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Loving Limpets!

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Loving Limpets!

There can’t be many social gatherings that are given over to celebrating the humble limpet(!), but that is exactly what happened at the Seco Lounge in the Royal William Yard on Thursday 29th Oct. 2022 with a ‘Loving Limpets’ social evening.

The Rock Pool Project had put together an evening of expertise and sharing that revealed all sorts of facts about these crusty little pyramids, familiar to every beach visitor, but so little understood. Co-founder Alan Smith acted as compère for the event, with the organisation’s Falmouth branch being linked in via Zoom.

Alan gave a brief presentation of The Rock Pool Project’s history and mission, in particular its flagship Blue Recovery initiative, which has provided many rock pool ‘safaris’ from Plymouth to Falmouth, and produced dozens of ‘Citizen Scientists’ by introducing many schools, families, individuals and groups to the secret world waiting to be discovered along the seashore.  The initiative has also generated an enormous quantity of data of sightings of species that are uploaded to the national marine database.

Alan introducing the evening
Bruce and Ursula wowing the crowds

Amongst the large audience were some of the ‘Adult Citizen Scientists’ and ‘Rock Pool Families’ that had already participated in the Blue Recovery Project, and who were given the chance to air their views of their experiences.  Particularly delightful was the participation of several children (along with their teacher and families) from St George’s Primary School in Stonehouse, just a stone’s throw away from both the venue and the waterfront. 

Next up were Bruce and Ursula – his granddaughter, who had been Blue Recovery Beach Day participants on a number of occasions; they gave a charming account of what they had discovered, with 6 year old Ursula impressively able to name a variety of species on sight from the photographs on the screen! Watching these two generations together (with 70 years between them!), it would be difficult to imagine a better illustration of how this kind of outdoor and adventurous activity can bring families together, as well as stimulate an impressive level of learning in children.

The first guest speaker was celebrated children’s author, Simon James, whose illustrated story, Sally and the Limpet, has delighted children around the world since its appearance in 1991. Simon has a lively and charismatic communication style and he delighted the audience firstly with an account of an experience that prompted him to write this book. He continued by sketching some samples from Sally & The Limpet.  (Alan, incidentally, found his calling here by acting as an impromptu easel for Simon’s sketchpad!).

Who better to read a story than the author himself. Simon demonstrated his powers as raconteur by taking the audience through the whole book; unsurprisingly, the younger members present were absolutely rapt and participated vocally with enthusiasm.  

Simon finished off by kindly reading through a more recent book of his, the enchanting Mr Scruff, with the whole set of illustrations on the main screen. He also shared some of his prototype books, full of watercolour illustrations and sketches. A real treat for lovers of the stories and inspiration for budding young authors!

Simon in his element
Young poet, Josiah

Earlier in the year, the Rock Pool Project had run a ‘Write-a-Limpet-Limerick’ competition, which had attracted submissions from children and adults alike.  At this point in the evening, a smattering of both kids and grown-ups stepped up to read their limericks – given a rousing reception by the audience, of course – and the prizes (bronze, silver and gold 3-D printed limpets, kindly produced in The Greenhouse – run by The University of Plymouth’s School of Art, Design and Architecture) were awarded. 

Special mention goes to 7 year old Josiah, whose limerick and accompanying illustration won the top prize of the golden limpet! Here is his winning poem:

I once met a limpet named Crimpet,

Who loved to nibble on shrimpets,

But they ran away,

And left him to pray,

That greedy old limpet named Crimpet.

The last section of the evening was provided by guest speaker, marine biologist Dr Louise Firth, from the University of Plymouth, whose PhD thesis had been on (guess what…) the limpet! Not an easy task to follow the earlier fun of the event, but Louise got the length, pitch and tone of her illustrated talk absolutely right, with the youngsters & adults engaged right to the end. Louise explained how limpets’ radula (teeth, in effect) are one of the hardest materials in nature; they are able to grind down the rocks themselves; they make their own made-to-fit ‘nesting’ spot called a ‘home scar’ over a possible thirty years; some have even turned gardener and tend their own patch of favourite algae, and are quite prepared to shove any poacher-limpets out of their site or trap them under the tide in a gruesome defence mechanism! 

This was a social evening with a difference, funny and educational by turns, and had a great sense of community about it. Special thanks have to go to the Seco Lounge for the kind use of the space, Matthew & Ryan from Fotonow for helping us capture the evening on camera and of course The National Lottery Heritage Fund for helping such a wonderful and unique community event to be possible. If you would like to see the zoom recording of the evening, please watch here.  (Apologies for the issues with sound recording.)

The Rock Pool Project is planning more of these events – watch this space!!

Dr Louise Firth

Images from the day:

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