22 million metres from Venice, 22 million sq metres of Greek sea, Trump’s ‘$22 million man’, and 22 million blog readers

Saint Mark’s Square and the Doge’s Palace in Venice … Vienna Cammarota trekked 22,000 km (22 million metres) from Venice to Beijing, following the route taken by Marco Polo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Once again, this blog continues to reach more and more readers, and had 22 million hits by 9:30 this morning (20 January 2026). This follows soon after reaching a landmark a week ago with 21.5 million hits by early morning last Tuesday (13 January 2026). At the very end of 2025, this blog had 21 million hits shortly after 1 pm three weeks ago on New Year’s Eve (31 December 2025), and with almost 2.5 million visitors throughout December (2,423,018). We are less than three weeks into January, and so far there have been over a million hits or visitors for 2026 by mid-afternoon today.

This blog passed the half million mark five times in one month alone last month, hitting the 21 million mark on New Year’s Eve (31 December 2025), 20.5 million on Christmas Day (25 December), 20 million mark a week earlier (18 December 2025), 19.5 million the previous Sunday (14 December 2025), and 19 million less than a week before that (9 December).

I began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers – a number reached within the past week alone. It then took more than another year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013. This blog reached the 10 million mark a year ago (12 January 2025), almost 15 years later. In the 12 months since then, another 11.5 million hits have been counted.

Throughout last year, the daily figures were overwhelming on many occasions. Seven of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were last month alone, four were last January, and one was this month:

• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 166,155 (15 December 2025)
• 146,944 (14 December 2025)
• 140,417 (16 December 2025)

• 122,398 (17 December 2025)
• 116,911 (30 December 2025)
• 112,221 (13 December 2025)
• 106,475 (27 December 2025)
• 106,169 (16 January 2026)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)

The latest figure of 22 million is all the more staggering as more half of those hits (11 million) have been within less than a year, since 12 February 2025. The rise in the number of readers seems to have been phenomenal throughout last year, and the daily figures are overwhelming at times, currently running at about 50,000.

With this latest landmark figure of 22 million readers, I once again find myself asking questions such as:

• What do 22 million people look like?

• Where do we find 22 million people?

• What does £22 million, €22 million or $22 million mean?

• What would it buy? How far would it stretch? How much of a difference would that much make to people’s lives?

Picture postcard images of Santorini in Milton Keynes … Greece plans a new Ionian and South Aegean Marine Park of 22,000 sq km or 22 million sq metres (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

22 million metres is 22,000 km and 22 million sq metres is 22,000 sq km.

Israel is officially 22 million sq metres (22,000 sq km), but his figure usually includes the occupied Golan Heights (1,200 sq km) and East Jerusalem (64 sq km) yet excludes parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, so that the official figures is around 22,072 sq km.

The Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently announced Greece is creating two new marine parks in the Ionian and South Aegean Seas – one in the Ionian Sea and one in the Southern Cyclades. He said that these parks ‘will be among the largest marine protected areas in the entire Mediterranean’ and will allow Greece to reach its target of protecting 30 per cent of its territorial waters by 2030, much earlier than originally planned.

The extent of these parks exceeds the initial announcements in 2024, when Mitsotakis suggested marine parks covering a total area of 22,000 sq km – 14,000 sq km in the Ionian Sea and 8,000 sq km in the Southern Aegean.

Some calculations suggest the longest walkable road is 22,000 km long (22 million metres), from Cape Town in South Africa to Magdan in East Siberia in Russia. There are bridges across the way, but no boat or air journeys are required.

It would take 4,492 hours or 187 days to travel if you walked nonstop . If you take a more realistic pace and walk just eight hours a day, it will take you 561.5 days – about a year and a half – walking through 17 countries, six time zones, and experiencing all seasons and weathers along the way. Needless to say, no one has ever done it, and technically it would be illegal in many places.

It takes about 11 days and 11 hours to drive 22,000 km at an average speed of 80 km per hour.

Vienna Cammarota, an Italian grandmother in her 70s, set off from Venice on 26 April 2022 on an epic 22,000 km hike, following the route taken by the Italian explorer Marco Polo to Beijing 750 years ago. Her extraordinary journey was to promote peace, courage, and cultural exchange followed the ancient Silk Road route.

After more than 850 days, covering 22 million metres (22,000 km), Vienna Cammarota arrived in China with The Travels of Marco Polo in hand, and she reached Beijing on 27 September 2024.

Chris LaCivita, who co-managed Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential election bid, has abandoned a high-profile lawsuit against the Daily Beast, 10 months after alleging the news outlet had defamed him in reporting on campaign expenditures. The Daily Beast has not retracted the story, has made no apology and has not made any cash payment to LaCivita, who quietly dropped his legal action olastn Friday (16 January 2026).

LaCivita’s lawsuit involved a series of reports from the Daily Beast that suggested he had ‘raked in’ huge payments, including a piece by the journalist Michael Isikoff that was headlined ‘Trump in Cash Crisis – As Campaign Chief’s $22m Pay Revealed’. LaCivita said the $22 million figure represented gross campaign advertising expenditures, not personal income. After initial correction demands from LaCivita’s legal team, the Daily Beast modified its reporting, reducing the claimed compensation to $19.2 million and clarifying that funds went to LaCivita’s consulting firm.

The Atlantic reported in November 2024 that Trump furiously questioned LaCivita about the figure while they were both on a campaign plane. Trump told LaCivita: ‘You should sue those bastards,’ and would later teasingly refer to him as ‘my $22 million man’.

Meanwhile, YouTube has agreed to pay Trump $22 million to settle his 2021 lawsuit, which he filed after YouTube suspended his account following the Capitol riot on 6 January 2021. Driving the news: In addition, YouTube will pay $2.5 million to the other plaintiffs on the case, which include the American Conservative Union and writer Naomi Wolf. According to the court filing, Trump’s $22 million gains will go into a trust to help fund his White House ballroom renovation project, which has an estimated $200 million price tag.

And 22 million minutes is almost 15,278 days or 41.8 years. In other words, if this blog was getting one hit a minute, it would take almost 42 years to reach this 22 million mark.

So, yet again, this blog has reached another humbling statistic and a sobering figure, and once more I am left with a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.

Once again, a continuing and warming figure in the midst of all these statistics is the one that shows my morning prayer diary continues to reach up to 70-90 people each day.

It is almost four years now since I retired from active parish ministry, but I think many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 500 to 600 people or more each week.

Today, I am very grateful to all the 22 million readers of this blog to date, and in particular I am grateful for the faithful core group among you who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.

The longest walkable road is 22,000 km long (22 million metres), from Cape Town in South Africa to Magdan in East Siberia

A new Cricket season is about to begin for Stony Stratford and in Campbell Park

The Cricket Pavilion anat Campbell Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Patrick Comerford

Patrick Comerford

I had planned to join clergy colleagues in the Milton Keynes area on a mid-week walk last week, beginning at the Cricket Pavilion and continuing around Campbell Park or down to the coffee shop at Willen Lake.

But it was mid-term break for most parents with children at school. So, instead, the two of us who turned up took a short walk through the park that took us as far as Campbell Wharf Marina.

After strolling around the wharf, the boats and the canal banks, I made my way back to the cricket pavilion and the cricket ground in Campbell Park. This is a meticulously maintained ground known for its first-class standard cricket pitch. It hosts a diverse range of matches, including local, county, youth, business, and exhibition matches.

There is a thriving cricket following in Milton Keynes and Campbell Park hosts many matches from April to September. In local domestic cricket, Campbell Park has been used by Stony Stratford Cricket Club for its Premier Division and Division 2 fixtures in the Northamptonshire Cricket League and as the venue for all 3rd XI and 4th XI games.

Campbell Park has also been the home venue for the Northamptonshire Cricket Academy play in the Northamptonshire Cricket League, and Bucks Cricket use Campbell Park for the training of many of their youth teams.

Most matches at Campbell Park are free to watch, with seating on the grass terraces beside the pitch (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Campbell Park hosted its first match in 1981, when the Northamptonshire Second XI played the Leicestershire Second XI in the Second Eleven Championship. The first List-A match on the ground was in 1997 when Northamptonshire played Nottinghamshire in the AXA Life League. Two years later, the ground was the venue in 1999 for a List-A match between New Zealand A and Sri Lanka A.

Campbell Park hosted a single first-class match between a First-Class Counties Select XI and New Zealand in 2000. Northamptonshire played Hampshire there in 2004 in the Totesport League. The ground hosted its first Twenty20 match in 2005 when Northamptonshire played Gloucestershire in the Twenty20 Cup. From 2005 to 2008, the ground was the venue for four Twenty20 Cup matches, the last in 2008 when Northamptonshire played Warwickshire.

Buckinghamshire used the ground from 1998 to 2000, for Minor Counties matches, playing two Minor Counties Championship matches against Staffordshire and Suffolk and one MCCA Knockout Trophy match against the Sussex Cricket Board.

Campbell Park has held two Women’s One Day Internationals. The first was between England women and South Africa women in 1997, and the other between Ireland women and India women in 1999.

With the return of the cricket season in the warmer months, enthusiasts can look forward to an exciting line-up of fixtures. Most matches are free to watch, with seating on the grass terraces beside the pitch. Clubs, organisations and businesses are encouraged to bring their matches to the ground.

I am looking forward to the 2025 season which is about to begin. In previous summers, I have enjoyed some weekend games played by Stony Stratford Cricket Club at the Ancell Trust Sports Grounds on Ostlers Lane. Stony Stratford is back in the NCL Premier Division, and the Men’s First XI plays Old Northamptonians CC at Raunds Town Cricket Club on Saturday 26 April, while the Second XI plays Brixworth Second XI at Ostlers Lane.

Now, with the return of the cricket season, I must also look out for the line-up of fixtures in both Ostlers Lane and Campbell Park.

Getting ready for the new season in Campbell Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025; click on images for full-screen viewing)

Stratford College students launch new interactive walking tour of Jewish heritage sites in Dublin

Students in Stratford College, Rathgar, have launched a Jewish Dublin interactive heritage trail

Patrick Comerford

When I was back in Dublin last week, I was staying near Portobello, and took time for an early morning stroll back through the ‘Little Jerusalem’ area off Clanbrassil Street and the South Circular Road, an area that I have known intimately since my childhood and that was home to many members of the Comerford family in previous generations.

During my visit, I also learned how Transition Year students in Stratford College, Dublin, have launched a Jewish Dublin interactive heritage trail, outlining areas in the city that once had close links to the Jewish community.

This Jewish Dublin interactive heritage trail has been created as part of the Jewish Arts and Culture Ireland (JACI) programme. A video guide and map are available to download for anyone interested in tracing the history and the stories behind these places, from the Jewish businesses that were once part of life on Clanbrassil Street and ‘Little Jerusalem’, to the Bretzel Bakery in Portobello.

This historical walk is available to download HERE.

I have been named among the contributors and resources in this new walking tour for my series of blog postings on ‘The Synagogues of Dublin’

It was heartening to see I have been named among the contributors and resources to this new resource for my series of blog postings on ‘The Synagogues of Dublin.’ Other contributors who are acknowledged include Dr Natalie Wynn, who has worked alongside me on a number of books edited by Dr Salvador Ryan, Steven Jaffe, director of Belfast Jewish Heritage, Ruti Lachs of Cork Jewish Culture Walk, the late Asher Benson, and the Irish Jewish Museum and Archives.

The walking tour begins at Stratford College, a co-educational fee-paying school in Rathgar. It was originally founded by the Jewish community in 1954, and today the school welcomes students of all faiths and none. This commitment to cultural and religious diversity, while maintaining its commitment to the religious education and formation of Jewish students, makes Stratford College unique.

Herzog Park, beside Stratford College, was acquired by Dublin Corporation in 1954 and was set out as a park in 1985. Originally known as Orwell Quarry Park, it was renamed in 1995 in honour of Chaim Herzog, former President of Israel, who grew up in Dublin. Children from Stratford National School were involved in designing the playground.

The school was first located in a house called ‘Stratford’ on Terenure Road East and later moved to the present campus in Rathgar. Zion National Schools in Bloomfield Avenue, an earlier school, is also included in the new walking tour. It opened in 1934 and was the first purpose-built Dublin Jewish school in which both Hebrew and secular education were combined.

Zion National Schools in Bloomfield Avenue opened in 1934 and was the first purpose-built Dublin Jewish school (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

The guide points out that for almost 100 years the heart of the Jewish community in Dublin centred around South Circular Road and the Clanbrassil Street area of Portobello, known as ‘Little Jerusalem.’ From the mid-1870s onwards, east European Jews had begun to settle in Dublin. Until the 1980s, its kosher shops served the Jewish community.

The Jewish population in Ireland increased tenfold, from 394 in 1881 to 3,805 in 1911. After World War II, the number peaked but then began to gradually decline. The trail offers a glimpse of Jewish life through selected buildings and accompanying memories.

The trial visits the Stolpersteine or ‘stumbling stones’ at Saint Catherine’s National School on Donore Avenue, which I also visited last week. The stones commemorate six Irish victims of the Holocaust: Ettie Steinberg Gluck, her husband Wojteck Gluck, and their baby son Leon, along with Isaac Shishi, Ephraim Saks and his sister, Jeanne (Lena) Saks. Ettie Steinberg attended this school.

Around the corner, Greenville Hall Synagogue on South Circular Road was built for Lithuanian Jewish immigrants. The synagogue was completed after World War I, but closed in 1984.

Adelaide Road Synagogue was the first purpose-built synagogue in Dublin and served the Dublin community from 1892 to 1999. It was called the ‘English shul’ by East European immigrants because it followed the style and customs of British synagogues.

The Bretzel Bakery on Lennox Street has been open since 1870 and is a Portobello institution, well known to generations of the Dublin Jewish community. Its Kosher status has been re-established since William Despard took over the shop in 2000.

Nearby, a shul or synagogue was founded at 32 Lennox Street by immigrants from Lithuania and Poland in 1887. The people who arrived from Poland, Russia, and the Baltics in the 1880s formed small congregations or hebroth in ‘Little Jerusalem.’

The Levitas family attended Lennox Street synagogue, just around the corner from their home on Warren Street. One Saturday in the mid-1920s, the synagogue nearly went up in smoke. It was not, however, attempted arson. Four playmates had been anxious to bring the Sabbath to a speedy conclusion in order to resume playing on the street. So they came back into the synagogue to hastily say the final prayers, and accidentally knocked over a candle that set a cloth alight, fortunately quickly extinguished. The ‘culprits’ were three brothers – Max, Maurice and Sol Levitas – and Chaim Herzog, a future President of Israel and son of Yitzhak Herzog, the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland. The synagogue on Lennox Street closed in 1974 and moved to Stratford College, where worship continued until 1981.

Many Jewish families moved from to the suburbs of Terenure, Rathgar and Rathfarnham from the 1950s on and the small hebroth in ‘Little Jerusalem’ closed. Some of the people who moved out built the synagogue on Rathfarnham Road in Terenure, a few doors from where I was born. It was designed by Irish architect Wilfrid Cantwell, with a 600-seating capacity, and was completed and dedicated in 1953.

Shabbat Shalom

A small shul or synagogue at 32 Lennox Street was founded by immigrants from Lithuania and Poland in 1887 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

A self-guided walking tour of the principal sites in Jewish Birmingham

New Street Station, Birmingham, was built on the site of a synagogue established in the 1780s in the Froggery district (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

I spent much of the day yesterday on my own self-guided walking tour of Jewish Birmingham, including Britain’s oldest active ‘cathedral synagogue.’

There are few records if any of a Jewish presence in mediaeval Birmingham, which was only a market town until the Industrial Revolution, and there has never been a large Jewish community in Birmingham.

Jews began to have a numerical presence in Birmingham in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Smaller Jewish communities later developed in other parts of the Midlands in the Victorian period, including Wolverhampton, the Five Towns of ‘The Potteries’ in Staffordshire, Coventry, Nottingham and Northampton.

The first Jews to settle in noticeable numbers in Birmingham arrived ca 1730. A generation later, Meyer Oppenheim built the city’s first glass kiln. A synagogue was established in the 1780s in the Froggery district, a low-lying marshy and swampy area that was later built over with Station Road and New Street Station in 1845.

Seven years after the anti-Catholic ‘Gordon Riots’ in 1780, Lord George Gordon (1751-1793) converted to Judaism in Birmingham in 1787, at the age of 36. Some sources say his conversion occurred earlier when he was in exile in Holland. However, it seems he underwent brit milah or ritual circumcision at the synagogue in Severn Street in 1787, when he took the name of Yisrael bar Avraham Gordon, and became a Ger Tsedek or righteous convert.

Gordon lived with a Jewish woman in the Froggery, grew ‘a beard of extraordinary length,’ dressed like a Jew, and observed kosher dietary standards. However, little else is known about his life as a Jew in Birmingham until he was arrested and jailed in 1788.

Gordon lived as an Orthodox Jew In Newgate Prison, where he put on his tzitzit and tefillin daily, fasted on the days of fasting, and celebrated the Jewish holidays. The prison authorities supplied him with kosher meat, wine and Shabbat challos, and they allowed him to have a minyan on the Sabbath, to affix a mezuza on his cell door, and to hang the Ten Commandments on the wall. In Barnaby Rudge, Charles Dickens describes Gordon as a true tzadik or pious man among the prisoners.

When Gordon’s prison sentence was due to end, he appeared in court on 28 January 1793, and refused to remove his hat. He died of typhoid fever in Newgate Prison on 1 November 1793 at the age of 41. He was buried not in a Jewish cemetery but in the detached burial ground of Saint James’s Church, Piccadilly. It later became Saint James’s Gardens, but in recent years the burials there were reinterred to make way for work on HS2.

A new synagogue was built in Hurst Street, Birmingham, in the vicinity of the Froggery, in 1809. But it was destroyed, along with other places of worship during riots in 1813. It was rebuilt and enlarged in Greek Revival style in 1823-1827 by the architect Richard Tutin.

Because of the growth in the Industrial Revolution in the 1830s, cities in the Midlands and the north, such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, attracted many people from other parts of England and other countries, including Jewish immigrants.

Many of these new arrivals included Jewish immigrants from Germany, the Netherlands and Poland. By 1851, there were 780 Jews in Birmingham, of whom about a quarter were recent arrivals from Poland and Russia. They were active mainly in four areas of economic life: glaziers, slipper makers, tailors and traders. These patterns of migration and growth mean that the surviving Jewish heritage in Birmingham is largely Victorian.

The synagogue on Hurst Street was refurbished in 1851. However, a schism divided the community the following year (1852), leading to the formation of a rival synagogue on Wrottesley Street in 1853.

Unity was restored in 1855, and the two congregations united at the opening of the new synagogue on Singers Hill in 1856. The synagogue on Hurst Street was sold to the Freemasons that year and became the Athol Masonic Hall.

The Birmingham Hebrew Congregation, usually known as Singers Hill Synagogue, was founded in 1856 and was built on Blucher Street and Ellis Street. It is often known as the ‘Cathedral Synagogue’.

On the eve of World War I, there were 6,000 Jews in Birmingham, and the community reached a peak of 6,600 in 1918.

There were still 6,300 Jews living in Birmingham in 1967. But, while Birmingham is England’s second city, it had a proportionately small Jewish community, depleted by the exodus to the suburbs and surrounding towns. The Solihull and District Hebrew Congregation was founded in 1963. Later, the Central Synagogue moved to Pershore Road, the New Synagogue moved to Park Road, and the Progressive Synagogue moved to Sheepecote Street.

More Jews left Birmingham in the 1980s, mainly for London, Manchester and Israel. There were then only 3,000 Jews in Birmingham in the 1980s, and census figures show about 2,200 Jews are living in Birmingham today.

In my self-guided tour of Jewish Birmingham this week, with the help of Sharman Kadish’s superb book, Jewish Heritage in Britain and Ireland: an architectural guide, I visited many of these Victorian landmarks. But more about them, hopefully, in the days or weeks to come.

The Birmingham Moses (1787), Lord George Gordon caricatured in a satirical print by William Dent

More sculptures on the move in public spaces in Milton Keynes

Keith McCarter’s ‘Cycloidal Form’ outside the Hotel La Tour in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

One of the delights of walking around Milton Keynes and Campbell Park on a summer evening is having the uninterrupted space and light to appreciate many of the 200 or more modern sculptures in public spaces throughout this new city.

Keith McCarter’s sculpture ‘Cycloidal Form’ is now outside the Hotel La Tour in Milton Keynes, which opened last year (2022).

‘Cycloidal Form’ is a 3 metre diameter stainless steel sculpture, and was first commissioned by Standard Commercial Properties for Great Eastern Enterprise, Marsh Wall, in the London Docklands. The site was where Brunel had the keel laid for his ship Great Eastern and the sculpture reflects this maritime association.

Keith McCarter’s ‘Cycloidal Form’ formed part of a fountain outside HSBC near South Quay station London Docklands. However, HSBC decided to leave its 45-floor ‘tower of doom’ in the docklands and move back to the City of London after more than two decades. It was a major blow to Canary Wharf’s standing as a global financial centre in the wake of Brexit and the pandemic, and at a time ‘hybrid working’ reduced the need for office space.

Keith McCarter is a Scottish sculptor, with several works on public display. He was born in Edinburgh in 1936 and studied at Edinburgh College of Art. An Andrew Grant Scholarship allowed him to travel through Europe in 1960-1961. He then lived in the US until 1963, returning to the UK to become a visiting lecturer at Hornsey College of Art.

As his career moved on, he switched from working in concrete to metal. He designed many of the concrete walls, murals and patterns on buildings that formed the aesthetic of postwar Britain.

He is known for his abstract sculptural relief in concrete, ‘Celestial,’ which was commissioned by the Ordnance Survey in 1969. The mural was a beacon of postwar optimism and adorned the OS headquarters in Southampton until 2011, when the OS downsized and moved to new premises.

As map-making and storage became digitised, and printing was outsourced, there was no longer a need for vast floors. As far as I know, more than a decade later, the dismantled 34-tonne sculpture is still stored at the bottom of a field in Milton Keynes, and all efforts to find a new home for it have proven fruitless.

Meanwhile, Keith McCarter’s creative energy remains undiminished, although he had become a full-time carer for his wife, Brenda, a talented needleworker who died recently.

‘Chain Reaction’ (1992) by Ray Smith at the northern entrance to Campbell Park in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

‘Chain Reaction’ (1992) was created by Ray Smith specifically for Skeldon Gate, the northern entrance to Campbell Park, and was sponsored by many local developers. It is one of the ‘Town Giants’ in Milton Keynes, and was presented to the Milton Keynes Parks Trust in June 1992.

This 12-metre model of figures balanced like acrobats in an endless chain was designed to be viewed from every angle. Smith’s basic idea was to create a three-dimensional model of figures balanced like acrobats in an endless chain. It is made from laser-cut mild steel and painted in red paint.

Ray Smith (1949-2018) was a sculptor, painter, illustrator and writer who exhibited widely. Although he had no formal art training, he received many awards, including an award from the Arts Council of Great Britain and the Royal Society of Arts Architecture Award. He also wrote several books on art for the publisher Dorling Kindersley and designed a selection of record sleeves.

Smith was born in 1949 in Harrow and studied English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. His first solo exhibition was at the School of Architecture at Cambridge in 1970. He married Catriona Hermon, a fellow student at Cambridge, in 1971. He taught English at the Cambridge School of English and lectured at the Chelsea School of Art in the 1970s and 1980s. During this time, he also designed and illustrated record sleeves for several bands and musicians.

He illustrated two of Catriona Hermon’s children’s books, The Long Slide (1977) and The Long Dive (1978), in his ‘precise, whimsical style,’ and won two awards for his work in The Long Slide. He wrote and illustrates his own children’s book, Jacko’s Play (1980), followed by a series of Dorling Kindersley art books in 1984-1995, including The Artist’s Handbook (1987) and was consulting editor for DK’s Art School series.

Smith explored several art forms, including sculpture, painting and portrait photography, and exhibited his work widely. He was self-employed and much of his output was commissioned. He created a number of painted steel sculptures, including ‘Chain Reaction’ in Campbell Park, Milton Keynes.

He received many awards during his career, and has been a fine arts fellow at Southampton University. He died from dementia in 2018 at 69.

Summer evenings offer uninterrupted space and light to appreciate the 200 or more modern sculptures in Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

An evening in Porthleven, the most southerly port and harbour in Britain

Porthleven is the most southerly port in the United Kingdom (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

After visiting Marazion and St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall on an overcast, wet afternoon, last week, the family group I was with continued on south along the coast of Mount’s Bay to the fishing harbour of Porthleven, where we had dinner that evening.

Porthleven, with its granite harbour and pier and its famous clock tower, has a population of about 3,000, and is the most southerly port in the United Kingdom.

During winter storms, many people visit the town to watch the waves crashing over the sea defences and storms roll in from the Atlantic.

The Bickford-Smith Institute in Porthleven is one of the landmark buildings of Cornwall (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Porthleven’s harbour is best known for the Bickford-Smith Institute, a prominent building next to the pier and harbour entrance. It looks like a church, and its clock tower, standing 20 metres high, makes it one of the landmark buildings of Cornwall.

The tower has been painted by many artists and is used as popular image of Porthleven. A photograph of the building with large breaking waves often appears in the background of BBC weather forecasts, particularly when windy conditions and rough seas are expected.

The institute has a plaque to Guy Gibson VC, the leader of the Dambuster Raid, on the wall facing the harbour. Gibson was born in India, but his mother was from Porthleven, his parents were married here, and he regarded Porthleven as his hometown.

Gibson visited the town regularly during World War II, and occasionally attended Porthleven Methodist Church. He was killed in 1944 and his name is included on the community’s war memorial and Gibson Way in the town is named after him.

Today, the institute building houses the town council offices and is also used by a snooker club.

The present village began with the construction of the harbour in 1811(Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The history of Portleven dates back to at least the mid-11th century, and nearby Methleigh is said to have been the site of a fair and annual market from the year 1066. After the Norman Conquest, the Manor of Methleigh was held by the Bishop of Exeter but the Earl of Cornwall possessed the fair.

The name Porthleven is probably connected with Saint Elwen or Elwyn, who gave his name to a chapel that stood here before 1270. There were also chapels in neighbouring Higher Penrose and Lanner Veor and a holy well at Venton-Vedna.

Saint Elwen’s chapel was rebuilt about 1510, but it was destroyed at the Reformation in 1549.

The Ship Inn in Porthleven dates from the 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Ship Inn in Porthleven at the harbour is said to date from the 17th century. However, Porthleven did not develop until the days of sail, when it became a harbour of refuge at a time when this part of the Cornish coast was a black spot for wrecks. Due to the prevailing westerly winds, it was easy for a ship under sail to be trapped in Mount’s Bay and wrecked nearby.

The present village began with the construction of the harbour in 1811. The harbour faces south west into the prevailing wind and so building the harbour and sea walls was a major undertaking.

From the cliffs there are views of the abandoned engine houses of the tin mine at Rinsey and of Tregonning Hill, an extinct volcano where china clay was first discovered in England.

William Cookworthy leased the quarries at Tregonning Hill quarries and shipped china clay from Porthleven to his porcelain factory in Plymouth. In 1826, 150 tons of china-stone and 30 tons of china clay were shipped, and by 1838 this amount had risen to 500 tons of china-stone. Granite from the quarries at Coverack Bridges and Sithney was also shipped from the harbour.

Although Saint Bartholomew’s, the parish church, was built in Porthleven in 1842, the town remained part of the neighbouring small parish of Sithney until 1844.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution stationed a lifeboat at Porthleven in 1863. A boat house was built at Breageside, and from there the boat was taken to the water on a carriage.

Shipping china clay from Porthleven came to an end in 1880. But by then Porthleven had also become a centre for shipbuilding, employing up to 20 people at times. Between 1877 and 1883, 52 fishing boats were built here, ranging in length from 6.7 m to 17 metres. The harbour once had a fleet of more than 100 drifters used to fish pilchard and mackerel.

A new boat house opened on the west side of the harbour entrance in 1894 with a slipway to make launching easier. The station was closed in 1929 and the slipway was dismantled. The boat house was used as a store for a while, later become the Shipwreck Centre museum, and is now a gallery, studio and party venue.

The small beach below the harbour at Porthleven (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Porthleven lies within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and the South West Coast Path, which follows the coast from Somerset to Dorset and passes through the town.

Porthleven remains the most southerly working port in the United Kingdom. But it is also popular with artists and has several studios and craft shops, as well as several good restaurants and a small beach.

We stopped briefly for a drink in the Harbour Inn, and had dinner that evening at Kota Kai in Celtic House at Harbour Head. Kota Kai and its neighbour, Kota Restaurant, where Jude Kereama is the head chef.

The Harbour Inn at the harbour uses the clock tower as its pub sign (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)