When 14-year-old Beth asked her grandad Frank to make her a dog lead from his retired fishing rope she sparked the idea for something special.
Today, Cornish Spliced is a family collaboration that transforms discarded fishing gear into beautiful, functional products – each with its own “past-life story”. We're delighted to stock their unique float keyrings in the National Maritime Museum Cornwall Gift Shop and wanted to learn more about their mission to preserve traditional skills whilst protecting our seas.
Can you tell us about that first idea that started it all?
With dogs much-loved members of our family, we’d often have a “bit of old rope” instead of a lead and my girls grew up with me mending nets and ropework. So one day, looking at the rope my granddaughter Beth was using for Teddy, she asked me if I could splice in a clip to make a proper lead, which she could also sell and make a bit of pocket money. It was such a great idea, the whole family couldn’t help getting excited about it and ideas grew quickly around the tea table.
What was fishing life like, and how does it feel to see these traditional splicing skills being passed down through the family?
Fishing has been a way of life for my family for generations. I fished as a boy on my dad’s boat, and then with my brother Joe on The Harvester, which we built, and then the Tyak Mor. When Joe “came ashore” as a plumber, I joined some men from other St Ives families aboard the North Star and then the Helcon before “coming ashore” myself and falling back to my trade as a painter and decorator in my early 40s.
Image: Cornish Spliced
It was such hard physical work, exposed to the elements and sometimes in dangerous conditions, as well as an unreliable income. So it’s no surprise that fishing is declining, with skills not being passed on through generations of families and at risk of being lost.
Image: Cornish Spliced
We feel very proud to have found a modern way of keeping the heritage skill of splicing alive across two more generations of our family – my daughters Rachel and Helen, and granddaughters Beth and Ailla. Plus Cornish Spliced taps into everyone’s creative skills and we all love coming up with new ideas or bespoke makes. Beth and I enjoy splicing, whilst Rachel’s a whiz with knots, Helen enjoys looking after our wholesalers, whilst Ailla likes to do stalls and digital content. The rest, like the website, socials and online shop just falls into place between us.
We all love that we can use Cornish Spliced for so many positive things – from finding a new life for old fishing gear to prevent it going to landfill, incineration or re-entering the sea, through to generating funds for charities that our close to our hearts. Also, ropework is very therapeutic - the repetitive skills involved are like a type of meditation for “doers”, which is great for us as none of us can sit still!
What's the significance of 'splicing'?
Splicing means to join 2 sections of rope together, creating one piece of rope with a strong bond. Which is what Cornish Spliced does for the generations of our family. It’s also a great metaphor for joining together old heritage skills with a modern way of using them – who knew my old rope would end up in an online shop as a mat, or in someone’s pocket as a keyring anywhere in the world!
Splicing is important for fishing, as nets are created using lengths of rope (and twine). Some bits of rope may need to be cut away and mended with new rope. The new rope needs to be joined in a way that will be strong, as nets can be incredibly heavy when filled with fish. So splicing is a vital skill for your livelihood.
Image: Cornish Spliced
Where do your materials come from now?
We are still working through my original rope from when I retired from fishing. It was important to our family that it didn’t go to landfill or incineration and that we found a positive use for it. Some has been waiting in my fish loft for over 50 years for a new lease of life! A lot of mine was white and green rope, so at the start I used to tell the girls that we could make things in white and green, or green and white – customer’s choice. Which used to make me laugh and my girls groan.
Now that word has spread, we are kindly offered retired or end-of-life rope directly from other fishing families or via harbour masters. We’re even posted rope, floats and other goodies from across the UK by people who like what we’re doing and want to repurpose things that they’ve found. Then of course there’s the ghost gear (and rubbish) that we rescue from beaches to stop it re-entering the sea. We’re like Wombles, making good use of the things that we find, and if we can’t do that ourselves, we pass it along to other makers. There are amazing projects in Cornwall and we try to highlight them through our #rePURPOSEDinCORNWALL hashtag on our Facebook and Instagram.
You're preventing old fishing gear from reaching landfill or re-entering the sea. Can you share why this environmental aspect is so central to Cornish Spliced's mission?
The sea is important to our family. From providing food and a livelihood to support my young family, through to their involvement with clubs like St Ives Surf Lifesaving Club. We live in a beautiful part of the world, surrounded by the sea, and we want others to enjoy it for generations to come. I’ve lost nets at sea and as well as a terrible loss for my livelihood, I also know what a hazard this is to sea life. If we can help make even a small difference then it’s a difference we want to make. Sometimes doing beach cleans can be overwhelming – there’s so much microplastics and rubbish it can feel like what we’re doing is a drop in the ocean. But every bit we remove is a bit that won’t re-enter the sea.
For visitors to the National Maritime Museum Cornwall shop, what do you hope they'll take away when they choose a Cornish Spliced float keyring – beyond just a souvenir?
We hope they will take a little bit of Cornwall with a story home with them. Something practical that they can use, but that has also made a difference – to the sea, the environment and to help support the National Maritime Museum Cornwall.
We also hope that they will take away a connection with Cornish Spliced and follow our adventures on social media @CornishSpliced. We especially love it when people connect and say hello.
Discover Cornish Spliced keyrings at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall Gift Shop – each one handmade using heritage fishing skills and rescued fishing rope, with its own unique story from Cornwall's seas.