served to a discerning crowd of book lovers.
The uglier a tomato looks, the better it tastes.
I mean, you can see, they're so ripe, they're ready to go. That's how we want them.
Robert's produce will be used to make a tomato and mozzarella salad with a pesto dressing.
See if we've done your tomatoes justice.
The cheese, the bit of vinegar, they sort of balance out the taste, don't they? That's lovely.
Look at that. Doesn't get much better than that. Mm.
It's a real buzz for us to give somebody some of our produce,
which we've been really inspired to grow, and get such good comments.
But it's not just the produce that Robert's proud of. It's his county too.
It's always a good day to be a Cornishman living and working in Cornwall.
We love it to death.
Where would you want to be anywhere better? Sun in my face.
The clean, blue air coming in off the ocean and fantastic surroundings like Port Eliot.
Heaven on earth.
Now that's one proud Cornishman... and who can blame him?
Elsewhere in the county, a young couple are realising their dream
of becoming established on the Cornish food scene,
but, here, it's rather more low-key.
Hidden by name, and hidden by nature on the Roseland's Porthcurnick beach,
Jemma and Simon are starting out a brand-new venture, running the Hidden Hut.
It's their first season and there's a lot at stake.
We've got a mortgage to pay, we've got, bills to pay. It can be really stressful.
It's essential for us that we do get a good summer, this first summer,
just so we can get some custom here.
But, so far, so good.
Since opening, they've transformed the place from an old bucket-and-spade shack
into a rustic pit stop for the hungry masses.
Jemma and her mum Maggie serve up sweet treats,
while Simon's pioneered the idea of evening feasts.
Well, it might be hidden, but I can sniff out a cupcake a mile off.
Great to meet you. What a fantastic spot.
- It's so beautiful here. - It's lovely, isn't it?
- Can I come and have a look round? - Yeah, please do.
My timing is perfect, because Simon's got a sardine supper to prepare.
- I'll help you do the sardines for tonight, is it? - Yeah.
Fantastic. I've got a few here for you to be getting on with.
- How many have you got to do for tonight? - There's only 400.
- OK. Right, I'll do four. OK? - OK. Perfect.
- So, scrape the scales off. - That's it. Lovely.
- So chop its head off. - That's it.
- Right, and then just at the angle... - And then do that that way?
- That sort of angle? - Super, right the way through.
And then just scrape out the insides, just with the corner of the knife. Natural.
- Beautiful. - Absolute natural.
I've been called a fishwife on many occasions.
You haven't always lived here? You're not a Cornish man, are you?
No, I moved down from just outside of Guildford.
From a chef's point of view, I fell in love with the produce and the area and where we are
and then I met Jem and we've been here since, really.
So you fell in love with the food, then with your wife.
Jemma, that's right. It was that way round.
I admire your style.
It's not difficult to see why Simon fell in love with this place, but surely life can't be this rosy.
- You run this day to day, don't you? - I do, so it's his dream, and I'm living it.
Odd that, isn't it? Funny how that works out.
Do you find it stressful, putting that into practice?
It's a lovely idea and we all may dream of running a place like this
- but, in reality, there must be pressures. - It is. It is really stressful, actually.
We're still trying new things
and August has been like a different business altogether, cos it's so much busier.
Here, the Cornish Riviera has taken inspiration from the French,
and I've always fancied trying my hand at making a crêpe.
Don't put lemon juice on, that's a similar bottle.
- Have you done that? - I've given somebody an oil and sugar crêpe.
- Good. So a ladleful? - A good ladle, yeah.
- That's it. - So, ooh, now.
- Swizzle it round. This is looking good. - Oh! It's lovely this side, rubbish that side.
- No-one will ever know. - There's a big queue building up,
because the telly person makes a bad job of the pancake.
- Do you reckon that's ready to turn over? - Yeah, that's looking...
- You sort of fold... That's it, take it on one side. - Yeah. Ooh.
Gosh. Do you know, she's a professional?
Do you know, I reckon I've got a gig here.
I can do the sardines, I'm more than happy to help Simon with the fish.
I could do... I could just do crêpes all day, to take the pressure off you.
Who would like this one? Would you like a free crêpe?
- Why not? - Go on, darling.
- A Caroline Quentin special. - Listen, angel drawers, I hope you enjoy this.
- Thank you. - You're so welcome, darling.
You can stay and buy what you wanted to buy as well, bless you, you don't have to go away.
I've finished mucking about. Oh, you darling boy. Oh, well, thank you.
- Aw. - Oh, this is the life.
I really am tempted to make myself a permanent fixture here.
This couple actually are living the dream.
Back to the village of St Issey now,
where farm girl and village barmaid Lucy Babb is getting ready for a big night.
A budding singer, she's doing her bit for the community spirit,
and going to be performing in front of dozens of people tonight at the Ring o'Bells pub.
When I get back home, and when I start getting changed,
and going up to the pub, it's gonna dawn on me,
'Oh, dear, it's half an hour until I start singing in front of a pub full of people.'
I don't know anyone out of the village that's not coming
cos everyone's, like, so tight and close community,
one person hears about it, everyone hears about it.
They all said that they're gonna come over,
so it should be a good night with a lot of local people having a good laugh.
Lucy's hoping she'll be among friends, if they turn up,
but that doesn't stop the nerves from kicking in.
Absolutely terrified, to be fair. I've just gone home and got changed and sat down.
I didn't want to get in my car come up the road. I'm absolutely petrified.
I can't do it, but I'm going to, but I'm absolutely petrified.
Scared. Very, very scared. Ooh!
As the pub begins to fill up,
it seems like plenty of the regular faces are hoping for an entertaining evening.
Ooh, I feel quite nervous for you, Lucy. Stage fright, it's a terrible thing.
Good evening, everyone.
I'm pretty nervous, so a lot of clapping and shouting and support is very necessary, please.
People who don't know me, which is about three in here,
I'm Lucy Babb, I'm singing tonight.
At last, Lucy's big moment is here.
♪ Make You Feel My Love
♪ When the rain is blowing in your face
♪ And the whole world is on your case
♪ I can offer you a warm embrace
♪ To make you feel my love
Oh, it's just lovely to see someone grow and be part of their lives,
and then them giving back to the village as well.
I think she's doing really, really well, so we're all very proud of her.
♪ I know you haven't made your mind up yet
She's wowed the crowd and, hang on, is that a little tear I can see?
♪ But I would never do you wrong
This community is more than alive. It's got a huge heart that's throbbing away.
There's nothing quite like a knees-up at the village pub.
These locals really are determined to show their support.
As for Lucy, well done, girl.
Today, St Issey. Tomorrow...well, back to work.
These villagers are a thirsty bunch.
Another good day of living in Cornwall. Amazing.
Couldn't have done it anywhere else.
♪ To make you feel my love
Ripped & Corrected By mstoll March 2017
Ripped & Corrected By mstoll Released on www.Addic7ed.com