SHIPWRECKS conjure up all kinds of magical thoughts in the minds of romantic landlubbers especially when connected with the rugged coast of Cornwall.

The image of half-crazed Cornishmen wading through the surf in pursuit of booty armed with sticks and eating the ubiquitous Cornish pasty will always be associated with Cornish folklore.

But wreckers took their work seriously and in general terms a loose code of conduct prevailed when local people boarded a vessel to salve the cargo and ship’s equipment.

Wrecking became an accepted practice along the coast but cases of ‘second and third wrecking were deplored.

Close examination of the log books for St. Keverne school will show that attendance levels varied considerably when shipwrecks occurred. One entry for February 23, 1881, read as follows: “Great number absent today attending a wreck at Porthoustock which took place last evening. This was the schooner Georgina”.

In his memoirs James Henry Cliff a former coxswain of the Porthoustock lifeboat described how a cargo of railway sleepers and gear from the wrecked schooner Georgina found their way from the beach to the top of the cliffs near Porthoustock.

The Portmadoc-registered schooner Georgiana struck the Levellers Rocks north east of Porthoustock on February 22, 1881, when bound from London to Cork with a full load of railway sleepers.

An old sail soaked in paraffin acted as a distress signal. The lifeboat rescued the five-man crew but the last man to leave dropped the torch and the schooner caught fire.

Cliff and his friends started to salve the unburnt cargo and fittings the following day. Railway sleepers, blocks and sails etc., were hauled up the cliff and piled up. Later in the day heads were noticed popping up above the hedges, and mysteriously the salved gear was disappearing.

He remarked: ‘this was a case of second wrecking’.

A St. Keverne bus driver involved in this amusing incident filled the boot of his bus with loot ready for auction in Helston. But following a tip-off the crafty old lifeboat coxswain removed the items later that night. Describing this as ‘third wrecking’ Cliff said ‘I always think second wrecking is very bad practice, but third wrecking is abominable!