Figure 1.-- Here we are on holiday in Cornwall (August 1963). . About the time I stopped wearing shorts, except during the summer holidays. Pretty much the same clothes as I had in North Wales the year before. Judging by the length of the shorts, I'd not grown much. The scene is the bridge at Ruan Lanihorne in the days when the River Fal ran white with china-clay waste.

Here we are on holiday in Cornwall (August 1963). . About the time I stopped wearing shorts, except during the summer holidays. Pretty much the same clothes as I had in North Wales the year before. Judging by the length of the shorts, I'd not grown much. The scene is the bridge at Ruan Lanihorne in the days when the River Fal ran white with china-clay waste. The ground my mother and I are standing on is part of several hundred million tons of industrial waste, washed down the river over 2000+ years of mining upstream. The river was cleaned up in the mid/late-1960s. Note that Cornwall is not, geographically, part of England - only administratively. I find the photo rather interesting, in that it shows an aspect of industrial pollution that you won't find nowadays -- the rivers don't run white any more, thank goodness! Though it does make one or two local names a bit obscure. There's a "White River Bridge" in St Austell - don't know what the tourists make of it, there's often a traffic queue there so they might notice.

David