As I was going to St. Ives
I met a man with seven wives
Every wife had seven sacks
Every sack had seven cats
Every cat had seven kittens
Kittens, cats, sacks, wives
How many were going to St. Ives?
So goes the old rhyme.
When I went to St. Ives I witnessed a robbery.
My cousins took me to the Cornish seaside town, which has a population of just over 11,000, during my recent visit to England.
It took us about two hours by car from their town in Devon to get there.
We dropped off our belongings at the Carlyon Guest House before heading out to see the Tate St. Ives and the Barbara Hepworth Museum and sculpture garden.
As we wandered down Tregenna Place past the Cornish Stone Co. shop, I heard a smashing sound and some shouting inside. I realized it was a robbery and dialed 999 to alert the police.
Quite a crowd gathered.
At that point I knew only that I was in St. Ives. I passed the phone to a local man who answered questions from the police.
The robber was enraged because the staff inside the shop told her that the cash register was broken and that they couldn't open it.
She smashed up the interior of the shop and then shoveled jewellery into a black suitcase on wheels and headed out the door.
The robbery was executed messily.
It made me think about "In Cold Blood" and the mess of the crime undertaken in that book.
Years ago, when I worked at Morgan Pharmacy in Georgetown in Washington, D.C., the owner told me to hand over the cash straight away if we were robbed. I couldn't understand why the women in the Cornish Stone Co. didn't hand over the cash to get rid of her. I was afraid she had a weapon.
It was about 15 minutes from the time I called the police until the criminal left the shop and started wheeling her case up the street with two men in pursuit. I realized too late that we had no photos of her in action inside the shop because I was preoccupied with the police. I did take some as she fled.
We hung around for a while and gave our contact information to one of the shop women so the police could reach us if necessary. We didn't want to waste more time waiting when we had so much to see.
There was no sign of the police by the time we left, which was about 20 minutes later.
Later, local people told us they weren't surprised that the police didn't show.
They phoned me about seven hours later when I was in the midst of watching the Chelsea football game in a pub. The constable thanked me for my help and said the suspect had been apprehended. He'd heard I had photos and information about the crime. He said they wanted to interview me the following morning. I agreed.
But then the next day after hearing all the tales about the local police, I said to my cousins, let's high-tail it out of town and if they want to catch up with me later they can do so when we are back in Devon.
We wanted to go to the Eden Project that day.
I never heard from the police again.
BARBARA HEPWORTH MUSEUM & SCULPTURE GARDEN
Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975) died in a fire. She lived and worked in what is now part of the museum from 1949 until her death. Her studio room was left as it was at the time, which means it is open to the elements and her tools are rusting.
The garden is peaceful. It features several organic bronze sculptures of various shapes and some tropical foliage ~
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