Coming together in St Agnes, Cornwall

Picture this:

You are standing on a hillside looking down at St Agnes beach. The air is a pleasant temperature as the late Spring evening approaches. The last of the sun’s rays are catching the rocks that sweep up, encircling the Cornish cove below, turning them golden.

Two helicopters are in the air, their loud roar fading as they head away. Navy or airforce perhaps - something military. It seems like they’re doing drills of some sort.

You take a breath and look down at the photograph in your hand. It is a 6x4” print of the same view, taken many years ago. The light is so similar - it must have been taken at the same time of day. In the photo the rocks and cliffs on the opposite side of the beach are more intact. Looking across now, it’s amazing how much they’ve receded.

This is how you would have known St Agnes, as a young boy when you first started coming here on holiday.

60 years later, you still come here on holiday most years, bringing your family back to the place your grandfather took you.

These days you spend them rock-pooling and building sandcastles with your great-granddaughters. It’s amazing how much has changed, and how much is still the same.

Family is everything, especially now, and you feel so blessed to have yours around you. Everyone lives in different parts of the country now, so it’s a really special occasion to all be together.

This is what St Agnes in Cornwall means to you. Coming here is a tradition that keeps you bound and in touch with who you’ve been through your whole life.

Keep it going

In a world so full of change it was wonderful to be reminded of the value of tradition during a recent extended family photoshoot at St Agnes, Cornwall.

If your family has traditions, embrace them for what they are - a way to keep a common thread running through all the years that pass.

If you don’t come from a family that has many traditions, perhaps you could start a new one!

It doesn’t have to be as logistically challenging as having an extended family holiday, but any kind of intentional and regular contact or gathering (virtual or in-person) is precious.

A tradition I had with my grandparents was that whenever I would go somewhere new in my travels, I would send them a postcard. Now that they’re gone, I haven’t sent anyone a postcard for many years.

I miss that.

I want to start it up again somehow - not with my grandparents, but maybe with my mum, or as I grow older, my children. I don’t know… The point is that family traditions are really special ways to keep connected in the present but also to stay grounded in where you come from.

As Mike and his family end their week together in St Agnes and head off home to their various corners of the UK, I hope the photos from our photoshoot keep some memories alive.

It was lovely to spend a bit of time on the beach with his grandson & family including his two great-granddaughters.

We also spent some time in the St Agnes memorial garden so that we could include his wife Beryl in some pictures - she’s about to have a knee op and couldn’t quite manage the steep path down onto the beach.

Here are some of the images from their extended family photoshoot.