Gunnislake's Oasis Centre to close

Some very disappointing if not totally unexpected news this week. The popular Oasis Centre in the middle of Gunnislake is going to close at the end of this month. Set up by the Calstock Development Trust the Oasis Centre has acted as a place where people could acquire computer skills, gain help in preparing CVs and get assistance in any possible way to find jobs. In earlier years the Trust employed one paid person to run it with voluntary assistance but latterly it has been run entirely by volunteers.

The trustees have been working hard on grant applications but sadly to no avail. The major running costs appear to be the monthly rent, not regarded as excessive, and the broadband connection. I assume that the computers are paid for. What is so galling then is that whilst the facility is operating in a very minimalist way (there's no central or local government waste here), it can't access what in the great scheme of things would be a small pot of money to keep functioning.

Gunnislake is a substantial village and is in fact the largest settlement in Calstock Parish. The population of the latter was 6095 at the time of the 2001 census and would be more now. I point this out just to indicate that Gunnislake is a bit more than a large hamlet, much more in fact.

Bill and the other volunteers have done a sterling job keeping the Centre open for so long when they could easily have thrown in the towel months ago. It is such a crying shame that they have come to the end of the road on this after all the effort that has been made. We should be grateful for what they have done.

Early start for foresters

My village of Gunnislake sprawls out over the western slope of the steep V-shaped valley through which the Tamar heads south towards Plymouth and the English Channel. Across on the Devon side the banks are heavily wooded and the precipitous rocky outcrops so densely covered with foliage form a truly spectacular outlook for local residents. Almost all the trees directly opposite my cottage are oak and other hardwoods and this part of the woodland is unlikely to be felled anytime soon if ever. But the forest isn't all of the amenity type and there are some substantial areas of softwood over there which are a commercial resource. Today, on and off, there have been a couple of people with chainsaws doing some felling. I first heard that characteristic snarl at about 7.20 this morning (!) but a near neighbour reckons they had started some time before that.

If there are two sounds I would be happy not to hear where I live it is that of (a) chainsaws and (b) strimmers. However the reality is that I do live close to a working woodland and thoroughly understand the need for forestry contractors to get in and make good use of their time. Really and truly then no problem for me. Now if it had been a private individual cutting down a tree in their garden at such an early hour I wouldn't have been too pleased!

Interestingly, apart from traffic on the main road through the village, and the occasional low flying jet, we don't fare too badly with noise pollution so that the occasional sound of chainsaw or strimmer is all the more noticeable when it shatters the peace. We can content ourselves with the fact that we are living in the here and now and not in Victorian times when the village would have reverberated with the sound of copper mining, granite quarrying and brick making. It really hummed with industry once but much of the evidence of this has now disappeared under the fast growing greenery that is so typical of the Tamar Valley.

Railway centenary celebrations coming up

This coming Sunday sees the centenary of the opening of our branch railway. Back in 1908 it ran from Bere Alston to Kelly Bray but, following the Beeching Report, the western section from Gunnislake to Kelly Bray has been closed. Today the line extends on from Bere Alston to Plymouth over what was in its day part of the Plymouth - Exeter route through Tavistock and Okehampton.

So far as our railway history is concerned 1908 on the face of it is a very late date to be opening a new railway line. Well part of it had been in use as far back as 1872 as a link from Kelly Bray to Calstock. As with many other lines hereabouts it was brought into being purely as a way to get freight to and from a convenient waterway, in our case the River Tamar. Reflecting its history in this truncated form it had been known as the East Cornwall Mineral Railway. The track from
the Tavistock direction through Bere Alston to Plymouth was completed in 1890 and it was seen as a sensible move to bridge the gap between the two railways even though this meant incorporating an expensive high level viaduct across the Tamar at Calstock.

Even with delays in the building of the viaduct this structure was completed in August 1907 well ahead of the rest of the line. Locally we celebrated the viaduct construction last summer but it was deemed (correctly in my opinion) that we should have a further series of events now.

This coming Sunday then is the big day with top brass from First Great Western, at least one local MP and various local council dignitaries getting in on the act. There will be a special train and I think three plaques to be unveiled. Over the weekend there will be archive displays, film shows and other jollifications taking place. In fact there is so much on the menu that the organisers sensibly put on two railway walks last weekend. These were led by two respected members of the Calstock Footpath Society - on Saturday David led a walk from Calstock Station and then on the following day Stephen led the walk from the station at Gunnislake. I didn't get to David's walk I'm afraid but did participate in Steve's which looked at the line and all its associated sidings between Gunnislake and Latchley. This was extremely interesting and informative.

Next Monday afternoon there is the opportunity to walk across Calstock viaduct (legally!) but you have to book and it will cost £5. Nice to say you have done it perhaps but the high parapet will preclude decent views. In the train you get a much better outlook - myself I'll stick with the train!

For more on the celebration events you can click here. No doubt I shall have more to record after next Sunday.