Porthtowan Old & New: 1…
Photographed, produced and printed to attract the eye
Of the customer, Porthtowan basks on a peaceful
Summer’s day, regaled with almost floodlit sunshine,
A soft blue sky flecked with the wispy whiteness
Of tame lines of cloud, whilst the sea, calm of course,
Attracts the gaze with a deeper, more lurid blue.
Watched over by a woman with her obedient dog by
Her side, caravans lie upon a neat field, watchful
In front of an engine house, related to the old tin mine.
Cars are parked across the beach upon the sandy excess
Of dunes’ spilled and flattened sand, whilst gorse
And heather blanket the headlands to complement the view…
Positioned, pictured and pondered to compare
With the original, Porthtowan lies in natural light upon a dour
November day, hung with grey cloud over a misty sea.
A chill wintery feel pervades the village, no longer sublime,
As waves roar and rise white tipped from a restless mint ocean
Which deposits stretches of pebbles upon the dank, hard sand…
Looked at from elevation, my wistful, breathless stare
Is drawn towards the line of buildings immediately before
The engine house, the original field now obliterated. I can see
Changes to the west cliff, construction ongoing with time,
Plus a clinical car-park to the east and the aberration
Of a flooding stream which engulfs the beach from the upper reaches of the land…
Pete Ray
22nd November 2023…
An old postcard image of Porthtowan taken from the east side of the valley in the 1970s maybe, compared to a similar view snapped last week in mid-November 2023…
The only dog in the original picture is the one with its owner, whereas in November 2023, around one third of the mammals on Porthtowan’s beach at any one time were dogs, generally racing around and barking, off their leads…
The road leading up to the west headland on the left side of both images is still quite a climb for vehicles but there are many more residences on the cliff these days plus holiday apartments, whilst even more construction work is currently going on at the top.
It’s quite a climb from the beach to the buildings but so worth the effort…
Eating places are now prominent on the east side of the dunes area and of course a proper car-park has taken the place of the sandy area which was once used by vehicles…
The colours in the postcard are so lurid and almost Costa Brava bright, presumably to lure more visitors to the area…
Maybe my image needed to have been be taken on a hot and sunny July day!
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