Friends of PK
The beautiful valley of Porthcurno
is widely acknowledged as one of the world's most important sites for the history of telecommunications, with its historic buildings, the award-winning Museum of Submarine Telegraphy, an international research archive and world-class collections.

Porthcurno is home to the heritage of everyone who has worked for Cable & Wireless and its associated companies. It is a place where documents, photographs and artefacts can be deposited in the knowledge that they will be properly preserved for posterity in museum-standard conditions.

 The valley in 1959
Porthcurno is now operated by the PK Trust, a registered charity, which exists solely to preserve and communicate the history of PK and of the people and technologies associated with it. The Trust is working to gather and safeguard the history of this unique place; the history of the telegraph, cable laying, radio and telephone are all important aspects of the Porthcurno story.

In these times of uncertainty for the telecommunications industry it is more important than ever for the PK Trust to secure its future by gaining the support of as many people as possible and by increasing its financial independence. We are therefore appealing to everyone with an interest in Porthcurno to become involved and support us by becoming a Friend of PK.

To this end we are re-launching our Friends of PK scheme with the aim of attracting many more members and generating a new level of interest and involvement with Porthcurno. We want to increase our current membership of about 120 to at least 1,000 and to mobilise enough support to generate some core funding.
The new Friends scheme offers three main levels of membership, but one of two we hope will be of interest to you: Friend and Benefactor Friend. The benefits of being a Friend of PK include:
  • A quarterly newsletter
  • Free admission to the museum
  • Special events, lectures and offers
  • Shop discount
  • Invitations to private views

plus, for Benefactor Friends:

  • Your name printed on our published list of benefactors and on the website
  • Your name on our benefactor board in the PK museum
 The Valley in 2000
Remember, if you wish to become a Benefactor Friend and you are a UK resident paying income tax equivalent to your PK Friends subscription we can reclaim the tax on your donation up to 28p in the £. If you are a higher-rate tax payer you can also claim back 18% of your donation from the tax man.

We are striving to preserve the heritage of Cable & Wireless and the long term success of this will be helped if you become a Friend of PK and preferably a Benefactor Friend.

I you are not already a Friend of PK, I hope you will give this your full support by sending an e-mail to Mary Godwin (Director of the Museum) at mary.godwin@cw.com and she will be very pleased to send you further information and an application form.

Many thanks

Dave Foot
Chairman of PK Trust