'I spent 48 hours in one of UK's best seaside towns - there's one date you have to visit'

They say you can never go home again. Well, the people who say this clearly didn't grow up in one of Britain's best seaside towns - Penzance in Cornwall.

I did - and there's a very special date I always try to get home for. It's the day when Penzance is home to what is now reputed to be the UK’s second-largest street festival.

Mazey Day sees tens of thousands of people flock to this historic harbour town to celebrate midsummer in a 'proper job' style, as the Cornish say. The pirates and smugglers the town was once famous for would doubtlessly approve of this heady carnival atmosphere.

Penzance's ancient Feast of St John has its roots in pagan midsummer traditions that were celebrated in the town's streets up until the late 19th century. It was revived in 1991 as the week-long Golowan festival - which culminates in the sprawling street party known as Mazey Day, which took place last weekend.

Papier mache sculptures and giant puppets are paraded up and down Penzance's main thoroughfare, Market Jew Street - under the watchful eye of the 18th-century chemist and inventor Sir Humphry Davy, whose iconic statue gazes out over the granite paving stones of the road's raised terrace.

The long procession - made up of dancers, musicians, hundreds of children from local schools, and members of community organisations - wends it way through the stalls and crowds that line this route. The celebrations - with live music stages and food stalls - continue up the pedestrianised Causewayhead and along Alverton Street to the imposing St John's Hall.

And they spill down Chapel Street, which is home to the gloriously over-the-top Egyptian House, which was built in 1835 - and historic pubs like the Admiral Benbow, which dates back to 1695 and has a flintlock-toting figure crawling along the ridge of its roof.

Incredibly, the Benbow isn't even close to being Penzance's oldest pub. This honour goes to its near neighbour, the Turk's Head - which is said to date back to 1233 when, during the Crusades, Barbary pirates from Jerusalem reputedly invaded Penzance.

Beyond Chapel Street lies Penzance's harbour - where the carnival continues, with more live music outside its equally historic pubs. These included the Dolphin Tavern - where Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have smoked the first pipe of tobacco in England.

And the revelry goes on and on down on the prom, where Golowan's live music marquee and fun fair takes pride of place next to the art deco Jubilee Pool - with even more live music at the Lugger Pub, with its incredible views of the magnificent Mount's Bay.

With so much going on, my 48-hour return to my hometown was nowhere near long enough to see everything and - more importantly - everyone I would have liked to. It was, however, just long enough to see how much my hometown has changed since I last it made it back, during the summer before Covid brought life-affirming events like Mazey Day to a halt.

I was relieved to see that Penzance has lost very little of the character that makes it so special. It's still a little rough around the edges - and it still has a certain wildness about it that befits somewhere so far west.

While it has - like so many seaside towns in Cornwall - seen an influx of artisanal bakeries, galleries, and vintage clothes shops, this modest gentrification hasn't tamed Penzance's rebellious heart. It still very much dances to the beat of its own drum - and has maintained a real sense of community and belonging.

And events like Golowan keep this flame burning. A flame that has been all but extinguished in so many other Cornish communities.