Thursday 7 April 2011

England's most westerly point and a single-handed open air theatre builder

At 1am on Monday morning I was in my old pal Chris' sitting room in Plymouth after a non-stop 4.5 hour belt down the motorway straight from work. We'd spontaneously decided I'd visit and go brown-signing around the South-West after The Minack Theatre signed up to www.thebrownsignway.com. I was hell-bent on paying them a visit after reading what they had to say about themselves: "The Minack is the UK's only cliffside open-air theatre, created by Rowena Cade in the 1930s, we're now hosting an 18 week summer season of plays and musicals and open all year to visitors who just wish to explore this incredible venue". A cliffside open air theatre on the tempestuous Cornwall coast, wowzers now that sounds cool. After a little more research I discovered their live webcam (permanently open in browser) which quite frankly cemented my hell-bentedness on visiting even more. I gave Chris a week's notice to get some time off work and so it was that I came to be sitting on his sofa at 1am. We haven't seen each other for about 8 years but I have Chris to thank for doing all my brown sign graphics early on when I finally decided to properly do my project full time. Ever since he's been massively supportive of me and really encouraging of my pursuits along The Brown Sign Way, so the prospect of spending the next few days with him was something I was really looking forward to.

We set off for The Minack nice and early the next day to allow for some random brown sign action along the way, and those Cornish brown signs didn't disappoint either.

I was excited about seeing the sign for Lands End because I've never been there before despite numerous trips to Cornwall. I've also thought a lot about doing a massive Land's End to John O'Groats brown-signing trip so I was happy to find my starting point had the appropriate signage. I think it's romantic to be somewhere where the land quite literally ends and to imagine yourself marked on the map, standing on the rugged toe of England as it juts out into the vast expanse of sea beyond, I like the thought of me being there on the very tip of Britain's toenail.