There is another town called St Ives in the UK, besides the one in Cornwall and that is situated in Huntingdonshire/Cambridgeshire.
This particular St Ives is mentioned in Rupert Brooke's poem - The Old Vicarage, Grantchester.
The bottle above says 'J Wadsworth, St Ives Cambridge' and refers to a wine shop which still exists.
Talking of Cambridgeshire towns, I have actually been to Grantchester and have seen 'Byron's Pool' which is supposed to be haunted by Lord Byron himself no less.
My father actually went in to the garden at 'The Old Vicarage' and got me a piece of Ivy from the exact hedge that Rupert Brooke was once photographed standing in front of, over 100 years ago.
I am sure the garden is fenced off now but at the time it was open and the house stands sideways to the road. We then went to a nearby pub, called the Rose And Crown but which later changed its name to the Rupert Brooke. At the time, this pub displayed the original manuscript of Rupert Brooke's 'Old Vicarage, Grantchester' poem under glass, so it was good to see it.
The little Ivy cutting from the garden of The Old Vicarage in Grantchester grew in to a plant and lasted for many years.
We had arranged to stay at The Pickerel Inn which was situated in Cambridge itself. Now this was quite some time ago and I do have to say I am sure the place is absolutely nothing like that now.
Well firstly after the drive down to Cambridge, we found the inn did not have our rooms ready and my father had to sleep in one of the pub owner's family's personal bedrooms so he was surrounded by someone else's clothes and belongings all night . My mother and self were given a filthy room which had dirty sheets and cat doober all over under my bed. I decided to sleep in the chair in my clothes.
The next day we decided to leave immediately, instead of taking the four day break we had planned.
Breakfast was green mouldy cornflakes and just when we thought it couldn't get any more weird, we found we were sharing a breakfast table with the well known British actress Sheila Hancock. I am not in the least star stuck as I believe in Aleister Cowley's saying that 'Every man and every woman is a star' we all have our unique talents, so I couldn't have cared less who was at the table, especially in that place, but she was actually very polite. It turned out that Sheila Hancock was in a theatre production in Cambridge at the time and it was she who had gotten our other room.
On the way back home, we called at Grantchester, which was the reason I had persuaded my parents to actually go to Cambridge in the first place. Grantchester is roughly about three or four miles from Cambridge if I recall correctly.
