Sandy: The True Story of a Boy and His Friends Growing Up in Cornwall in the Late 1800s

by C. Richard Toye

Sandy is the true story of a boy and his friends growing up in Cornwall in the late 1800s. It's the story of a 'lost world' in two senses -- the lost world of childhood as recalled from an adult perspective, and the lost world of late Victorian England as lived through in a rural community, when the ordinary family depended for its livelihood on long hours of difficult manual labour. The Sandy whose early life this book chronicles grew up in West Cornwall's countryside at the end of the 1800s. Initially living in Falmouth, where he was born, Sandy moves when his father inherits a derelict house and farm from his Uncle Benjamin. Here we come to see the restoration process that the whole family is involved in once this move had been made. The reader can enjoy an array of local colour in the antics and adventures Sandy embarks on with the new friends he makes, from Polwheveral Creek to Porth Navas to the woodlands north of Constantine. There is a St Michael's Mount noticeably void of today's tourist hordes. Then there are larger-than-life characters, such as the sailors who wouldn't feel out of place in Treasure Island, with facial scars and eye-patches and mutilated limbs. Enjoy such

190 pages, Paperback

First published January 2, 2003