I’ll never forget the drive down to St Ives – a proper Cornish jaunt that started with me taking a wrong turn near Hayle and ending up in a queue of caravans crawling along the A30. My satnav had a right hissy fit, chirping away like it was personally offended, and I nearly missed the turn for Carbis Bay altogether. But as we crested that final hill, the sea sparkling like a handful of diamonds tossed on the horizon, all was forgiven. St Ives unfolded below us, all golden sands and whitewashed cottages huddled against the cliffs, and my heart did a little flip. This was going to be brilliant.

We’d booked a cosy two-bed apartment right in the thick of it, the sort with sea views that make you forget the world exists, and a little balcony perfect for morning cups of tea. First impressions? Spot on. It felt like stepping into someone’s favourite postcard – close enough to the beach to hear the waves, yet tucked away from the worst of the holiday crowds.

What really made the week, though, were the characters we met. There’s something about St Ives that breeds proper eccentrics, the kind who’ve got stories etched into their faces like weathered driftwood. Take old Reg from the Porthmeor Beach kiosk, selling pasties that could resurrect the dead. He clocked my London accent straight away and launched into a yarn about the time he outswam a pod of dolphins during a storm in ’82. “You lot from up country don’t know real sea,” he winked, handing over a steaming steak one with extra pepper. We ended up chatting for half an hour about his glory days smuggling pilchards – or so he claimed – and I couldn’t stop grinning. Proper storyteller, that one.

Then there was Maggie at the craft shop down by the harbour, a wiry woman with hair like a bird’s nest and eyes that twinkled with mischief. She was peddling her handmade jellyfish lamps – “glow in the dark, love, just like the real ones off Porthminster” – and got us roped into a debate about the best pasty filling. “Scallop and black pudding, mark my words!” she declared, while I stuck to my guns on traditional. Before we knew it, she’d pressed a tiny pottery gull into my hand as a “welcome gift for soft southerners”. We wandered off giggling, clutching our loot, feeling like locals already.

Even the lady at the Tate St Ives café, a no-nonsense type called Doris with a laugh like a foghorn, had us in stitches. Over cream teas – clotted, naturally – she regaled us with tales of artists causing chaos back in the day, painting nudes on the beach and scandalising the fishermen. “They’re still at it, mind, just with selfies now,” she snorted. It was chats like these that turned a simple holiday into something magic, full of that warm Cornish hospitality that sneaks up on you.

Sitting on the balcony one evening, pasty crumbs on my lap and the sun dipping into the Atlantic, I had a quiet moment of reflection. Back home, life’s all rush and screens, but here, with these quirky souls sharing their world, I felt properly unplugged. St Ives doesn’t just give you beaches and art – it gives you people who make you laugh till your sides ache and remind you why holidays mend the soul. We’re already plotting a return.