That night, Carolyn was in bed when the police arrived at her home. She was taken to Treliske Hospital in Truro to identify her son. She was so shocked she could not even cry. When she got home her house was full of people. It would remain so for days, a stream of mourners washing through. Jacob's funeral was a major event. The church could not accommodate all of the people who wished to attend.

His coffin was painted with a wave motif and his body was dressed in his hole-riddled pants, shorts and favourite hat. Afterwards, about 40 of his friends did what they thought Jacob would have wanted them to; they went skinny dipping in Penzance's open-air, sea-filled pool The Jubilee.

Shortly after Jacob’s death, Carolyn moved out of Penzance. She just had to. "I would go to the supermarket and I would have people I did not even know coming up to me crying and hugging me," she says. "We had to get away so we moved here." Home is now an old farmhouse near Sennen, on the other side of a hill from Land's End airport.

I do not think he was scared of death."

A few fields away is Gwynver, where Grace and Jacob’s ashes were scattered. Carolyn has transformed part of her garden into a shrine. At the top sits a statue of the Buddha. Buried beneath are the sunflowers from Grace's bedroom window and the dreadlocks which adorned Jacob's head. His surfboard stands in the front garden, next to the A30. Five years after he died, surfers bound for the nearby beaches and coves still honk their horns as they drive past.