Susan Roberts' seat at Treyarnon Bay

Treyarnon Bay - near Padstow - is a Very Special Place for me. It's the scene of many annual family holidays in Cornwall, generally in August. In Easter 1965 we'd been to France - all the way down to Provence, with a look at the Atlantic coast, then a few days near the Normandy beaches where the D-Day Landings took place. An important holiday, but despite my hopes, Mum and Dad hadn't given me a camera to play with. But I did get one (and some Kodak slide film) for my 13th birthday in July, Just in time for the August holiday in Cornwall. This, a sunset at Treyarnon Bay, was almost my first ever picture with my new camera, a Kodak Instamatic 50:

And here are a couple of others, taken at various times in the years that followed. Treyarnon Bay was very photogenic, as were the views from it, and more was revealed as you walked north or south along the cliffs. Treyarnon Bay was also good for surfing. Here's Dad filming the bay with his Super 8 cine camera in 1973:

One reason why very few pictures exist of me when young is that until July 1965 Dad was the only photographer, and he only shot moving pictures. He liked to zoom in a lot, rather too much really. I still have some of that footage, not examined for donkey's years and gathering dust in the garage. I doubt if the reels are viewable now. They were heavily spliced, and I'm pretty certain that they wouldn't stand up to being run through a projector (if I had one). I don't think Dad ever had any of his footage converted to VHS format, which might then have been eventually burned to a CD. In any case, Dad tried to save money by using 'free films' from the developer, which were of poor quality. The colours were never true, being unnaturally warm even when only just developed, and they were inclined to fade. I wouldn't be surprised to find that after sixty-odd years these reels have faded entirely. One day I will take a look, in case there is anything I might be able to view on a screen, copy with my camera, then enhance and save. I'd be wanting selected stills, not film clips.

I became the still photographer of the family, but I didn't actually take many photos before 1970, mainly because I couldn't afford to buy much film. I used Kodachrome II slide film in the 1960s and early 1970s, which wasn't cheap, as development was in the purchase price. I posted each finished film off to Kodak in Hemel Hempstead, and in a week or so got twenty or thirty-six slides back in one of Kodak's distinctive yellow slide boxes. 

Lacking practice, my technique wasn't very good, and there were a lot of duds. Nevertheless my collection of 'good' pictures steadily grew, especially after starting work and earning money in 1970, and especially after buying a better camera in 1973. To the extent that I ran out of storage, and began to weed out slides that didn't seem important. Much early stuff went in the bin. I regret that now. So much was discarded that should have been kept. Nowadays it would be scanned, digitised, and rescued with post-processing. No matter how poor the picture, every such shot from that era was unrepeatable and ought to have been precious.

Here's another iconic view across Treyarnon Bay, taken in 2016, looking north to Constantine Bay, and Trevose Head, with its lighthouse (I'm fascinated by those too). In the 1960s, the Trevose Head lighthouse winked red. But at some point Trinity House decreed that it should show a plain white light. Sigh. 

Susan Roberts' seat - the subject of this post - is right out at the mouth of the Bay. (Trace leftwards to the centre of the picture from the black house) It has a spectacularly good position, better than any of the other seats. But it is also the most exposed.

This isn't the first time I've posted about this seat. I said much about it in my post Surfing Bays, the ravages of time, Jill, and the YHA on 28th March 2015. So this post brings the story up to date, with further reflections. 

I still don't know anything about Susan Roberts, although one can gather from the seat that she died in 1994, aged forty-four, presumably from some dire illness like cancer, and loved the Bay for perhaps much the same reasons that I did. If she were still alive, she would be only two years older than me. We'd quite possibly encounter each other and enjoy a nice chat in the sunshine and breeze while taking in the wide view. Someone who treasured her memory had an iron seat built in her memory, set on a concrete plinth. The ironwork has heart-shaped motifs, so I'm guessing her husband or somebody equally close had this memorial made. Freshly installed - presumably in 1995 or 1996 - and well-painted against the Atlantic weather, it must originally have looked resplendent and stout enough to last half a century or more. 

I first paid it special attention in November 2010, when I noticed how the concrete plinth was getting undermined by erosion. The seat itself was still intact, but rust had a firm hold. This was only fifteen-odd years since its installation. Nevertheless, it could still have been restored to its first glory. A liberal application of paint would have done the trick. But nobody had come to do that. 

A year and a half later, in July 2012, I spotted a couple sitting on it. So it was still functional as a seat.

After then, I made a point of inspecting it whenever I visited Treyarnon Bay. It got rustier and rustier as the years passed, but you could still sit on it. Here it was in March 2015, twenty-odd years after installation:

But its deterioration must then have accelerated. Parts of the seat began to drop out. I was dismayed to see its state in September 2020:

Oh dear, such a pity! There was enough 'seat' left to sit down on, and I could still enjoy the delightful view and smile serenely at it; but at the same time I thought this might be the last time I'd commune with Susan Roberts. Either the seat would fall apart in the coming winter storms, or the plinth would slide over the cliff edge.

But I was wrong. It was still there in September 2021:

Not much left to sit on! And that plinth looked ready to plunge seawards at any moment! 

But the seat was still perched there in September 2023:

The last bit of proper 'seat' had however disintegrated, and was gone. Surely this had to be my farewell visit? But wrong again. I went back in April this year (2026) and was amazed to find little further change.

I began to suspect that the concrete plinth must have something that anchored it into position, like a couple of downward spikes on its bottom side. As for the remainder, this was no longer a seat as such, but a metal artwork that in this form could endure for a long time to come, the plate with SUSAN ROBERTS 1950-1994' engraved on it being the final thing to succumb to rust and general weathering. 

Indeed, it might see me out. Unless the Council deems it a hazard and takes it away.

A return to HMS Ganges

HMS Ganges was a training shore establishment of the Royal Navy, and was active at Shotley Gate in Suffolk until 1976. It trained teenage boys to become professional seamen. The Navy had switched to using iron steam-propelled warships well before 1900, but continued to insist on its youthful intake learning how to manage a wind-driven vessel. So the training laid emphasis on traditional sailing skills, including agility and confidence on tall masts. 

I have been fascinated with HMS Ganges for decades. It's the fascination of the fearful for a place where terrifying things were expected.  What did I fear? Dizzy heights. The nightmare of the tiny platform at the very top of the mast in the parade ground at HMS Ganges, to which a chosen trainee would be sent - the Button Boy - to stand erect in smart Naval fashion, one arm stiffly by his side, the other raised in a formal salute; and below him, arranged in symmetrical order on each horizontal spar, or on the shrouds and ratlines, dozens of other young trainees, all forming the kind of spectacle beloved of training masters, put on for the benefit of important visitors. Each boy trying to quell the natural dread of being far from the ground and highly likely to fall if careless. But the Button Boy most likely of all. 

Here are three pictures, probably taken in 1918, 1925 and the third much later, any time up to the 1970s. 

It's undeniably impressive. I had a good deal to say about it all in my post Ultra vertigo potential: the Button Boy on 29th July 2023. And in my post The boy who fell, published on 29th August 2023, I related how I personally tracked down the grave (at nearby Shotley churchyard) of the only Boy recorded as falling to his death from the mast. The only one the Navy ever admitted to, that is. 

When HMS Ganges closed in 1976, the buildings and grounds were turned over to other official uses. The mast remained, although gradually deteriorating, so that by the time I came to see what was left in July 2023, it had been partially dismantled, and was a sad shadow of its former self, half the height and devoid of rigging. 

The site had been taken over by a private developer, on the basis that the mast would be reinstated in all its former glory. So I resolved to return, to see whether this would happen. I managed it in June this year.

As you enter Shotley Gate, you see the first fruit of the the developer's work. It's clearly intended to be a cut above the ordinary run-of-the-mill building scheme.

Here's some of their online material:

That's meant to be a Button Boy showing the shilling coin he would have received from the commander of HMS Ganges for climbing to the top of the mast and saluting from the tiny platform there, the 'button'. It was a kind of medal for the skill and courage displayed. I can imagine a very daring kind of boy putting themselves forward for that duty. He would get a lot of admiration for it, and it would do him no harm whatever in his future career in the Navy.

I turned into Nelson Avenue, one of the new residential roads, to find out whether the mast could be seen from there, and if so, what state it was in.

It was a large site to develop, containing some old buildings, presumably listed, that might prove difficult to turn into apartments. Such as that long one in the picture just above (although I think it might be used as a sports hall). Now wasn't that the mast behind it? I drove around to what had once been the main gates.

Yes, the mast had been restored to its full height, button included, and with all its rigging. I took a series of telephoto shots, mostly with with my phone.

You can make out the lightning-conductor at the very top that served as a thin handle for the Button Boy to grasp when hauling himself onto the button. He would try to lean against it when standing to attention and making his salute. 

These were, incidentally, evening shots, taken after 8.00pm, with sunset approaching. I think that, considering the diminishing light level, the little Leica and the phone did quite well. 

I was pleased to see that the developer had restored the mast. Although I do not care for the use it was once put to, it is an historic structure that could have been lost, and the historian in me approves of its renaissance. I do wonder, however, who will maintain it in the years to come. Will the new residents have to take turns to mount the rigging to tar and repaint as needed? And who will check the button at the very top?