This is a photograph of Mevagissey from the 1970s when I lived here with my family. It is a traditional Cornish fishing village on the south coast. My mother grew up here. The middle picture is of my mum and old Mr Cloke the fisherman. When my father retired from his job in Nairobi, he bought a grocery shop here. They called it ‘The Harbour Stores.’ (The third picture is my dad in Mevagissey at about that time.) I was seventeen. I thought I would hate living in a remote village at the end of the world. I was wrong. I loved it. Years later, Mevagissey would inspire my novel ‘The Whale at the End of the World,’ (also called ‘Not Forgetting the Whale’). Mr Cloke was the inspiration for Old Man Garrow in the novel. Mevagissey is a little bigger than St Piran (the fictional town in the story), but it was the sense of community I was trying to capture. That’s a plug, in case you haven’t read the book. The What3Words (below) takes you to my dad’s shop. Today it is a bakery and an art shop.
what3words /// The simplest way to talk about location
What3Words: panics.backers.leaky
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