Redruth to St Ives - Day Trippers

September 2025

Being retired brings opportunities to enjoy the delight of a mid-week day trip. We should do it more. It was Tony's suggestion and to go by train. What could be better? Redruth to St Erth, then branchline along the coast to St Ives. What no queues on the A30? No overheating engines? No searching for parking, then if successful paying exorbitant charges? Or if not, abandoning the plan and going to Penzance? Just the excitement of standing on the platform for the nearly empty down train and the unfolding adventure.

The branchline could not be prettier. It was a beautiful June day and the stretches of beach were golden and gleaming when glimpsed through the vegetation. Feeding the impression that we were entering another world. Indeed St Ives does feel as if it stands alone in its own space, rhythm and weather system.

Views from the St Erth to St Ives train window

Lured by the impossibly white sands of Porthminster Beach, we started to walk into town along the Warren. Our first stop was at Westcott's Quay, a jostling site for selfies, and the small but perfectly formed St Ives Arts Club; gallery below and theatre upstairs. I have a photo of my mum standing beside the huge, bright red Kneehigh van parked outside the theatre, in the early nineties. I wonder if I was the one who had to drive it down the narrow lanes? Fearful thought! The show was The Young Man of Cury based on a poem by Charles Causley. Bill Mitchell had designed a jewel of a small Georgian theatre with moving waves and boats and Mike Shepherd directed. The wonderful versatile actors, Mary Woodvine, Tristan Sturrock and Giles King performed and charmed both inside and outside the set. If I recall the show was a sell out - that said the capacity is about 40!

As we arrived at the harbour and life boat station, the clutter of people, vehicles, food outlets and seagulls impelled us to pick up speed in an effort to dodge all obstacles. Slowed down again in Fore Street by the ambling throng, we took refuge in the wonderful New Craftsman Gallery where they had a show of paintings by Neil Davies, one of Tony's favourite Cornish landscape artists who finds colour in the landscape like no other. https://www.newcraftsmanstives.com/artists/neil-davies/100004

After chatting with the owner and admiring the newly opened gallery spaces, we felt the need for lunch. We found ourselves in a back lane and a café which served the biggest toasted sandwiches and supplied a customer copy of the St Ives Times and Echo, the local paper. In it was an article about two artist friends, David Kemp and Rod Walker, who had a joint exhibition in the Penwith Gallery. So that gave us our next destination. https://penwithgallery.com/exhibition/rod-walker-david-kemp/

David Kemp was instrumental in the early Wild Works productions with Bill Mitchell and Kneehigh with his extraordinary assemblages from junk material, recreating entire civilisations. Fabulous to see the two artists exhibited together.

And no trip to St Ives is complete without a visit to the Tate, especially when armed with a Local's Pass. I always linger on 'old friends' from the St Ives artists which are juxtaposed with others from the Tate Collection making them resonate in different ways. The featured artist in the new, huge gallery space was New Yorker Liliane Lijn exploring light and energy. She certainly aroused curiosity and intrigue and you could feel her total commitment to her art and explorations.

Tate St Ives and window over Portmeor Beach

After all that Art, we needed a wander through the narrow streets of St Ives, stopping for a coffee in the tiniest coffee shop where each grain is weighed and personally exalted. As a tea drinker Tony was handed a tea bag floating in a mug! We watched the lifeboat being launched for exercises and a lot of carrying of boats across the harbour at low tide. Trying to eat an ice cream, turned out to be a very stressful experience as we were stalked and harassed from land and sky by circling gulls. However, moving 100 yards from the slipway we dropped out of their orbit. Only to be distracted by a middle aged man in shorts who sat down on the harbour wall in the early evening sunlight with a bottle of red wine and glass. We speculated on how long it would be before he toppled over. Sadly we didn't wait to see as it was time to wander back to the station.

Thank you St Ives for a glorious day out. Just down from the station, we were about to place some rubbish in the bins when we realised that they were alive with rats diving in, happy as children in a pool. Needless to say, we took our litter home...

The train journey was seamless until just outside St Erth where we stopped. Apparently a mysterious warning light had appeared on the driver's dashboard. So we waited. The train manager periodically reassured us that all would be well and that really it was nothing. He was right and half an hour later, we were off. Time to reflect on our day and consider the options for supper ...

Have just finished reading Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye which is the tragic tale of a young black girl who longs to have blue eyes to make her beautiful, written in the most devastatingly beautiful prose.