Jade. 30. Circus artist & teaching assistant. 

I think where I actually grew up, down the Lizard, I see that as my home; I see Cornwall as my home. My dad is still down there in St Ruan, there’s a big farmhouse, private lane, chickens running around. It’s picturesque, it’s lovely. My dad is so Cornish. He was born in that village and he will die in that village. He’s very happy just tinkering away doing bits and bobs. I had found moving around quite hard, losing friends and making friends, and those, like, social skills you need. I lost contact with a lot of people from school because I went to four schools. After being out of school, I decided to go back to university, and I graduated last year as a mature student. So it hasn’t really impacted me- like, my ambitions. If anything it’s kind of opened my eyes up to the beauty of Cornwall, and how big it is. The more you look, the more you’ll find

I’ve lived in a lot of places in Cornwall. I grew up in the Lizard, proper Cornwall, right out in the sticks in St Ruan. Not many people live there, probably under 100. When my parents divorced when I was about 6, I moved to Porthleven, and then we moved from Porthleven to Marazion; then we moved from Marazion back to Helston and then to Newlyn. As a kid I thought St Ruan was really boring, like really boring. There’s a village hall, a school, and a post office, and that’s it. That’s it. I was very bored; I did a lot of playing with the animals, crafts, painting, not so much meeting friends and things because everything is so far away, and also I wasn’t at a driving age at that point. But now I go back and visit my family there, and I realise just how lucky I was. I mean, I really took it for granted as a child. If ever I have friends visit, I always take them there. I’ve got some of my favourite memories and my favourite beaches down there. It does bring back good memories, despite the divorce. 

Round the corner from where I grew up is Kynance Cove, and Kynance is a massive tourist trap. It’s the picture on the postcards that you see for Cornwall. There’s lots of little places that were deserted and now are very, very busy. But saying that, there are some places that keep under the radar a little bit, so in the height of summer you’ll still only see maybe 2 or 3 people, and these tiny little coves off the coastal path and things like that. I don’t know really if anything massive has changed down there, to be honest. It is set in its ways. I mean, if you want to get a career down there your only option is to be working remotely. There’s no way you can make a good living and live that far away from everything. You don’t get as many opportunities as you would in a city. Or if we do, it’s very delayed.

It’s quite easy to fall into the wrong crowd as well in Cornwall, because a lot of young people do get bored and choose to start drinking early or dabble in drugs and things. I think that connects with how isolated it is: down here, there’s no youth clubs or anything like that, so you do become a bit…delinquent, I guess? But I stepped out of that when I was about 17 and I moved to the Isles of Scilly. I spent a season over there waitressing and that built me up for adulthood, really. I saved my money and got back, did my driving test, and I really had two feet to stand on. But that was a big push from my mother to do that. And I’m so glad I did it, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. I really found my independence.

I’ve got a van now and I’m going out and exploring and using the freedom of that, which I think is probably connected with my childhood of being quite free and not having a phone. Your parents just trusted you because you were out on the farmland and you’re in the countryside. But moving into, say, Penzance and Newlyn, that was a bit different. That’s when you're struggling with your identity. That was probably from trying to make new friends again at the 4th school I went to. I did fall off the bandwagon a little bit when I was about 16 and I just started doing drugs and drinking, but I think a lot of people I’ve spoken to kind of dip into that a little bit as part of growing up. And then when you become an adult you realise who you are and hopefully change that, which I have.

I think my experience is typical for someone that’s born in the countryside of Cornwall. A lot of people, though, who are born in that area do come from a wealthy family because you just can’t…the houses down there, it's a second house zone. My dad built his house while we lived in the caravan next to it, so I don’t fall under that category. A lot of my other friends from down there have parents who will buy them a house, or buy them a car. I think it is quite a typical happy childhood. If you put me in a city I think it would be a different outcome. There is no train station down the Lizard, and you’re lucky to get a bus, to be honest. I rarely got a bus anywhere; a big day out for me was to Poole market or something, going to get doughnuts. Maybe I would have travelled up and down to see friends and my access to other places would have been better, which could have maybe influenced me for better or worse. But I think being stuck down there really gave me gratitude for now, as an adult, driving, because I can’t imagine not driving, living in Cornwall. It’s just really difficult. It takes a long time to get anywhere. 

I think we have a really slow way of life down here. It’s quite chilled, it’s not as stressful as if you were somewhere built up. I know when I have friends visit they need almost a day of rest just to get used to the fresh air and just how different and relaxed it is down here. There’s no hustle and bustle. The worst you’re going to get is held up on the A30. Everyone kind of knows everyone in some way or another, which I think makes Cornwall quite unique. I don’t know if that’s the same in other small areas of England. We’re also by the coast, so I have a paddleboard, I surfed while I was growing up, I like to go swimming. There’s so much you can do if you go looking for it, but you have to dig deep for it here. It’s not put on a brochure for you through the post. There’s not so many people promoting their business through advertising and things – you need to go and find it. 

My dad was a fisherman down in Cadgwith: he was a crab fisherman first of all in his little boat, and then in Porthleven for a bit, and then he moved over to Falmouth and got his own boat. I’ve got a picture of me as a baby in a crab pot, and I’ve got videos of my grandad dragging me around the back of his tractor in a fish box. Actually, during the whole Brexit thing I did a lot of raising awareness through this company in Newlyn; we banded together to try and stop the fishing laws changing, because that will…well, it has really affected fishing in Cornwall, and where you can fish and what you can fish now.  I know in Cadgwith, there’s hardly any fishermen down there now, and if you get caught in a storm or your boat is broken and it needs repairs, the insurance behind it is really difficult. Most of them have to just start again, and when that happens a lot of people just haven’t got the money or the energy to start again, so that’s why there are loads of fishermen dropping out.

There’s a lot of cliff paths that I used to walk on as a child that are just not there anymore. There’s a few more corporate businesses that have moved down here, but that’s more Truro and Newquay and that area. Obviously the second homes, holiday homes, that’s really been boosted in the last decade. That’s quite problematic really. As a young local person, I’ve always really struggled finding somewhere to live that’s affordable, and now it’s worse than ever, which is part of the reason why I’ve got my van. I’ve kitted it out/am kitting it out to make it liveable, and it’s nearly there. It’s just really hard. The rent, the bills and then everything else that comes into it. If I did that I wouldn’t have any money for any internet, I wouldn’t be able to eat, wouldn’t be able to drink, wouldn’t be able to come here to do my training. I wouldn’t live a happy life. I’d be living to work, and I don’t want to do that. I want to work to live. 

I wish people knew about the poverty. Not a lot of people think that Cornwall actually really struggles but there is poverty, it’s really deprived. I see that with my job in the school – children are coming in literally with no jumper, sometimes no shoes, no bag, no breakfast, and one of the first schools I worked at in Penzance was the most deprived school in Cornwall. At Humphry Davy School I was on the same estate as Treneere, and that was just full of drug dealers and loads of trouble. Police were always there. A lot of people don’t see that side. You’re going to get that in any town, whether that’s a seaside town or not. There are problems here, and there is poverty here, but they don’t print that. Tourists don’t go to these places, so sometimes they wouldn’t know. I think that goes hand in hand with the opportunities and the work. If there are more opportunities and more jobs down here, maybe that would lead to a different outcome. 

I’m way more appreciative of Cornwall now. I can see it for what it is, especially if you’ve had some mental health issues and you come out of it the other side. The outdoors here is really good, I think, for anyone struggling with mental health, because although there are services you can go to, the help is not really here yet. The same opportunities as if I were struggling with my mental health in other places like, I don’t know, Bristol, London, Manchester… There’s lots of places that will offer help and lots of charities, but you’ll be lucky to get a phone call back from your doctor here. If you want to go into therapy there’s Outlook South West – 6 weeks and they’ll spit you out, you’re done. You’ve got to pay for it yourself down here; you really need to look after your head for that reason. 

Circus is my therapy, it’s why I drag myself out of bed. I come here and I always leave smiling. It’s the community. I bring friends here as well, just sharing what it gives me and hoping it can give them the same thing. It’s really important to have a community in Cornwall, otherwise you can end up feeling really alone. It is a lonely place if you don’t try and reach out. I’ve struggled with the isolation I think. Coming out of my degree and not knowing where to go with it, I haven’t had any help with that at all since leaving, and I wonder sometimes if maybe other people who actually had the uni experience and moved away and things, if they have had more help with getting employment. That’s something that I’ve struggled with. Also, friends moving away. You always have friends moving away. Or moving down and then moving away. It’s usually for work, because they can’t find the work down here, or it’s better money somewhere else. The pay’s not great down here. That’s just something I’m used to from growing up here. There’s just not as many opportunities, not that many opportunities down here at all.

I would like there to be just more education around what the issues are in Cornwall. We teach children in school about all of the mining history, the heritage of Cornwall, but I think if children have more opportunities to develop, more charities, more funding available, then we could probably do a lot more than what we’re doing now. I feel like sometimes we’re kind of forgotten about as well, being all the way down here. A bit more recognition would be nice. And maybe, I don’t know, making sure there are environmental campaigns for the beaches, the coral reefs, the rock pools, because littering has become a big problem and developed into a worldwide problem. So maybe more environmental education around the coast, because that’s what Cornwall is, that’s why people come. 

Finally, I wish, as a local girl, that I’d be able to afford my own house. But it’s extremely unlikely at the minute without having to borrow your deposit from your parents, or going in with several friends. It’s kind of impossible. I don’t have that conversation with anyone in their 50s, they’ve all got their houses. And if houses were the same price now in proportion to income as when they were when they were buying their houses, I’d probably be able to buy a house too. But it’s doubled in price, or more than that. How can we live or have a life where we were born if we’re not getting any help to live there? And especially with the housing issues. Some people have two houses in Cornwall and live elsewhere, maybe in another country. In the summer you can’t find anywhere to live. And in the winter, sometimes it’s only a 6-month let because they can make so much more money from tourists. That’s going to push a lot of young people away from Cornwall, I think. That’s what I wish would change. 

I’ve always wanted to move away but I just can’t seem to do it. I lived in Italy for 8 months; that’s the only time I’ve lived away from Cornwall, really, other than travelling. I’m very family-orientated, so I have my sister living down the road, I’ve got my dad still down the Lizard, my mum is travelling at the minute, but she’ll be back at the end of the month. My family is here and I see them almost every day. That’s what keeps me here and makes me love life in Cornwall. I think it would be completely different if I didn’t have my family around me. And maybe that is a reason why I’m reluctant to move away. I’m happy here.