Everything you want to know about the history of St Agnes Parish
Stay up to date with what’s happening at St Agnes Museum – and look forward to what’s coming next!
St Agnes Museum is delighted to have bought at auction following the closure of the Shipwreck Museum at Charlestown a bronze port side rudder quadrant that was part of HM submarine E-43 which sank off St Agnes Head while under tow in November 1921.
This new artefact will be on show when the Museum reopens on 1 April 2025.
6 November 2024
Chairman, Roger Radcliffe, warmly welcomed Museum Stewards to their annual end of season Coffee Morning at the Museum on 6 November. He thanked them for coming and read some of the many appreciative comments in the Visitors’ Book. Among the suggestions Stewards had made were completing the Thomas’ Shaft Mine Model and raising the annual subscription.
Mike Furness, our Shop Manager, announced the top sales team as the Thursday Titans, who had sold £2309 worth of goods, with the runners up being the Wednesday Wonders with £1755. The runners up for sales per visitor were the Sunday Saints (£2.28) behind the Thursday Titans. The best Sales Day, stewarded by Clare Murton and John Oaksford, was Friday 27 September when an amazing £269 worth of goods was sold. Overall, 2420 individual items were sold in the shop.
The total taken through the till this year, including the online shop, was £13,865 compared to £10,678 last year.
Best sellers were Clive Benney books (£1671), followed by Blue Hills Tin (£1427) and Baileys Bodmin Pewter (£1231).
Roger Radcliffe commented that these were tremendous figures to achieve. He thanked Mike Furness, Stewards Rota Organiser, John Oaksford, and all the Stewards for their hard work and enthusiasm.
The Coffee Morning will be on Saturday 23 November from 10 to 12 in the Church Hall, Vicarage Road. There will be the usual stalls, a raffle,
cakes, the Museum Shop and Cornish books, and Members will be able to pay their subscriptions. A special feature will be a photo exhibition
by Clive Benney on “St Agnes Surf Life Saving Club – the first 30 years”. All are most welcome.
On a perfect spring day, so welcome after so much rain, St Agnes Museum held its Spring Coffee Morning on Saturday 20 April in the Church Hall.
Highlight of the morning was an exhibition of photographs by the late Ken Young arranged by Museum Vice Chairman, Clive Benney, who was also signing copies of his book “Ken Young’s St Agnes”.
Mike and Lyn Furness brought their Museum shop, full of interesting cards, books and gifts, Jan Davidson sold tempting homemade cakes and jams, Steve Roberts and Jackie Cotton manned the raffle, and Mary Wilson and family had children’s games. As Membership Secretary, Mary also took subscriptions. Diana Good Dixon and her team served coffee and biscuits to the visitors.
A total of £716 was raised for Museum funds, with the shop contributing a magnificent £390 and the raffle £123. We are grateful to everyone who supported us in any way.
Friday 12 April 2024
The Museum welcomed Phil Frampton, Activist, Journalist and author of “Golly in the Cupboard” to the Methodist Church Hall for a keenly anticipated talk on 12 April. The Hall was packed with an audience of 80 but the talk almost didn’t take place after the flight from Manchester to Newquay that Phil had been due to catch was cancelled. A coach was arranged instead which got Phil to the talk just in time having travelled 246 miles.
To raise funds, there was a raffle for which the main prize was a generous £50 voucher for Sunny Spice Indian restaurant and three prizes donated by Rosemundy House Hotel. A non-alcoholic bar provided refreshments run by Diana Good Dixon, Sue Amor and Susan Clayton. Shop Manager, Mike Furness, also brought copies of “Golly in the Cupboard” and Clive Benney’s book “The Secrets of Rosemundy House”.
Welcomed by Chairman, Roger Radcliffe, and after an opening film showing some of his campaigns, Phil spoke of his birth at Rosemundy in 1953 where he spent the first 3 months of his life. It was assumed that he could never be adopted as he was of mixed race. His African father was deported by the British Government simply for fathering him. After 6 months in a home at Instow he was brought up in Barnado’s Homes. His family became the other children and he found stability in the homes whereas he felt today’s children are often isolated. He never felt that he had love and the children’s education was neglected. He wanted to go to the local Secondary Modern School where they played football, not rugby, and would not have been separated from the other children, but won a place at Grammar School. He left the home aged 15, at 16 was living alone in a bedsit. He went on to Bristol University which he enjoyed. At this time he knew nothing of Rosemundy Home.
He wanted to make a difference in the world and set up a Gypsy site in Bristol. In 1993 he went into journalism and market research. He wrote travel guides. After 1997 children in care were able to access their records and in 2000 the Care Leavers’ Association was set up which still exists. “Golly in the Cupboard” won a radio award.
Phil continued to campaign and researched a programme on Rosemundy Home. He discovered that heavily pregnant women were marched in a crocodile to church, where they were often abused, that they scrubbed floors and did heavy work in the laundry. Their whole stay was designed to humiliate them. Mothers were locked in their dormitories while their babies were chosen by adoptive parents from their prams on the lawn. Phil felt there should be plaque in St Agnes commemorating the mothers and their babies. One Rosemundy mother, Lyn, spoke of her time at the Home, describing it as “wicked”. One “baby”, Peter, described his loving upbringing in his adoptive home with his Dutch mother and father.
Thanking Phil, Roger Radcliffe said it had been a “pretty emotional evening”. Afterwards, Phil signed copies of his book “Golly in the Cupboard”, pictured right.
Phil and Roger took part in a Radio Cornwall programme broadcast on the following Sunday morning.