Help Us Create Our Penwith Futures Book

by | Apr 6, 2023 | Uncategorized

 

Over the past year you may have seen our Penwith Futures Book postcards and posters in the library and while you’re out and about. We really hope you’ve pinned them to your noticeboard, popped them on the fridge or tucked them inside your bedtime reading as bookmarks, but most of all we hope that you have been mulling over your ideas to contribute to the ‘Penwith Futures Book’.

We’ve received some brilliant submissions so far and lots of interest from members – thank you all – but if you haven’t sent anything in yet we would like to encourage you to put pen to paper and send us your ideas.

As a quick reminder, or a brief introduction for our new members, here is a bit of information about the book and answers to some of the questions you may have…

What is the Penwith Futures Book? 

The Penwith Futures Book will be a compendium of your brightest ideas for the future of our local area. We would like you to imagine and then write down what a more environmentally friendly and socially just future could look like locally. We’ll put it all together into one big beautiful book for all to read.

What should I write? 

There is no right answer. The entries we have received from people so far have been a personal representation of what really matters to them – reflecting on what they love about living in Penwith, the things they cherish about the landscape, our community and the history of this special corner of West Cornwall – as well as looking hard at some of the problems we’re facing due to the climate crisis.

They have shared their hope and visions for the future – including greater access to nature for all, Cornish lessons for school children, and plastic-free beaches – and given ideas to help steer us there too.

Do you have any examples of other people’s entries to help inspire us? 

Here are a couple of excerpts from entries to give you some ideas:

“The rivers and ocean are sewage free thanks to strong government intervention and composting toilets are being installed in all new homes. Now wildlife and people can swim in peace.  Several Tidal Power hubs float gently in the distance of Mount’s Bay generating enough clean electricity to power over 10,000 homes without pollution or waste. Windmills proudly stand in the Bay contributing to the
sustainable electricity supply.” 

Rich Stever, Founder and Chair of the registered start-up charity, Earth’s Green Guardians (EGG) based in Cornwall, UK.  

“How great would it be if Penwith could lead the way in teaching Cornish to an entire generation? To reclaim our forefathers’ language and give its gift to the youngest in our community for them, in turn, to pass on to subsequent generations. To watch the Cornish language flourish beyond the coasts and moors of Penwith.”

Kensa Broadhurst, PhD student.

How can I send in my ideas?  

Your entry can be typed or hand written in any style. It could be in bullet points or rhyming couplets, in comic book frames or scribbled jottings, a typed paragraph or spider diagram. We want it to be representative of the people of Penwith, expressed naturally, so please be as creative as you like, adding illustrations, doodles, artwork, maps or photographs to help communicate your ideas.

We only ask that you keep your entries to under 400 words (or up to A4 size if submitting any artwork) and that you submit them by the end of April 2023 either by dropping them in to the library, posting them (Morrab Library, Morrab Gardens, Penzance, Cornwall TR18 4DA) or emailing them to harriet@morrablibrary.org.uk. Please include your name and contact information with your entry so we can chat to you about it.

What if I know some people who are not Morrab Library members but who might like to give their ideas for the book, can I share this with them?  

Absolutely, yes!

Perhaps you’re a member of a local history society, or you’re part of a home-schooling group, a bunch of ramblers, a litter-picking tribe, a crocheting club or a choir. We’d love to hear from organisations too.

If you are part of a group that you think would like to share their ideas for the book, please encourage them to get in touch with Harriet (harriet@morrablibrary.org.uk) for more info.

You can also download our poster if you’d like to share it with friends and organisations locally or on social media to help us spread the word.

 

Mrs Borlase’s ‘minced Pyes’

by | Dec 21, 2022 | Uncategorized

Charlotte MacKenzie is currently researching Cornish legends and historical individuals, including healthcare and folk customs in Georgian Cornwall. She popped into the Morrab Library in the autumn to use our Archive for some of her research. Along the way, she encountered Mrs Borlase’s recipe for ‘Minced Pyes’  and Charlotte has kindly written a blog for us about them.

One of the hidden treasures of the Morrab Library is a manuscript recipe book compiled by the Borlase family at Castle Horneck. Which includes a recipe for ‘minced Pyes’.

To make minced Pyes

Take Eggs & boyle them very hard when cold then mince them very Small, to one pound of Eggs two pounds of beef Suett one pound of Currants & ye Same Seasoning as you doe to your other minced pyes.

Charlotte’s photograph of Mrs Borlase’s recipe for ‘Minced Pyes’ which can be found in the Archive collection at Morrab Library

The quantities for the mincemeat filling suggest the household at Castle Horneck got through quite a lot of minced pies.

The book as a whole is of interest partly because it contains recipes and advice on family healthcare and first aid. Caring for family health, ailments, and illnesses was considered part of household management, which might also include attention to the well-being of horses or livestock. The Borlase family book was not unique. Recipe books like that of the Borlase family were mostly kept by women, whose responsibilities for family and household management included healthcare. And all kinds of recipes were sometimes shared between women in their family and social circles.

The book is organised as collections of recipes. For coughs, colds, fevers, headaches, itches, and digestive disorders; and first aid for scalds and cuts. The recipes were intended to relieve acute symptoms and promote healing, and did not include general pain relief. Information about whether and when recipes were prepared and applied is lacking. Some entries have an annotation that the recipe came from a named individual, including some prescriptions by medical practitioners, or were copied for possible future use from published books or magazines.

The book includes one recipe for a topical application for the head to cure ‘madness’; and many concoctions for ailments at every life stage and in different parts of the body – from sore nipples (presumably of nursing mothers) to steadying giddiness in the head; as well as a small number of prescriptions from medical practitioners. Plus other household requisites such as how to make ink and hair dye, and recipes for horses.

Although the Borlase family could afford to consult medical practitioners – and sometimes did – Cornish recipe books confirm that households were partly self-reliant in managing health and illness.

It is an approach which can be seen in the writings of William Borlase, whose brother Walter’s family had lived at Castle Horneck. In the 1760s, the health of William’s wife Anne improved, and he wrote to a friend, the Cornish born physician William Oliver in Bath, that ‘Our only physick for the last year has been no other than the air on the beach below the house, where we daily make our almost only visits, and pick pebbles’. After being widowed, Borlase later wrote that his own prescription for health in old age was to ‘read, write, and ride’.

Patricia Eschen Prize for Poetry 2022 – Winners announced!

by | Nov 22, 2022 | Uncategorized

We have now announced the prize winners for our inaugural Patricia Eschen Prize for Poetry 2022.  The international poetry competition garnered entries from across the U.K. and around the world, with the top prize of £1000 in the adult competition awarded to Camilla Lambert, a poet and retired NHS Manager from Arundel, West Sussex (U.K.), for her poem ‘Gifts from a Lithic Lover’.
Our pair of brilliant judges, Katrina Naomi and Penelope Shuttle, read over 3000 poems submitted across the adult’s and children’s categories and selected a shortlist of 22 poems in the adult’s category and 8 in the children’s category. 

Penelope Shuttle described the process as a “fascinating and educative experience” and went on to say that “reading the poems was exhilarating and often profoundly moving.” 

Katrina Naomi added: “When I begin reading through entries for a competition, I never know what I’m going to find. I’m looking for poems that needed to be written, poems with verve and imagery and power. I kept reading, and every now and then a poem would jump from the pile of 3000 and into my head and my heart. Penelope and I read and re-read our longlist. We read the poems to each other, scored them, discussed them, and read them again. Slowly out of all of these entries, the winners emerged, shining, asking to be heard. Congratulations to everyone shortlisted and a huge well done to the winners. This is quite an achievement.”

The poems were judged anonymously, so the judges were excited to discover that they had chosen such an international shortlist with poets hailing from all over the world, as far afield as Christchurch (New Zealand), Lagos (Nigeria) and Florida (U.S.A) with plenty of poets from across the U.K. too and one of the shortlist a Morrab Library member from Penzance. 

 

We thought we’d tell you a little bit more about the competition winning poets and also share clips of the poets reading their winning poems in their own voices at our hybrid event which took place at The Exchange in Penzance earlier this month.

Camilla Lambert

Camilla Lambert was awarded first prize for her poem ‘Gifts from a Lithic Lover’. You can read the poem here or watch Camilla reading her poem here.

Cornwall has been a major source of inspiration for Camilla’s writing, stemming from time spent over the years with family on both the north and south coasts of Cornwall. This was reflected in her winning poem and Katrina Naomi introduced the poem by saying: “This poem does some amazing things around love, around geology, around the days of the week. It makes me think of a week very differently to how I used to think of a week. There’s so much imagination. There’s a bit of Cornwall, alongside places all around the world in this poem. It’s very imaginative and shows real ambition. And for Penny and I, it was a clear winner”.

She began writing poetry in 2007 on retirement from being an NHS manager. Since then she has had individual poems published in poetry journals, organises an arts festival in Sussex and had  her pamphlet Grapes in the Crater published in 2015. She is now working on her full collection.

Marjory Woodfield

Second prize was awarded to Marjory Woodfield from Christchurch New Zealand for her poem ‘Sails Catch the Wind’. You can read the poem here or watch Marjory read the poem here. As Marjory explained at the awards ceremony, the prompt for her poem was a bowl from a shipwreck with a gazelle on it which was  found by the husband of her former landlady in Singapore, a shipwreck diver.

Penelope Shuttle introduced the poem at the event: “Here we have a lyric poem, beautiful and delicate as the Chinese porcelain, whose journey from raw clay to finished, painted bowl, is beautifully described. There’s a lost ship. There’s porcelain fished up from the sea. There’s the painted gazelles on the bowl. This poem […] conveys the vulnerability and beauty of the world and, by lovely implication, all of us here on earth”.   

Marjory is a writer and her flash fiction, poems, and articles have appeared in The BBC, stuff.co.nz as well as literary journals and anthologies. She won the New Zealand Robert Burns Poetry Competition (2020) and the NZSA Heritage Poetry Award (2022).

Anna Remennik

The third prize winner in the Patricia Eschen Prize for Poetry 2022 was Anna Remennik from California (U.S.A) for her poem ‘Kyiv, spring 1986’. You can read the poem here or watch Anna reading the poem aloud here. 

Anna grew up in Soviet-era Kiev (now Kyiv, Ukraine) and is now a chemical engineer working in Silicon Valley. She enjoys writing poems about automatic titrators, technical supply chain processes, and occasionally even more fantastical things. 

Penelope Shuttle introduced the poem at the award’s ceremony:  “Here we have a poem that uses form with a practised, unobtrusive grace, and handling a difficult theme with the same grace. This is a retrospective of the Chernobyl disaster seen at a distance, yet with immediacy and iit speaks throughout of our world’s fragility while the title echoes forward to Ukraine’s present predicament”

Anna added: “Although I wrote this poem a couple of years ago, it’s been especially in my mind with everything that’s going on currently”.

Children’s competition:

Penelope and Katrina were both truly “wowed” by the quality of the poems in the children’s category. 

Penelope Shuttle said “The standard of the children’s poetry was exceptionally high. Well done all! And congratulations to the teachers for giving their students, however young, deep access to the imagination, and the power of articulation.”

 

First prize was awarded to 14 year-old Katie Geng for her poem “Dear Mother, from your Daughter”. At the awards ceremony, Katrina commented it was an “amazing poem” and she hopes Katie will “continue writing poetry and look[s] forward to seeing [Katie’s] name in books in time to come”.  You can read Katie’s poem here. 

The children’s competition received over 200 submissions and the judges were so impressed by the calibre of entries that they decided to appoint joint second and joint third prize winners, generously supported by the Dennis Myner Trust. 

Dexter Warburton, aged 13, won second prize for her poem called ‘A Boy Talking To A Robot In The Future About Where He Lives’ which you can read here. Caterina Williams was awarded joint second prize for her poem ‘The Flow of Words’, which you can read here. 

The judges loved the form of the joint third prize winner, 7 year old Ziva Patel’s poem, ‘Refugees’ which you can read here. 9 year old  Benjamin Williams, younger brother of Caterina Williams, was the joint third prize winner for his poem ‘Nonsense Safari’ – the judges particularly loved the rhymes in this poem which you can read for yourself here.   

Morrab Library’s Librarian, Lisa Di Tommaso, has been delighted by the huge (and somewhat) unexpected response to the inaugural competition. “Welcoming entries from across the world, as well as locally, has been very exciting, and gave us the opportunity to host the Library’s first ever live, international hybrid event. It’s been a joy introducing our library to a wider audience.”

You can read many the highly commended poems, in the adult’s and children’s category, on the website here.  

Morrab Library, The Dennis Myner Trust and our judges would like to congratulate all of the shortlist poets and say a big thank you to everyone who took the time to enter the competition! 

Dennis Myner, Patricia Eschen and The Dennis Myner Trust

by | Jun 27, 2022 | Blog, Culture, Events, News, World

Morrab Library’s inaugural poetry competition is sponsored by The Dennis Myner Trust which continues the legacy of member and invaluable contributor to the library’s longevity – Dennis Myner. 

Who was Dennis Myner?

Dennis Myner was born in London in 1927. During WWII, his family moved to St. Albans where he later qualified as an architect. He moved to Penzance for his mother’s health in the late 1950s and in the early 1960s built his own house in St. Ives, where he set up his architectural practice.

Dennis frequented the Morrab Library’s Photo Archive during his retirement where he would purchase photographs to recreate in paint. This fervent hobby was encouraged by his sister, Patricia Eschen, who bought him his first set of oils and brushes when he retired, saying that he would need something to keep him busy! He set himself the goal of painting 300 pictures and had reached an impressive total of 753 just a few months before he died.

Dennis dedicated the latter part of his life to supporting Morrab Library and it became his life’s ambition to help ensure its future was secure. An incredibly determined man, he devoted fifteen years to obtaining planning permission for a much-needed extension to the Library which was completed in 2013.

When Dennis passed away in 2012 he left hundreds of his paintings to the library, a selection of which are on display in the Photo Archive. Our lovely volunteer, David Sleeman wrote a fascinating blog about the history of one of the scenes that Dennis depicted which you can read here.

Who was Patricia Eschen?

Our new poetry competition at the Library, the Patricia Eschen Prize for Poetry, acknowledges the generous support of Dennis’ beloved older sister and only sibling – Patricia Eschen. Patricia was outgoing and well-travelled and despite living in California for most of her adult life, she would return to Cornwall to visit Dennis regularly.

She loved the Arts and attended the opera, ballet and museums around the world wherever she travelled. The Library’s Art Room is named in her honour, and the prize will continue her patronage of the arts.

Patricia was instrumental in Dennis taking up oil painting. Many of the photographs from her travels were used as subject matter for his artwork, as well as photographs he purchased from the Morrab Library Photo Archive.  Without her encouragement of his painting, Dennis would not have visited the library and hence there would be no Dennis Myner Trust today.

How do The Myner Trust help the Library today?

The Dennis Myner Trust helps to support the library through donations which are used to fund projects such as the bespoke conservation-grade photographic storage cabinets, computers, and professional scanning equipment in the Photo Archive, which has proved invaluable in our ongoing digitisation programme.

We are delighted to be able to launch the international poetry competition – ‘Patricia Eschen Prize for Poetry’ – from our very special library here in Penzance.

Our Library members have always shown a fervour for poetry – our earliest archive records reveal that poetry has been purchased for the library since our establishment in 1818. We have a thriving poetry group and a dedicated Poetry Room in the library. We are looking forward to shining  a spotlight on poetry through our new competition this summer at the Morrab and we would not be able to do so without the support of the Dennis Myner Trust.

Social prescribing and Morrab Library – can you help?

by | May 27, 2022 | Uncategorized

For any number of reasons, many of us are finding ourselves needing a little support to make that step out into the world – to join new groups, take part in activities, or make new friends. This isn’t only on emotional grounds – it can also be for purely practical reasons. Where might one start? Sometimes, we just need a little bit of help to get us back on track and heading in the right direction to improve our health and wellbeing.

Morrab Library is teaming up with the local NHS Social Prescribing team to offer some help. These are the people who take a holistic approach to people’s health and wellbeing. They connect people to community groups and services for practical and emotional support. Social Prescribers also support existing community groups to be accessible and sustainable, and help people to start new groups, working collaboratively with local partners.

It’s an option for a wide range of people including anyone with long term medical conditions, people needing support with mental health, those feeling lonely or isolated, and those with complex social needs.  You can contact Social Prescribers directly or be referred via a number of local agencies including GPs, pharmacies, social care services, community and social enterprises and job centres.

Morrab Library and the Penwith Social Prescribing team are working together to start a new group (or two!) at the library. The idea is for an informal book group – where people can get together, over tea and biscuits of course, to share an enjoyment of fiction, to find recommendations for your next book, to talk about books and reading and to meet people.

We’d like to target two groups – those struggling to ‘get back out’ and to meet new people, as well as a group specifically for young people.

To make this really work though, we need you to help us make sure we create the best kind of groups possible which maximise the support and help we can offer.

Here is a link a brief survey from the Social Prescribing team which we ask you might consider completing to make sure we get it right. We have a box at the library for you to drop in your replies or you can email this form to enquiries@morrablibrary.org.uk.