I’ve just re-read an excellent book, written by Sarah Foot, on the life of a ‘great West countryman’; its title is ‘My Grandfather, Isaac Foot’. Although his homes were mainly in Callington and Plymouth, he served as Lord Mayor of the latter, he was well known in the Liskeard District.

For several years during the First World War the Foot family lived in Ramsland, a house at the end of a track leading from the village of St Cleer. Two of his seven children were born there and at the beginning of the track is a large piece of granite inscribed ‘Isaac Foot 1880-1960’. Foot owned a donkey to pull a jingle, on which he made the daily journey to Liskeard Station, to then board a train to Plymouth and walk to his solicitor’s office. His wife Eva would drive the jingle home or, on the occasions he had walked into Liskeard, take the jingle to meet him in the evenings.

‘The donkey was to cause some trouble as he was always escaping from his field. Eventually a letter arrived for him from the Local Authority saying that protests had been made about the depredations of this donkey upon neighbouring property. He replied that for himself, I am powerless to control the animal, but I have read your letter to the donkey’.

Foot walked on Bodmin Moor and befriended the gypsies camped there. Eva would often walk down to the banks of the Fowey River at Redgate, especially in the spring when the bluebells in the woods were plentiful and beautiful. One of his sons, Hugh Mackintosh Foot, on becoming a Life Peer chose the name Lord Caradon.

The balcony of Webb’s Hotel on the Parade was where the results of Parliamentary elections were announced for the South East Cornwall Division, which included Liskeard. Isaac Foot appeared on the balcony when he was the Liberal winner, he became our MP in 1922 and 1923, and from 1929 to 1935. In 1931 he joined the cabinet as Minister for Mines. My thanks go to the late Sarah Foot for most of the information repeated here.