WIDEGATES, a small village in the parish of Morval, occupies high ground with good views but it also gets a lot of rough weather including fog.

Fernley Babbage has lived in Widegates since 1963. He was born in Menheniot and trained as an engineer and consequently travelled all over the world including Iraq. He retired to the area and married Nancy Rebecca Kitt from Hessenford and ran the Post Office and Stores there for many years. They moved to Widegates and had three children.

Fernley said: 'I campaigned during the 60s and 70s to prevent the closure of Trenode School, it was a very strong campaign and we made the right decision as it has recently had an extension added and takes in pupils from a large catchment area.

'Widegates like many rural areas is in a demise and community life is sadly diminishing but Widegates is fortunate as it is central to many things, beaches, towns and the local golf courses, it has a rural country setting and is not far from anywhere if you have your own transport.'

The new bus shelter in the village was built using the Millennium funds of the parish council.

Fernley commented: 'It must be a contented village as many people have moved here and never left. My next door neighbour, Mrs Warring lived here for 53 years.'

As you come into Widegates, the garage, bought by Minerva South West, a building and civil engineering company, as their registered office in 1998 is on the right. The industrial units owned by Christopher Lewis and started by his father Ron, are situated behind the garage.

Ron now runs the yard and builds boats in his spare time. He has three sons, Tristan, Michael and Christopher. Christopher works abroad as a chief engineer on luxury cabin cruisers.

Ron said: 'He went backpacking years ago and since then has never really returned!'

The units house one car repair garage, one crash repair garage, one classic car restorer, one carpenter, one refrigeration engineer, a signwriter, a plastic window and door company, and two offices rented by the Social Services.

David 'Pitch' Pilgrim, from Millbrook, has owned the car repair garage for five-and-a-half years. It has been scaled down in recent years and David now employees Matthew 'Mutley' Williams, also from Millbrook, as an apprentice.

D J Collins Windows is a partnership between David Collins and Steve Harding. The business has been going for five years but has been based at Widegates for four-and-a-half years. Steve, from Downderry, explained: 'We have a niche market here, we get a lot of work from Looe and the surrounding area.'

Another business in the village is run by Alan Collings and his girlfriend Gemma Philp - Clown About - a company that hires out bouncy castles and inflatable obstacle courses.

Alan said: 'I was made unemployed and bought a bouncy castle and took it around to all the local rallies. Many of the people organising the rallies called me and told me they would like me to come back again so it expanded from there and I'm like part of the furniture at all the rallies in Cornwall.'

Alan has lived at Widegates for six years and the business took off about four years ago. He is also the Snooty Fox's chef.

The Old Chapel at the opposite end of the village was bought by Mike Dan and Sue Melhuish 10 years ago. At that time they lived in Looe and used the building as an antiques shop. Mike, Sue and their bearded collie cross, Benjy, started living in the building and refurbishing it as a home three years ago. The work is still progressing. The couple are still in the business of antiques but primarily do fairs and auctions now.

The Chapel used to be Methodist and services stopped there about 18 years ago.

Farmer

Mike and Sue both agreed: 'The village is nice but it has no heart to it. The Sunday School, adjoining the Chapel is all locked up and when it was our shop a lot of people used to just pop in for a chat but it wasn't really an appropriate place.'

Lydcott Farm is one of the farms in the village which has had several generations of the same family working it.

Graham and Ann Preston live there now but in 1910 Graham's grandad, Frederick Ryder came to Widegates from Pillaton and rented the farm from Cornwall County Council. Frederick was something of a market gardener and did a vegetable round in Plymouth every Friday during the First World War and up until the 1950s using a horse and cart and later a lorry.

Graham's mother, Louie Ryder married Harrie Preston from Plymouth. His family were all dockyard workers and he was the only one in the family to be a farmer. He moved from Plymouth to Sheviock, then on to Bray, near Bindown and finally to Lower Lydgate where he met Louie. Harrie took over Lydgate Farm and is now 96 and still lives in the village. He continued working on the farm until he was 90.

Louie was the church organist from when she was in her teens right up until the the chapel services stopped.

Harrie was the chapel steward. He was also a local preacher, a member of Morval Parish Council, a Looe school governor and a member of Liskeard Rural District Council.

Graham took over the farm in 1969 after marrying Ann, from Pelynt, in 1968. Their only son, Kevin, was born in 1970 and now lives and works in Glasgow.

The farm is primarily a beef and dairy farm although Graham has had to diversify into paint stripping. Graham said: 'There is no centre to the village. The people that have lived here all their lives are very friendly. It is a fragmented village with the new estate separated from the rest of the village by a field, but that was just the way the planning happened.

'The village is very high with good views but it gets a lot of rough weather and if there is going to be fog anywhere, it'll be at Widegates.'

Graham remembered the shops at Widegates: 'There was Granny Smith's the green grocers, Mrs Pearn ran the village shop, Angela Burt had a hairdressers, Mrs Thomas had a Post Office in her front room in a cottage on Chapel Row, Mrs Cook sold paraffin from a cottage at the end of chapel row, the butchers shop was run by Mr Matthews and there was a garage in the village which relocated to Nomansland and has now been turned into flats. Lydcott Estate was built by the builders Lightfoot and Walke in the late 50s and the blacksmiths was run by Reg Warren.'

Louis and Dulcie Peters ran the village shop from their house for over 30 years. Dulcie laughed: 'I have a lounge now instead of a shop!'

The Reading Room, situated next door to Louis and Dulcie is managed by Louis and was built in 1907 and daily papers used to be delivered there for people to go in and read. Since then times have altered and it is now a snooker hall.

Dulcie was born in the village. Louis left Trenode school and worked at the local butchers. During the Second World War he joined the Royal Marines and served 10 years at sea.

Louis said: 'I am a very lucky man. The ship I was on was torpedoed in the Med, dive bombed in the Pacific and I got away with it.'

Bill and Pat Ough used to farm at Morval and retired to Widegates six years ago.

Pat has been Parish Council Clerk for 26 years this year. She joked: 'A long time when you're trying to keep men in order!'

In the lifetime of the parish there have only been three clerks.

Astronomer

The estate on which Bill and Pat live was built by her brother, Ronald Lightfoot, with his business partner Wesley Walke, both are now retired.

There is a monthly magazine called Outlook compiled by Mike and Maggie Wilmot, Mary Howse, Val Olver and Mike Perrett. It was originally set up in 1995 as a Church project as people were concerned about the lack of communication when Widegates village shop closed and the magazine is used as a way of passing information.

Mike Wilmot is a science teacher at Liskeard School and is a keen astronomer.