Photo: Wonderful Nature/Shutterstock

15 Little Things You Miss When You Leave Cornwall

Student Work
by Lauren Williams Jul 13, 2015

1. Moaning about emmets

They block up the roads and fill up our beaches, but they also bring loads of money to the area in summer. We just don’t feel Cornish if we don’t mutter the words “fucking emmets” at least once a day during silly season.

2. Hangovers on the beach

There’s only one way to cure a home-brew induced hangover, and that’s with BBQ’d bacon sandwiches on Sennen beach and a dip in the sea.

3. The Meadery

No other restaurant in the world calls their waitresses wenches, encourages you to eat with your hands and serves mead by the litre. If you throw a chair, fall down the stairs when your legs fail and puke in a water jug, you probably won’t get banned. Speaking from experience.

4. Pasties

That bit at the end where all the grease has dripped to the bottom and soaked the crust in delicious pastyness. NOM.

5. Proper cider

Preferably home-brewed, face-numbing stuff made from your friend’s mum’s orchard. If not, an ice cold Rattler will hit the spot. None of that Strongbow nonsense you get up north.

6. Jelbert’s Ice Cream

It might only come in one flavour, but it’s the best ice cream in the whole world and there’s only one small shop on the planet that makes and sells it. Clotted cream and a flake compulsory.

7. Inappropriateness

The Cornish love to laugh, and being rude and inappropriate is how we make our bellies ache with joy. We just like to say what you’re thinking, but with a few more swear words and the occasional burst of casual racism.

8. Pirate FM

Honestly, who else is going to tell you about a rogue sheep in Camborne high street while you’re driving to see your nan?

9. Fresh air

Wind seasoned by the sea that whips your hair into a frenzy messier than the morning after the best shag of your life. Fill up those lungs with wonderful, pure, Cornish oxygen. There ain’t no city smog ‘ere.

10. Acceptable nudity

Us Cornish like to booze and like to take our clothes off. On the beach, on top of the bar, at a festival, on the trampoline in your friend’s garden when their parents are quietly eating tea in the conservatory. We just like to show off what God gave us, and everyone is ok with that.

11. Gossip

We love to talk about other people and can’t keep information to ourselves. Especially if it involves a scandal from school night drinking and one too many scrumpys.

12. Sandy toes

There’s no better feeling than heading back to the office with sand stuck all over your feet after spending your hour of freedom on the beach. Smug? Oh yeah.

13. Your extended family

From your friends to their parents, everyone in your Cornish world is embraced into your family like they’re your brothers and sisters. We’ve got plenty of love to go around.

14. Zone

£1 a drink on a Thursday? Fuck yeah. Have your excuses ready for calling in sick on Friday morning, this one’s gonna be heavy.

15. The old man in your local

He probably never leaves the pub and when he talks his voice is laced with the strongest Cornish slur anyone’s ever heard. Nobody knows what he’s saying, but everyone is his best mate on a Friday night.

Discover Matador