Early life in mother’s shop
Interviewer: When were you born?
Jack Rowe: 1929. I was born down where the Fearless shop is now (lower Fore Street). Grew up as a boy until the war and then I went to work in Bodmin.
Interviewer: At that time when you were born what was the shop (Fearless) then?
Jack Rowe: My mother had a shop there then…a newsagents, tobacconist, sweet shop.
Interviewer: Had that shop been newsagents for many years?
Jack Rowe: My uncle by marriage, Thomasses, they had it for 5 years. An old Port Isaac family. Then before that the Donnithornes had it. That’s another old Port Isaac family. Before that, in the early 1900s it was a reading room. People used to go in there to read. The history of that before, beneath the floor of the shop was the cellar to The Mote Inn. They stored all their barrels.
Interviewer: There is a well down there?
Jack Rowe: There is a well. Lots of houses had wells back then. It was a central part of life, water.