Trelawny’s Cornwall

Part travel-writing, part memoir, part social history of Cornwall

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'I can't think of a more enjoyable or more illuminating guide to Cornwall than Petroc Trelawny, who knows it intimately, loves it deeply, and shares it generously' - THE REVEREND RICHARD COLES

His first name is shared with one of Cornwall's most celebrated saints, his second is the name of its unofficial national anthem. But when a stranger challenges the Radio 3 presenter on his ancestry, Petroc Trelawny is inspired to return to the lands of his boyhood to rediscover the place where he grew up, and attempt to confirm whether he still belongs there.

Petroc embarks on a very personal pilgrimage that sees him visit old mine workings, ancient churches, sites where new technology was forged, and places where poets, musicians, architects and film makers have worked to shape Cornwall's cultural identity. He explores the Tamar, the river that marks out the Cornish frontier, and holds a finger up to winds of change, exploring the collapse of Methodism, the decline of the Cornish language, and the complex, sometimes destructive, relationship with tourism.

As he travels by road, rail and foot, he conjures marvellously vivid figures and scenes from memory, telling the story of a loving family full of mysteries and a landscape still redolent of 'Cornish otherness'.