Cap’n Dick’s Puffing Devil
Camborne is now largely defined by the annual celebration of its most famous son. The crowning glory of those celebrations came when a working replica of his great engine re-created the run “up Camburn Hill” in 2001.
From out of the past he came,
Out of the pauper’s grave,
Home, to Camburn town …
At least in spirit.
Into our regenerated,
Newly-painted, granite-white streets
That for a moment
Hung between present and past –
Sounds and smells of our age
Pull against another time
Of smoke, oil and steam –
Warm wetness on the face
That touches long lost roots.
Waiting ….waiting,
In expectant murmur.
Then, round the bend,
Steam-spouting, piston-roaring, whistle-piercing,
The balance tips two hundred years,
Crowd, engine, streets as one,
In common cause.
And singing …
Such as only Cornwall knows –
The songs of home
That make the spirit lift and soar –
It binds us fast.
And in that crowd
Now welded into one,
Cap’n Dick came home to stay.
David Oates
David Oates is a Cornish bard who has published a history of Troon, entitled “Echoes of an Age”, a guide to Godrevy and Gwithian, “Walk the hidden ways” and a slim volume of his own verse, “Poems from the far west”. His unpublished work includes a reflection on a Cornish childhood, “What time do they close the gates, Mister?” and a fictionalised story for young people based on the extant life of St Gwinear, with the working title, “The son of a king”. David is working on another guide in the “Walk the hidden ways” series, entitled “Hard Rock country”.
David is a tenor singer with the well-known group, Proper Job based in mid- Cornwall and has collaborated with Portreath musician, Alice Allsworth, to write the lyrics for a number of songs about Cornwall and the Cornish.