During
the 1940s Derek and Jean Tangye lived in London. Derek, whose boyhood holiday
home was Glendorgal at Newquay in Cornwall (now a hotel), was a Fleet Street journalist
and the author of books about the British Empire and his travels round the world.
Jean Nicol was Public Relations Officer for the Savoy Hotel and through this she
and Derek were part of a glittering social scene. In 1950 they turned their backs
on a lifestyle which, although sophisticated, they were finding increasingly shallow,
and became the tenants of Dorminack, a run-down cottage and flower farm, in the
far west of Cornwall.
Here, from 1961, Derek wrote the autobiographical books which became known as the Minack Chronicles. In these 20 volumes he shared with his readers stories of nature, donkeys, cats, the vagaries of the weather as they eked out a precarious living from the farm, and his philosophy of life. Jeannie, as Derek called her, wrote "Meet Me At The Savoy", about her days there, and a trilogy of novels set in a large hotel, as well as painting the local landscape, their cats and donkeys and providing the line drawings which illustrated the Minack Chronicles.
In 1979 Derek and Jeannie bought about 20 acres of wild cliff land adjacent to their tenanted farm. They called it "Oliver Land" and this became "The Minack Chronicles Nature Reserve - A Place For Solitude".
Jeannie passed away on 22nd February 1986 and Derek on 26th October 1996. Derek died at Minack, as he wished, friends with him. Like Jeannie's, his funeral service was held at Penmount Crematorium in Truro and, at his instruction, his ashes were scattered on what had already become Jeannie's Memorial Day, her birthday, 23rd March, in the Honeysuckle Meadow in the Nature Reserve. Derek wished that all who love Minack pause in quiet contemplation at some time on that day, for wherever they are in the world they will be at Minack in spirit.
Cherry was the last Minack cat and she died before Derek.
Merlin and Susie were Derek's two remaining donkeys and after his death, as he had instructed, they went to live out their days in the comfort and tender care of the Donkey Sanctuary at Sidmouth, Devon. There they remained, receiving daily visits from adoring friends and revelling in their role as star attractions at the Sanctuary, until Merlin died in 2005. Susie is still there, and is now over 30 years old.
 | In this picture Merlin is on the right and Susie is on the left. |
Derek requested that donations in his memory be given to the Donkey Sanctuary and over £3000 was received. As a result the Sanctuary wished to install a memorial plaque in their Russell Garden and Derek's Trustees chose for it the following wording: "In memory of Derek Tangye, author of the Minack Chronicles, and Jeannie, his wife, protectors of donkeys and all nature's creatures, champions of the individual and the vulnerable, and defenders of wildness and freedom."
Daffodils In 1999 the Cornwall Area
Bulb Growers' Association Limited agreed to name two new daffodil varieties "Derek
Tangye" and "Jean Tangye". These have therefore been reserved with the Royal Horticultural
Society as daffodil names, but it will be several years before the bulbs will
be available in sufficient quantities for sale.