A BLESSING IN DISGUISE 2

So after a few days I was very glad to discover a nearby farm with a couple of boys of his age who promptly took him off my hands and showed him their world which meant wandering further afield under the watch of Gerald a village lad of 16 who could be trusted to keep them out of danger as they roamed around the local tin mines which were unsafe without expert guidance.

Cornwall has been tin mining country for centuries, so the landscape is scattered with the industrial remnants of winding towers and various crumbling walls one can easily imagine as Arthurian remnants.

Gerald was considered a safe baby sitter, being well regarded by the local men and women, as a reliable errand runner and odd jobber which earnings kept his widowed mother afloat. The farm boys and my brother were willing assistants.

Unless you have experience with solo store/post offices in one horse villages, you have no idea about gossip cliques which ebb and flow with the nature of transactions tied to specific actions such as Monday Washing Day or midday lunch break.

Of all the gossipers the most critical were the 3pm Afternoon Tea ladies, mainly elderly dedicated Baptists grandmas

Gerald had worked out a schedule, using the boys as runners and messengers, based at the store safely away from the mine from which he would phone in the miners orders to be delivered by the boys or collected by himself when lunch break required a delivery bicycle.