Mullion by Mabel Esther Allan was first published in 1949.

The story begins in Liverpool where Mullion has just been accepted for the high school. She is an only child and things have been tough for her and her parents who had married against the wishes of Mullion’s great-grandmother and had subsequently been estranged from her despite the fact that Mullion’s mother had been brought up by her grandmother due to her own parents’ death. But now Mullion’s great-granny has sent a letter inviting them all to her the Island of Polmerryn for the summer, not only Mullion and her parents but her cousins too.

Great grandmother is a sort of Queen of Cornwall, very wealthy and proud, an utter snob who has fallen out with all her relatives over the years, but now she’s over 90 and frail, it’s time to gather her family around again, but the adults decline the invitation and send the children who are thrilled to be visiting a place which has featured in their imagination and dreams, especially for Mullion. It’s a twelve hour train journey from Liverpool to Cornwall, and that is an adventure in itself for Mullion especially as she meets up with her cousins for the first time on the train. They have all been named after places in Cornwall, but have never been there before.

Mullion has heard plenty of tales from her mother about the castle that she had grown up in and her unsuccessful search for a smuggler’s secret tunnel. Obviously the cousins want to continue with the search.

This was an enjoyable read, I love a Cornish setting and the cousins were all likeable – eventually – and everybody learns lessons, even the great-grandmother.

Mabel Esther Allan wrote over a hundred books and I have a feeling that I read some when I was a youngster. I will read more if I fall over them in a secondhand bookshop!