Ann E Brockbank Novelist : February 2014

Poldhu Cove Beach Café, where better to sit and enjoy the wonderful view, good food and lovely staff. A perfect place to find inspiration for my second novel.

Poldhu Cove Beach is a small, west-facing beach on the Lizard Peninsula in south west Cornwall and one of my favourite. Nestling in a sheltered cove, protected by cliffs, this National Trust owned beach is a popular family beach, offering everything you could need for a wonderful day out. The beach is well used both in the summer and winter months, providing good waves for surfing and body boarding all year round.

To the south side of Poldhu Cove, high up on the cliffs, stands the Marconi centre.

On the 12^th December 1901, Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeded in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message, simply the Morse-code signal for the letter "s", travelled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland,

Canada

From that pioneering first transatlantic radio signal we now benefit from broadcasting to satellite communications, mobile phones, broadband, and of course the World Wide Web. We have a lot to thank Guglielmo and of course Poldhu for being at the forefront of it all.

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Poldhu Cove has been a haven for holidaymakers, and at one time cars were even allowed on the beach. Fortunately this practice was banned in 1987.

This photo is courtesy of the National Trust, though no one knows of the approximate date this photo was taken.

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At one time it was a common practice for local farmers to quite legally remove sand from the beach. This ancient right ‘for the betterment of the land’ was probably sustainable when all they had was a bucket, shovel and horse and cart. But by the 1990s, there were regularly fleets of trucks on the foreshore being loaded up by JCB, this unsustainable practice was fortunately stamped out in 2007.

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In 1987 when the cars were banned from the beach the National Trust embarked on a ‘Dune stabilisation project’. Marram grass was planted, which is tolerant of salt, wind and drought, binds the dunes together with a network of tough exploratory roots, and timber posts were installed, helping the dunes to form naturally. This enabled windblown sand, to be trapped amongst the vegetation, making the dunes grow. This also encourages rare and unusual plants such as sea knot grass and sea holly to grow amongst the grasses.

Not only do the dunes look lovely but they have an amazing ecosystem, rich in wildlife and provide a natural defence against the ravages of storms and high winds.

Unfortunately, the recent storms which have battered the Cornish coast since Christmas 2013 have devastated the beach, taking almost 6ft of sand away and destroying a large part of the sand dunes located at the back of the beach.

When huge waves, breached the dunes in early February, it washed a good deal of the beach onto the seating area of Poldhu Café, but, the National Trust have been working swiftly to redistribute the sand back to where it came from.

So, all will be well again soon, the beach will recover, though it may take some time, but Cornwall is wild and wonderful, and I hope someday everyone comes down to Poldhu Cove and enjoy the view whilst sipping a cappuccino. Nothing, not wind, rain, hail or storm, would stop me from visiting this inspirational place. Besides I have another book to finish writing, and you can't write books without coffee and inspiration.