Five hundred people live in the valley where the River Perran meets the sea. These are the ones the stories keep coming back to.
Polperran's oldest fishing family, with the harbour in their blood and — if you believe the old stories — something older still. Nan says it runs in them. She won't say what.
Big, weathered, kind. Slow to anger, first out and last home in bad weather — and he hums to himself when the weather is about to turn, which the harbour has learned to take seriously.
Auburn plait, radio always clipped to her collar, and a dry wit that can take the paint off a hull. When anything in Polperran breaks — a mooring, a rule, a promise — the village goes to Rosen.
Tall, rangy, hair knotted up with a pencil. Wants one thing: to crew a tall ship and leave Polperran's tides behind. Loves the village fiercely and would rather sink than admit it. Writes poems in the tide tables when nobody's looking. And lately, on the night of the first autumn gale, she has started hearing something out in the Deeps…
Wiry, gap-toothed, springy dark curls, crab-line always in hand. Fast, fearless, terrible at spelling, best friend to every dog in the village. Keeps his "evidence" in a battered biscuit tin — and the tin is filling up.
Small, round-cheeked, wild auburn curls; wears daisy-painted gumboots and an orange life-vest she refuses to take off. Asks why about everything. Talks to Pilchard as an equal, which Pilchard appreciates.
Round, happy, one dark curl on top. His first word was "boa'" (boat). Pilchard sleeps in his pram, against all known rules.
Tiny, straight-backed, white bun, black shawl embroidered with a chough. Knows every story in this village, including the ones nobody tells. If you want to know whether the legends are true, don't ask Nan. She won't say — and the not-saying is a story in itself.
The warmest room in the village belongs to the Kellows — and so do half its stories, because everything in Polperran is eventually discussed over a saffron bun.
Broad, flour-dusted, silver hair under a red headscarf, forearms like a wrestler and a laugh you can hear from the quay. Every legend in Polperran is told in Martha's voice — and she applies bakery logic to absolutely everything, including emergencies.
Lanky, sandy-haired, whistles everywhere he goes. Knows every door in the village and every secret behind them — and tells none. When the pager goes off, he's the first one running.
Round glasses, box braids threaded with sea-glass beads, denim jacket painted with waves, ukulele on her back. Writes the village into songs — and wants, just once, for Polperran to hear more than a kid with a ukulele. Notices what songs notice: the things underneath.
Small, neat, watchful; bowl cut, blue duffle coat, always exactly one saffron bun in his pocket. Shy until he isn't. Kit is the one who spots the moved lobster pot, the odd footprint, the light on the moor — and once, on an ordinary evening at sea, he heard something nobody has explained to him yet.
Timber sheds, sawdust in the air, and a half-built pilot gig that's going to end Porthgullow's ten-year run at the regatta — ask anyone at the yard.
Barrel-chested, black beard, pencil behind his ear, sawdust in everything. Building the village a new pilot gig, the Chough, plank by plank — with a very small assistant copying his every move.
Calm, quick, kind; green waxed coat and a Land Rover full of hay and dogs. The one you call when a seal pup strands at Wreckers Cove.
Compact, capable, dungarees, pockets full of feathers and treats. Seals follow her kayak. She suspects — correctly, though she'd never say so out loud — that one particular seal understands every word she says.
Solid, beaming, mostly mud. Red gumboots on the wrong feet, tool-belt of wooden tools, copies his father exactly. Best friend: Bosun the dog.
The white light on the western headland has been a Penrose's job for as long as anyone can remember — and its keeper's tall tales have an alarming habit of turning out true.
Retired coaster captain: white beard, brass buttons, a pipe unlit since '99. Twinkly, grumpy, generous, and claims to have seen the Bucca. Nobody has ever caught one of his stories being false, which worries the sensible people of the village more than they admit.
Broad-shouldered and quiet; salt-blond hair, oil-stained hands, his grandfather's old peacoat. A genius with engines, restoring a wrecked motor launch nobody else believed in. Steady where Lowen Trevane is stormy — which is, of course, exactly the problem.
Declan Brannigan arrived with charm, a survey drone, and a plan to "save Polperran" — a marina where Tide Row's six cottages currently stand. The village has been arguing ever since. His daughter is caught precisely in the middle.
Charismatic, quick, genuinely persuasive; crisp gilet, deck shoes that have never been wet. His marina would bring jobs and visitors — and demolish Tide Row. His late wife Tamsin was Cornish, born over the hill, and there is a grief inside his grand plan that he cannot say out loud. Not a villain. Wrong, maybe. The books let you decide.
Sleek copper hair, polished manners over real loneliness, sailing gear that's never seen weather. Boards at school near Truro, home only in the holidays — which means the village children share ten years of tides she wasn't here for. Trades songs with Demelza before she trades loyalties. Torn between her father's plans and the coast that was her mother's.
They moved from Hackney into the old Netloft cottage to some muttering about "emmets" — and within two years nobody could remember Polperran without them. Their two children on the school roll are what kept St Petroc's open. The village knows it.
Tall, glasses, paint under his nails. Won the village over the honest way: by repainting every boat name in the harbour by hand. Still owns one London coat he never wears.
Calm, wry, unflappable; runs the cliff path at dawn. The night she treated half the gig crew after the capsize, the village quietly adopted the family for good.
Skinny, fast-talking, fearless on a skateboard and (at first) hopeless in a boat. Joins Jory's biscuit-tin investigations with his phone, his maps and his dramatically labelled drawings. Learning the sea the hard way.
Solemn, curious, cloud of dark curls, red duffle coat, never without her bucket. Tegen's instant best friend and co-conspirator in all piskie business. Her "sea treasure" is mostly bottle-tops. Mostly.
Every Cornish village runs on a handful of people everyone knows. These are Polperran's.
Silver crew-cut, parade-ground back, black Labrador called Sapper at heel. Firm, scrupulously fair, and constitutionally incapable of giving up on a young person — his sentences have a habit of becoming apprenticeships. Runs the Friday boxing club in the Sail Loft.
One oar. No hurry. Speaks mostly to the sea — and the village has long suspected the sea answers. Ask him about it and he'll tell you the fare's the same either way.
Former junior surf champion; sun-bleached crop, wetsuit tan-lines. Teaches every Polperran child to read the water before the water reads them.
Thirty years at the school — she taught every parent in the village. Cardigan, reading glasses on a cord of fishing line, and a button jar of some renown.
Birdwatcher, mild as milk, surprisingly good in a gig-boat crew.
Morwenna Chegwidden (B&B owner, the agonised swing vote), Sam Laity (builder, wants the marina jobs and hates wanting them), and Beattie Rundle (retired fisherwoman — "over my dead deck"). Between them, every argument the village is having.
In Polperran the animals are not pets. They are citizens, and at least one of them may be something more.
A serene ginger tom with a white patch of chest fur and one notched ear. Officially chief mouser of the fish market; actually mayor of Polperran. Moves between all boats and all laps, and sleeps in Baby Perran's pram against all known rules.
Black-and-white, gentle, watchful — the quay's self-appointed lifeguard. Herds toddlers away from the edge and expects no thanks. Gets sausages anyway.
Huge dark eyes; follows Merryn's kayak; turns up whenever the sea's mood matters. Is she just a seal? The books never quite say.
Has stolen: forty pasties, one toupee, and — in one famous story — the church-fete raffle tickets. Currently planning something.
Glossy black birds with bright red beaks and legs — the village's good-luck pair and the press's namesake. Cronk collects shiny buttons. (Piskie business, says Tegen.)
Black, patient, at heel in court and out of it. Has opinions about proceedings which he keeps to himself.