31/01/2025
If there is any lasting legacy to the Cruel & Curious shows, beyond being a fun (and hopefully memorable) weekend distraction each autumn, I like to think it is in the connections it fostered, sparking relationships and collaborations that have extended far beyond the event itself. Having decided to draw the curtains on the show in 2023, I found a kind of peace in that. That, in some subtle way, it lives on.
Except in December last year, I went and decided I couldn’t do without it (again!). I’d felt a bit lost without it in September – a sentiment shared by the team. Instead, I occupied myself on what would normally have been the show weekend with an enjoyable (if very wet) walk across the width of the county. But the show continued to linger in my thoughts well beyond that.
On the Thursday before Christmas, I bumped into my good friend and Cruel & Curious Co-Founder, Jeff Cherrington, in a cafe in Bude. We met up regularly, and he’d shared my hesitations over ending the event – even though I’d thought it was the right decision at the time. By this point, though, I was confident that I’d come up with a way to overcome one of its biggest hurdles, and I wanted to bring it back. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. Expectedly, Jeff was very happy to hear it. I suggested a meeting (aka a pint and chips on a bench at the pub) on the other side of Christmas. He agreed to it, and I left smiling. Jeff was smiling too.
On Christmas Eve, we received the news that Jeff had passed away suddenly the day before. Like the rest of the team, I couldn’t reconcile the image of Jeff – relatively young, physically fit, and eternally laid-back – with the idea that he was gone. Truth be told, I’m still struggling with that now.
It’s pretty much impossible to overstate Jeff’s role in making the event happen. As the National Trust’s Lead Ranger in the area, based out of Stowe Barton, he had been kind enough to have indulged my initial fantasy of putting on some kind of art show within its unique courtyard and rooms, and it was his vision, as we first scoped out the cluttered and dusty shippon, that ultimately developed into the show itself. And I have no doubt that without his positive, can-do/will-do attitude, it probably never would have materialised at all.
From then on, he was integral in getting us across the line each year in terms of risk assessments, health & safety considerations, and ensuring that we didn’t set the place on fire. He was also – and this is something I think he felt quite proud of – the absolute master & commander of the frankly bewildering plug socket arrangement which powered the show.
More than that though, Jeff was the cornerstone of our little Cruel & Curious family. Almost always the first one of us on site during the build up to the show (I have fond memories of him taking huge strides across the courtyard as I rolled in, he having completed most of his allotted tasks before any of the rest of us had consumed our first coffee) and always the last to leave, turning off the lights after our obligatory team beer. In the often cold confines of Stowe Barton, his presence had a way of making spaces feel warmer, and any challenge therein (of which there were many over the years, not least out in the car park) seem more manageable.
It’s heartening to me that the last time I saw Jeff, I left him smiling, with the idea that the show may once again be revived. However, with Jeff gone, so goes the show. I don’t feel it would either be emotionally or practically possible for us to do it without him, so, although I had already called time on it (albeit tenuously), I now do it resolutely, firmly in the hope that its memory remains a tribute to one of its key architects.
On behalf of Roo, Bryn, Tally, and Dan, we really miss you Jeff. In fact, I think you’d be embarrassed at quite how much we do! You were integral in creating something that we believe was quite unique and special, and any lasting legacy that it does leave within the creative community of North Cornwall (and beyond), is unquestionably yours to own.
Here’s to tapping & testing beer casks with you again, sometime down the line.
With love to Phillippa & Leon,
Cai, Cruel & Curious Co-Founder
