At the end of every summer, I take the same walk along the Helford River. I like to do it in early September, when there’s mist on the river and the oaks are alight with autumnal colour. I spend the day wandering through the woods, looking for crabs in the rockpools, foraging for wild mussels among the seaweed and sea-glass in the sand. Then, as evening falls, I catch the last ferry back over the Helford for a pint at the Ferry Boat, an old inn on the river’s northern bank, listening to the curlews and tawny owls as darkness falls. It’s become a ritual. If I’m lucky, until I get to the pub, I won’t pass another soul all day.
A solitary walker high on Rough Tor, the second-highest point in Cornwall, and an important Neolithic and Bronze Age site
PHOTOGRAPHS: JUSTIN FOULKES/4CORNERS IMAGES
I’ve lived in Cornwall all my life, and I know it better than I know anywhere. Though I’ve spent the past 20 years making a living out of travelling the world, it’s Cornwall I still go home to; as for many writers and painters before me, the place exerts a hold I can’t shake.