PERMISSION please to take readers on a stank around the area looking for ancient relics.

A visit from one of Cornwall's accomplished and impassioned councillors for a dish of tay and a bit of chat set into train a series of thoughts and questions. Ah, dear reader I hear you ask, "what councillor?" Why no other than the former South Crofty miner Mark Kaczmarek.

Mark spoke of The Band of Followers and Tommy Bray standing down from Kerrier. Would we be losing the father of Kerrier council or perhaps the honour is shared with the ever-popular John Thomas of Lanner?

Tommy has assured me he will now finish the book I persuaded him to write in 2003 via the pages of the Packet.

Moving away from personalities to matters of local history, matters of concern to the native population and indeed all others that care for Cornish artefacts, many of them missing from their true locations. Ting Tang mine, situated near the village of Carharrack, after its closing, allowed the mine bell to be housed within the Holincin Museum of Camborne. As readers recall the museum closed. Can anyone tell us where is the Ting Tang bell now? It would be far better situated near the old iron bridge on the Mineral Tramway route at Carharrack.

With the bell ringing in our ears to stone crosses, within the Ting Tang area stood a boundary stone, in the form of a cross. It is no longer in situ. Legend has it that it is located in a large country estate.

Removal of ancient artefacts is still common. For example, one stood in the Delean Cross area and another at Crouzmenegis. Both, wrote Langdon in his old Cornish crosses in 1896, "were removed from the county."

Mature Packet readers will recall with affection Flower Pot Chapel which was destroyed by fire on June 4, 1973. Also, they will not have forgotten Tabbs Hotel which was built in 1700 and pulled down in 1970 to make way for a Tesco supermarket.

Fortunately, the same fate did not fall on the Chapel of Ease in Redruth's Chapel Street, thanks to the actions of Old Cornwall's Michael Tangye and his supporters at Kerrier.

Perhaps the next time, dear reader, you walk along Green Lane in Redruth and pass the large house after Tremorvah, on your left you may be able to tell us where those fine carved lions went? Perhaps if that excellent gentleman Mr Paddy Bradley reads this epistle he may even have a picture of them.

D'Arcy Ed Richards, The Field, Carharrack