Launceston ... by car ...twice

November 2025

My excuse is that there is no longer a train that stops in Launceston; another victim of the Beeching cuts back in the nineteen sixties. There is a small steam railway but it doesn't quite extend to Redruth ... However, the journeying in this instance was not as important as the place and the project.

Back in July I was invited to be a writer on a project called 'From the Horse's Mouth' led by o-region and Simon Harvey with lead writer Anna Maria Murphy. This was part of the company's research for their new show, based around a story by Michael Morpurgo, White Horse, which will be performed in March in Redruth. With two other writers, Jane Spurr and Roisin McCay-Hines, we all spent a day and half walking around the town, meeting and chatting with residents old and new. We were then commissioned to write stories in response to our encounters.

Over the years, I have spent quite a lot of time in Launceston with memorable encounters such as sitting in the poet Charles Causley's front room in Cyprus Well with former Kneehigh director Mike Shepherd discussing an up and coming performance of his poetry which developed into a glorious jewel of a celebration and sellout success. The Story Republic singing their way round the town and castle on Causley Festival days. Plotting an early years project with Sure Start in St Stephen's and meeting the initial director of the proposed Causley Trust in a tiny office, up a spiral staircase, above a bookshop. Not to mention the former poet laureate giving a talk and reading in the Town Hall but being so anxious about catching a train (not sure where from ...) that his mind was elsewhere despite his physical presence.

My perception of Launceston is brought to life by Causley and lines from his poetry, so for me the greatest delight was to walk round the town finding places from poems but also where he was born, played, lived and is buried. St Thomas Water by the River Kensey and St Thomas Church is such a pretty area, colonised by mallards, with an ancient pedestrian bridge, a blue plaque on a tiny white cottage marking his birthplace and another commemorating his 90th birthday. Causley was a schoolteacher in Launceston for much of his adult life. I met a man who had been his pupil and was convinced that the line in this poem came from his school outing to catch minnows.

By St Thomas Water

Where the river is thin

We looked for a jam-jar

To catch the quick fish in.

Causley is buried in the churchyard alongside many other citizens but also the unmarked graves of those who were hanged in Launceston Castle. Not surprisingly it is a place of ghosts and legends. To one side are the remains of the Priory that was there before the Reformation but I was told that a better way to see it was to 'look in the buildings around town ...'

I went back into town up Zig Zag, enjoying all the statuary built into the facades of buildings. They inserted themselves into one of my stories. In particular Mary Magdalene in her niche in the church, the young woman with the angel teaching her to play the lute and the two eagles outside the Eagle House Hotel which were said to have been made by Napoleonic prisoners of war. They also featured in Causley's poem Eagle One, Eagle Two

Eagle one, eagle two,

Standing on the wall,

Your wings a-spread are made of lead,

You never fly at all .

After a delightful meander through town, we spent the day in the library with great conversations, stories, memories, as well as being well-provisioned with snacks. After a final meet up in the town square, we went our separate ways to write.

Last week we re-grouped in Launceston Town Hall for an evening of our stories read by professional actors with a local audience, friends and family. I was with Tony and his sister Ursula who lives in Miami. We arrived early so I took them for a mooch round parts of town I knew they had never visited and showed them some places that might feature in my stories. It was a very different atmospheric experience walking around in the dark of early evening. We stopped for supper in Harvey's Bar where the barmaid could not have been more welcoming. It was a brilliant evening and finished with Roisin's story about the last train to Egloskerry and the passengers walking back into Launceston. I feel very honoured and proud to have been part of the project. I understand the stories from all the locations will be recorded and made accessible through a podcast. And one of my stories 'Mixed Voices' is to be made into a short film ... can't quite believe it!

All information will be on the o-region website https://o-region.co.uk

Keeping the link to Redruth alive ... The newly restored Buttermarket is now open for great food and drink https://www.buttermarket.org. And I note that their website features Redruth Station so the link is even stronger.