Jack Clemo

He was the son of a clay-kiln worker and his mother, Eveline Clemo (née Polmounter, died 1977), was a dogmatic nonconformist.

His father was killed at sea towards the end of the First World War and he was raised by his mother, who exerted a dominant influence on him.

By the age of 65 he had achieved sufficient recognition for a dramatised version of his biography, directed by Norman Stone, to be produced and screened by the BBC in 1980.

This coincided with the closure of Trethosa Chapel on Sunday 2 June and the relocation of their Clemo Memorial Room artefacts to Wheal Martyn Museum and Park in St Austell.

This seemed to prompt a blaze of much more colourful verse, integrating the personal drama of his own life with the sweep of Italian faith, culture, landscape and history.

In "Heretic in Florence" he recounted the stench of the dry river Arno and its cure, portraying it as a metaphor for his own release from merely barren art.

[7] His personal and literary papers, including diaries, correspondence, and manuscripts of prose and poetry works, are held by the University of Exeter.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Jack Clemo, led by writer and editor Luke Thompson.

The former Cornish home of Jack Clemo was demolished by the Goonvean China Clay Company on 6 September 2005 to make way for new laboratories.

Alan Sanders, secretary of the Jack Clemo Memorial Room at Trethosa Chapel, said: "On a personal and literary level this cottage was highly important.