Listen to the track:
Carrek an Jawl
A tribute to my Mother's cousin John Cecil Jenkin, Carrek an Jawl: Merchant Navy radio operator, Cornish headteacher, Gorsedd bard, and author of A View From Street-An-Nowan, a history of Newlyn.
Verse 1
From Street-An-Nowan by the turning tide
Where the gulls wheel low and the boats still ride
You carried Newlyn in your voice and face
The sea in your blood and the shape of the place
Chorus
Carrek an Jawl, still calling home
Over the water, over the foam
Out of the years, clear and strong
Gone from our sight, but not from our song
Verse 2
You learned the language of wave and wire
Night watch and call signs through the static’s fire
A radio man on the open sea
But home in your heart was where you would be
Chorus
Carrek an Jawl, still calling home
Over the water, over the foam
Out of the years, clear and strong
Gone from our sight, but not from our song
Verse 3
Then back from the sea to the schoolroom door
A headteacher true on a Cornish shore
Steady and thoughtful, quiet and true
Still giving your people the best of you
Chorus
Carrek an Jawl, still calling home
Over the water, over the foam
Out of the years, clear and strong
Gone from our sight, but not from our song
Verse 4
Then later in words you gathered it all
The harbour, the kinfolk, the rise and the fall
My mother is there and our people too
Caught in the turn of a phrase so true
Bridge
You carried the voices by wire and wave
Then taught the young what a lifetime gave
Then set it in words so the years lived on
Still looking out from Street-An-Nowan
Final Chorus
Carrek an Jawl, still calling home
Over the water, over the foam
Out of the years, clear and strong
Gone from our sight, but not from our song
Carrek an Jawl, your watch goes on
In the words you left and the lives that shine