WEEKEND BREAK (22)

HOW A SWEDISH BEAUTY HELPED SELL FALMOUTH

 

Project Declutter at Truscott Towers is proceeding apace (or even at pace, as our current “leaders” like to say).  

 

And just look at what I turned up this week:--

 

It’s a dusty old copy of the official Falmouth Holiday Guide for 1967 and it immediately had me wondering: just who was the lovely young lady gracing the cover?

 

Didn’t recognise her at all.  Certainly wasn’t Cherry Pritchard, described around that time as “the most beautiful carnival queen I have ever seen” by Westward TV personality Ken Macleod.* 

 

Nope, Cherry was dark-haired.

 

Nor was it Dawn Philpott, another well-known carnival queen from that era. Dawn was emphatically shorter.  

 

No, it turned out that Falmouth resort manager Ron Smith, ever the  unconventional, had turned to Scandinavia for help in wooing our visitors.    

 

For, tucked inside my copy of the guide, a West Briton cutting from January of that year reveals the cover girl’s identity as none other than 22-year-old Asa Thylin, of Granitvagen in Sweden. 

 

She had apparently spent her previous summer holiday with Lesley Jewell, of Mabe, the pair having become pen friends when Lesley was at Falmouth County High School.

 

The Briton described the guide as “the brightest Falmouth has ever produced” and explained that Asa had been spotted on the rocks at Swanpool Beach when Ron and his unnamed cameraman had been “out looking for attractive pictures” for the publication.

 

Beneath a “Welcome To Falmouth” message from Mayor Sam Hooper on the inside front cover, it was explained that a nominal charge of 9d (4p) was requested for the guide as “the postage alone amounts to 7d” (3p).  

 

Further inside, an advert for the Caludon, one of several hotels long since disappeared from the seafront scene, highlighted its “electric fires in all bedrooms” and “separate tables in dining room.”

 

* Ken Macleod was one of the three original presenters on Westward Diary for Westward Television, which was the first ITV franchise holder for South West England, from 1961-81.  See also FROM THE ARCHIVE, ITV TAKES THE TRAIN INTO TOWN, below.  

 

 

I HOPE YOU REMEMBERED . . . 

 

. . . to say “White Rabbits” this week, at the start of the new month, for good luck.

 

You know the rules:  it’s the first thing you say when you wake up at whatever time past midnight.  But no cheating, no waiting up, staying awake to say it as soon as the new day arrives.

 

As a gold-standard superstitious Cornishman, I naturally remembered when I woke up on Tuesday morning – just as I have done every month now for 34 years, no kidding.

 

I will never forget the last time I forgot. It was end-March, 1991, and I was in the middle of a two-week assignment in Belgium for Lloyd’s List.

 

Yes, I FORGOT. Result?  I found myself temporarily stranded in that country with the collapse of the Air Europe airline!

 

Clear proof, if such were needed, of the vital importance of those two magic words, uttered at the right time . . . 

 

 

SCORING WITH THE CLICHES

 

It’s started up already.  Truro City “are delighted to announce . . . .” the signing of a new player.  Clubs are always “delighted to announce”. 

 

Oh for a bit of variety!

 

But no, Truro currently have no fewer than three “delighted to announce’s” on their website home page, reporting contract signings for the new season. 

 

Any day now you will also start to see clubs declaring that “there’s a real buzz about the place” in the build-up to the new season.

 

For many, the mood won’t last long. Far from being “over the moon,” they are more likely to revert to being “sick as parrots!” 

 

 

BROKEN BRITAIN

 

PA announcement on Truro Station this morning: “We regret to announce that the 0854 service to London Paddington has been cancelled “due to more trains than usual being repaired.”

 

Not heard that one before!

 

 

WHEN POSITIVE THINKING DIDN’T WORK FOR RAPPO

 

I mentioned recently how a former (mature) PR student of mine, Colin Edwards, had turned tutor, teaching me much about sales and marketing and, more broadly, about positive thinking for life itself.

 

The latter gospel included the great value of employing positive rather than negative language in your thoughts - “accentuate the positive.” 

For instance, “I am returning to full fitness,” not “I am recovering from illness.”

 

The idea is that your thoughts will brief your sub-conscious, which will in turn create your state. So we wouldn’t want “illness” to play any part in your sub-conscious.

 

Another “rule” was to visualise, as clearly as possible - see it, hear it, feel it, smell it - your desired outcome.  By so doing – same principle as above, really – you would make it that much more likely to become reality, a self-fulfilling prophesy.

 

That doesn’t always work, though, and someone who can testify to that fact is Cornish footballing legend Mark “Rappo” Rapsey.

 

See what I mean with this extract from his memoir IT’S A RAP, recalling his chance to seal victory in a cup final against St Blazey at Truro in 1991:

 

Three minutes into injury time, I was suddenly clear, with the goalkeeper coming out to meet me. 

 

It was a favourite finishing scenario of mine.  The ball was still bouncing nicely for me and begging to be lobbed over goalkeeper Steve Nute and into the net.  

 

In my head, I was actually already celebrating – I could see the headlines (no kidding).  Only snag, my lob hit the bar and bounced safely behind the goal! 

 

If they get the equalizer now, I thought, I will never live it down; I will blame myself forever.  I felt certain that if it went to extra time, St Blazey would win it.  

 

But it didn’t, and when the ref finally blew for time, I fell to my knees with relief.

 

 

MY PROBLEM WITH ‘NO PROBLEM’ 

 

Talking, as I was above, of “accentuating the positive,” and where possible avoiding negative words, if there’s one term I wish we could eliminate it would be “no problem,” at least in the hospitality industry. 

 

Surely – surely – “you’re welcome” would be so much better, wouldn’t it? And a whole lot more meaningful.

 

    

FROM THE ARCHIVE . . . 

 

Extract from my book, “Falmouth In The ‘60s”:--

 

ITV TAKES THE TRAIN INTO TOWN

 

A critic’s daily review recently began with the phrase “In this age of too much TV.”  It would be hard to argue with that. At the last count, there were just short of 500 linear television channels (traditional, scheduled broadcasting) in the UK alone, available through a variety of providers.    Back in early 1961, the total number of TV channels in Britain was all of two (both terrestrial) and Cornwall was still awaiting its first regional commercial station, but things were about to change . . . 

 

For “the train now arriving” at Falmouth Station (these days the Docks Station) on Tuesday, February 14, 1961, was a very special one – one like no other seen there before or since.  It heralded a giant publicity campaign for the launch of Westward Television, bringing the age of independent TV to the Westcountry.  The trailblazing company had hired an entire train from the Western Region of British Railways and had it completely refitted as a travelling exhibition.  Nearly 5,000 local people stepped aboard the train at the Falmouth station, with CCTV enabling many of them to enjoy the novelty of seeing and hearing themselves on TV screens dotted around the train.  Their interviewer was one of the best-known radio personalities of the time, appropriately named Jack Train, of ITMA (It’s That Man Again) and Twenty Questions fame.  The special train, repainted in Westward’s distinctive blue and white colours and with the company name prominently lettered on the side, was pulled by the renowned locomotive City of Truro, the first steam locomotive to travel at more than 100 miles per hour.

 

The six coaches housed a 36-seat cinema and exhibition area, a fully operational TV studio, generating van and three coaches in which manufacturers showed off the latest in TV equipment.  The train had stood at Olympia Station, London, for two days prior to travelling to Truro, where it began its six-week tour of the Westward area – Devon, Cornwall and parts of Somerset and Dorset.  The tour had 23 stops, each involving a ceremony performed by the local Mayor or other civic dignitary and giving visitors a foretaste of what they could expect when the new broadcasting station opened in April (at the start of a franchise that would run for more than 20 years).  In all, several hundred thousand people reportedly filed through the exhibition train during its tour. 

 

Westward took to the air for real on April 29, transmitting from its brand new purpose-built HQ, described as “imposing,” in Derry’s Cross in the heart of Plymouth city centre. A major advertising campaign included the line: “Look Westward – for the clearest ITV picture you have ever seen.” It trumpeted three of its highest-profile presenters in Sheila Kennedy (who I can still clearly recall seeing, accompanied by Gus Honeybun, on my parents’ little black and white TV screen), Guy Cory, former Battle of Britain pilot, and “the lovely” Jane Fyffe.  Gus was the station mascot for Westward, and later Television South West, from 1961 to 1992. 

 

The Rt Hon Lord Mayor of London, Sir Bernard Waley-Cohen, “launched” the train at Olympia. At Falmouth, it was the turn of the town’s Mayor, Alderman W E Cavill. The train closed at 9 pm, but many of the visitors stayed on for the sight – within the hour – of the City of Truro steaming into action once more as she hauled the train away bound for its next stop, Camborne. 

WEEKEND BREAK (21)

From The Archive. See bottom item for today: How Bond Girl Explained Her Golden Touch

 

 

FEEL-GOOD PIC No 1

 

"CRISIS?  WHAT CRISIS?"  

 

The world may have been holding its breath these past few weeks, but this little boy for one has been totally untroubled by it all.

 

He could even have been doing my favourite trick of falling asleep while trying to read a book.  Or perhaps the distant views of Dartmoor were just too hypnotic. 

 

Whatever, I couldn’t resist making him the subject of my latest painting, just completed, from a photo by Alec Evans.  

 

After my bigger than usual last one (31 x 21ins), I fancied a "little cutie" this time with this 8 x 8ins acrylic. Credit as always to my teacher, the one and only Jeanni Grant-Nelson, https://www.visual-awareness.com.

 

 

FEEL-GOOD PIC No 2

 

My beautiful grandson's idea of helping with this morning’s shopping!

 

 EMMA THOMPSON HAS GIVEN ME AN IDEA . . . 

 

Emma Thompson has reportedly suggested that sex should be recommended by the NHS.

 

“You need sex because it’s part of our health plan, if you like,” she was quoted as saying. “It should really be on the NHS. It should; it’s so good for you!”

 

Okay . . . I’ve re-read that several times and convinced myself there’s only the one possible interpretation. “ON” the NHS?  So yes, taxpayer-funded sex free “at the point of delivery!”

 

Which leads me irresistibly on to the fact that our Emma is in fact 50-odd years behind me with this idea.  And yes, you read that correctly, too.

 

In the early 1970s, I had to down tools for purposes of an NUJ strike. I was working Oop North as a reporter on the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo.

 

Which meant that I was pretty much alone in the daytime with little to do other than twiddle my thumbs, there being no lovely Cornish beaches and clifftop walks close by.

 

So I came up with an idea and duly wrote a novel – SEX ON THE STATE. 

 

Title clear enough, I hope?  

 

Yes, you could call up your sex, whenever your need arose, from Government-appointed providers. 

 

Of course I hadn’t thought the idea anything like entirely through, but I tackled it with relish nonetheless.

 

I naturally gave full vent to descriptive powers borne of my testosterone-fuelled youth and very nobly pointed out its manifold benefits – not only for the participants per se but also by reducing humankind’s frustrations and thus the risk of sex crimes. (Ergo, on balance, “fundable!”)

 

Alas, the strike came to an end and I never progressed that novel, never sought a publisher.

 

But in all probability I still have it in my possession somewhere. 

 

Maybe I should find it, dust it down and finally see where I can get with it – now that I can exploit the marketing value of a famous name endorsing the concept!

 

(Or maybe not.)

 

 

HOW TIMES CHANGE

 

It’s hard to imagine now, with all the present-day kerfuffle over pronouns and genders, but nearly 40 years ago I witnessed a delightful little episode borne of another ground-breaking change in attitudes. 

 

It was indeed big then, but small beer compared with today’s confusing I/D issues.

 

I was at Land’s End for some form of reception, shortly after Peter de Savary had bought up the place, and we were all queuing up to  introduce ourselves to the great man.

 

I couldn’t help noticing how the guy immediately in front of me was shuffling about very uncomfortably.

 

It became apparent why when it was his turn to introduce himself and his lady companion.  

 

“I’m ------ -------- ,” he said, “and this is my, er” – more shuffling and acutely uncomfortable expression – “er, umm . . . my PARTNER.”

 

The term then, for personal relationship purposes, was still very much in its infancy.

 

Behind me was Douglas Williams, West Cornwall district reporter for the Western Morning News and very much old school. 

 

After Janet and I had moved on, he proudly announced, in a voice so loud it might even have been heard beyond the famous cliffs outside:  “ . . . and this is my WIFE!!”

 

 

TESCO VALUE!  

 

We finally binned our Christmas poinsettia this week.  (Janet: “It doesn’t normally last beyond January!”)

 

A fiver well spent, I reckon.

 

 

UPSIDE DOWN JOURNALISM

 

I’m still regularly amused by the lengths to which our local news outlets will go in pursuit of Clickbait – the practice of delaying key details for as long as possible in their “reports,” in order to maximise traffic and boost advertising potential.

 

It’s the very opposite of what we were taught back in the day, employing the sliding scale of news value.

 

In other words, you win your readers by creating the strongest possible intro, followed by the next most newsworthy bit, and so on and so on.

 

In the process, the modern way of writing – “upside down journalism,” as my fellow blogger John Marquis coined it - throws up some hilarious teasers.

 

But for my money there is still nothing to quite match one from several years ago – and I forget which site it was now, CornwallLive or the Packet – which referred in its headline to “a Cornish city.”

 

You could just imagine all those readers clicking away to find out which Cornish city, couldn’t you.

 

Well, all those who may not have known that there is only one Cornish city, of course! 

 

A close second was a Packet report, again from several years ago, which headlined something like “At Last – Key Decision in Planning Saga.”

 

Readers wanting to know what the, er, decision actually was had to wade through fully 600 words or more of council chamber waffle and recap for the answer . . . in the very last line!

 

 

THICK BLACK PLUMES OF SMOKE IN SKY OVER CORNISH PORT TOWN 

 

That was a headline on CornwallLive one day last week.  

 

“Cornish port town,” eh?  That’s a new one, isn’t it. Why can’t they just say Fowey, for goodness sake? (Well, we know now, don’t we – see above piece!)

 

Has a great ring to it, doesn’ it – “Cornish port town?”  Rolls off the tongue so well, the sort of phrase you hear in everyday conversation.

 

Not.

 

 

FROM THE ARCHIVE . . . 

 

My umpteenth viewing of Goldfinger the other day reminded me how I once got the answer to one of the most frequently-asked questions of a “Bond girl.”  Here it is again, from a blog piece I originally published in August, 2017:--

 

HOW BOND GIRL EXPLAINED HER GOLDEN TOUCH

 

As PR man for Helston Garages, I had put out several press releases previewing the company’s 40^th anniversary celebration party (in October, 2000).  Without naming names, I promised that one of the best-known Bond girls of them all would be joining the guests.

 

“And they were not to be disappointed,” I subsequently wrote, “for in swept Shirley Eaton, the actress who famously met a gleaming death by being covered in gold paint in the film Goldfinger.”

 

I couldn’t resist asking her how it was done, referring to that scene where she gave new meaning to a golden all-over “tan.”

 

She replied: “Do you know how many times I have been asked that question over the last 30 years or so?”

 

I persisted: “Was it you or did they use a double?”

 

Shirley gave me a look of mock horror and declared: “You’re not seriously suggesting they could have found someone else so beautiful, are you?”

 

“Okay, okay, but how WAS it done?” I probed, suggesting that, long before the days of CGI, she had maybe at least worn some sort of golden body stocking.

 

“Absolutely not,” she insisted, “and nor did I have the paint sprayed all over me from a can, as a lot of people have suggested.

 

“I was literally painted with a beautiful wide thick sable brush.  It was a very thick, gooey make-up with millions of gold particles and it was very uncomfortable.  Getting it off again was a matter of just scrubbing and scrubbing – and that made my skin very pink!”

 

Then she added: “I had to go through the whole process twice because there were two shots – one where you first see me dead and then the other, close-up, where Sean (Connery) feels for my pulse and pronounces me dead.”

 

So Shirley didn’t even need 15 minutes to make her famous. As she said: “I was only in Goldfinger for five minutes, but it made me internationally known – that just shows what a funny old business it is.” 

WEEKEND BREAK (20)

HOW FALMOUTH ROCKED ON ‘SUPER SATURDAY’ . . . AND SPINNING MY WAY THROUGH CROWDS AND BEER

 

I don’t suppose we’ll ever see anything resembling a reliable estimate of the crowds in Falmouth last Saturday – it being notoriously difficult to judge such things, after all - but there surely can’t have been many days in the town’s history when it has hosted so many people.

 

And that’s saying quite something when you think peak Tall Ships, total eclipse of the sun, Red Arrows, solo sailors’ epic homecomings etc etc. 

 

But a bumper triple win was assured with the biggest day in the International Sea Shanty Festival plus the Falmouth Classics Regatta and, for good measure, the cruiseship Ambition (1,200 guests capacity) in port.

  

For many – businesses, imbibers, party-goers, racers, starry-eyed youngsters - it all added up to “Super Saturday.”

 

And good for Falmouth – it certainly knows how to “rock” these days.

 

But the huge crowds weren’t everyone’s cup of tea, of course, as was made clear by some of the comments on social media.  

 

And I for one am not a crowd person, except – perversely – for big football matches!

 

For me, last Saturday was a reminder of the days when I PR-d for Skinners Brewery during their sponsorship of the shanty festival.  

 

Any self-respecting spin doctor, of course, can switch on the passion for any subject that may not necessarily reflect his/her private preferences. 

 

Sure enough, I would do my Skinners stuff each year in the build-up to the big event.

 

So people used to be surprised when, with Falmouth’s Events Square just around the corner from my home, I would answer “no” when they asked me if I had joined in with the singing and the crowds.  Honest, to this day I never have!

 

(The last public singing I did, I might point out, was as an angelic, nay cherubic, little boy in Penryn’s St Gluvias Church Choir in the 1950s – Vicars Gilbert and Perry-Gore.)

 

By definition, of course, I also had to wax lyrical about Skinners’ beers in my regular press releases for the company. 

 

Boss Steve clearly thought I was doing a cracking good job, because every Christmas a complimentary crateload of his beers would find its way to my front doorstep.

 

Eventually, I had to come clean and confess that I, er, wasn’t actually a beer drinker. . . and that his seasonal gifts would always be redistributed to more appreciative drinkers.

 

The next Christmas, would you believe, I found several bottles of WINE on that doorstep! 

 

 

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT

 

Scene One.  Gorgeous Gylly start to a day last week.  Sea swim (cold) with daughter Lisa, including non-stop natter.  Duration: 11 minutes.

 

Scene Two.  Late Friday evening.  Treliske A&E, treatment for Lisa’s cut hand (cooking).  Told must keep it dry at all costs for X number of days.

 

Scene Three. Another gorgeous Gylly start to a day this week.  Sea swim (still cold) on own, i.e. with zero natter.  Duration: THREE minutes!

 

 

FLAT-OUT BUSY DOCKS

 

In passing (last weekend, see above), I couldn’t help also noticing just how busy Falmouth Docks looked.

 

Compared with the “good old days” of the 1950s and ‘60s, that may seem a strange sentiment when you consider I have chiefly just five vessels in mind.

 

But times change and the Saturday line-up of three MoD vessels and a cruiseship all in for substantial work plus a cruise call – respectively the  Cardigan Bay, Mounts Bay, HMS Scott, Spirit of Discovery and Balmoral – made for an undeniably “bustling” appearance.

 

Together with a few smaller ‘uns making up the numbers, and bearing in mind the loss of wharfage in recent times, that scene was probably about as busy as it ever gets these days. 

 

 

SCINTILLATING STUFF 

 

I mentioned last week the business of hoarding and the inability of myself and my current book subject, Andy Street, to part company with just about anything of sentimental/personal value from way back when.

 

Another of my own most treasured little mementoes goes all the way back to 1969 when I was a raw trainee reporter on the Falmouth Packet.

 

I used to turn out for the Packet All Stars football team. In one of those Sunday morning matches, I managed to score all six of our goals in a 6-3 win over Falmouth Technical College at the Dracaena Avenue playing fields.

 

The match report in that newspaper’s next edition kicked off with:  Mike Truscott was in scintillating form on Sunday when he scored all six goals for Falmouth Packet All Stars . . . 

 

Unfortunately, the report was too small for a by-line and so I’m afraid I cannot for the life of me now recall who would have written it . . .

 

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK, SURELY

 

President Trump, on whether he would join Israeli strikes on Iran: “I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I am going to do.” 

 

Did he really not add: “Including myself?” 

 

 

From The Archive

 

This is one of my favourites, first published in March, 2017, touching as it does on so many aspects of Falmouth life that are now long gone.

 

THE GHOSTS OF SEAFRONT PAST

Occasionally, I introduce you to some of the people I see on my daily walk around Pendennis headland and along Falmouth seafront.  By way of a change, let’s wind the clock back half a century or more and get a glimpse of the people, and things, that would have caught our eye back then.

 

The headland actually wouldn’t have changed much, apart from the absence of the big new regional Coastguard centre, opened in 1981 by HRH Prince Charles.

 

Instead, you would find a little “hut” – for it was barely any more than that – just below the southern end of the car park, housing all of a couple of coastguard officers on watch.

 

In the bay, at any one time, you could expect to see a Shell tanker or a BP tanker or a Federal or New Zealand Shipping Company cargo ship – or maybe all four. 

 

These, along with a goodly number of others, were the household shipping names that regularly sent their vessels to Falmouth for repair and refit.

 

That was the time when the Docks would be accommodating up to 15 or 20 ships at once, employing over 2,000 people and regularly calling on the “magnificent seven”* harbour tugs to undertake three, four or more shipping movements in a single day.

 

Along the seafront, the whole character was different, chiefly on account of the hotel bias over apartments.  (I think we were still calling them “flats” in those days.)

 

You’d walk past the likes of the imposing Bay Hotel, the Gwendra, the Carthion and the Pentargan, all now no more.  Oh, and not forgetting the recently-departed Madeira.  The Pentargan was reinvented as the Falmouth Beach, but that, too, disappeared – destroyed by fire five years ago.

 

As Gyllyngvase Beach came into view – back to half a century or so ago now – you would see a raft bobbing about either close in or well out, depending on the state of the tide.  In all except the worst weather, crowds of swimmers young and old would be having great fun on and around it, like bees attracted to a honey pot. 

 

There were no lifeguards on Gylly in those days, but there was, for a number of years, a stern-faced St John Ambulance lady on hand to help if needs be.  Someone might even remember her name?

 

On a Sunday morning, just by the entrance to Gylly (albeit, admittedly, not quite as long as 50 years ago), you would find a lovely cheery fellow by the name of Nelson Gower selling that day’s newspapers from the boot of his car.

 

He had a key to a nearby hut and he let me have a copy so I could use that hut for changing before and after my daily lunchtime swim – all year round, that is, for six years!

 

In August of 1967, you might have witnessed a new spectacle with the first-ever waitresses’ race along the seafront.

 

This proved a tad controversial, with at least two competitors disqualified, according to the Falmouth Packet, “for running with their glasses, bottles and trays clutched tightly to their bosoms.”

 

And a Packet reader’s letter from M Winter, of the Green Lawns Hotel, complained: “As far as Falmouth is concerned, we would be better to save the expense, rather than waste time bending over backwards to make ourselves and the town a laughing stock.

 

“It was not advertised as an open race . . . only one waitress walked the quarter of a mile with a bottle, glass and tray carried in the manner one would expect in such a race.”

 

Fortunately, it wasn’t all aggro.  The race was part of Falmouth Carnival Week, which was opened by Westward Television personality Ken Macleod.  He described Cherry Pritchardas “the most beautiful carnival queen I have ever seen.”

 

In that same era, on around half a dozen evenings every summer, you might even have caught some echoes wafting across town from the Custom House Quay basin and signalling another hugely popular event.

 

With outdoor entertainment still well ahead of the indoor or screen equivalent, up to a thousand spectators would line the quayside for water galas.

 

As well as the races and diving events, there would be fiercely-contested water polo matches. Then Miller and Sweep would arrive in their little boats and send soot flying everywhere.

 

Back at Gylly, meanwhile, you could be amused by something else now long since departed – the Punch and Judy shows.

 

Let’s finish for now by winding the clock back even further – a few more decades. Browse through any book of really old Falmouth photos and you’re likely to see some quaint sights in the form of men and women dressed in their old-fashioned Sunday best taking a seafront stroll. 

 

Long dresses, elaborate hats and dark suits and ties were the order of the (Sun)day, as opposed to today’s anything-goes culture.

 

Something not so well chronicled is the set of rules, or rather old by-laws, governing bathing and changing on Gyllyngvase Beach, and which in all probability still apply to this day!

 

In 1902 Falmouth Borough Council introduced by-laws stating that “a person of the female sex shall not, while bathing, approach within 20 yards of any place at which any member of the male sex, above the age of seven years, may be set down for the purpose of bathing.”  And vice versa.

 

Eric Dawkins, Falmouth Town Clerk back in the 1980s, once told me that bathers were “set down” from gypsy-like caravans that were horse-drawn to the water’s edge at the start of each day.  With the exception of males swimming before 8 am, all bathers had to use these “bathing machines”, as they were known, for the purpose of changing.  

 

As Eric said: “It’s an accepted practice now, of course, for people to change on the beach just by putting a towel around themselves, and to do so wherever they like.”  Reassuringly, he added that a present-day prosecution for such blatant by-law breaching was realistically not very likely!

 

A further insight into our ways of old is contained in Eric’s copy of the 1910-11 Falmouth Guide.  This states that the western portion of Gyllyngvase is reserved for gentlemen and the eastern section for woman and children.  

 

So now you know!