St Senara's

St Senara's

Zennor

I wandered through the pretty churchyard and came across a headstone for one Dicon Nance. He lived from 1909 to 2001. Now imagine that for starters. 92 years of life!

I don’t know what Dicon’s life enjoyed. One can imagine much work on the land because here that’s pretty much all there is. The stunning and wild blue sea is there, but getting to it from these cliffs would be foolhardy. No; land it is. Zennor is extraordinarily beautiful but also bleak, so tending the land and cattle would have been super tough.

Maybe he served in the war when he reached the age of 30? Life in Zennor in 1939 would have felt pretty far away from all the world and it’s hullabaloo, much like now I suspect.

No electricity or gas to keep the cruel Cornish winters out, but then it arrived. Fresh water too and even a telephone, radio and eventually a TV!

Life changed and more folk arrived to peer into the ancient lives of a Zennor virtually untouched since the 12th century. They called them ‘tourists’ and no doubt Dicon shared a few words just as he may have done as a young boy when DH Lawrence lived here for 2 years with his wife Frieda from 1915.

The 60’s came and seemed to revolutionise the whole of the world, yet here, in Zennor, nothing much changed.

As the century came to a close, Dicon’s eyes began to open more slowly, his movements harder than ever before, as age caught up with him.

The eulogy on his headstone is pure gold. It reads:

‘A craftsman of selfless integrity whose quiet example and delightful sense of humour enriched our lives.’

I stood for awhile, the mid afternoon Cornish air of a mild autumn day caressing my face.

To be like Dicon.

Zennor.

A X

& here is some of the real Dicon story:

https://technicianjourney.com/2018/05/16/dicon-nance-a-technician-in-form/