DUN BLOGGIN’ (Sort Of) . . .

 

With not a little sadness, this is the last of my regular blog posts, and I will also be writing and publishing no more of my limited-edition Falmouth nostalgia books. 

 

As trailed in my post of November 22, circumstances have conspired to switch my main focus onto ghost-writing and publishing Cornish footballer autobiographies*, all entirely in aid of Cancer Research UK.

 

I will continue to chip in, no doubt, with the occasional, personalised “shortie” blog post, but my longer, more deeply researched weekend “mains” have run their course.

 

In which latter respect, my special thanks to Falmouth Reference Library and Penryn Museum for use of their facilities and to the Falmouth Down The Years Facebook page as principal promoter of my blog and for my books.

 

My 13 books since I retired ten years ago have raised around £25,000 for Cancer Research, with by far the lion’s share having been generated via Falmouth Down The Years.

 

So a huge thank-you to all purchasers of those books.  I know they have found their way all over the world, and it has been a delight to hear from readers,  including many who have collected the complete set.

 

I will continue to use this blog site for occasional promotion of my footballer books, but I recognise that this will be for a largely different audience from the one to date.

 

In closing, then, let me wish a very Happy New Year to all those purchasers of my existing books – and to all my new ones to come, with many thousands more words, I hope, being written and published in aid of one of the worthiest charities in the world. 

 

* Footballer book updates. Fund-raising figures from my two most recently published books: Mark “Rappo” Rapsey’s has reached the £2,000 mark and Tommy Matthews’ has passed £2,500. 

 

Together with the Rappo sequel and Andy Street, I have now begun work on a third current project, and how about this for a (provisional) front cover title splash:  SIXTY YEARS A SOCCER BOSS – The Story Of Melville Benney, Britain’s Longest-Serving Football Manager

WELL, IF I CAN’T BLOW MY OWN TRUMPET AT A TIME LIKE THIS . . .

I’ve just thrown to the wind all my legendary powers of mature, impartial, objective, professional judgment, ditto my world-renowned modesty, and – in the final days of this ten-year-old blog – simply cannot resist reproducing here a lovely piece I’ve just read on my fellow blogger John Marquis’s site:--

 

From soccer to nostalgia, Mike’s

books raise cash for good causes 

 

ON the subject of self-publishing, allow me to cite my old mate Mike Truscott - the doyen of Cornish journalists - as a true success story in the genre.

Mike and his wife Janet publish affordable paperbacks on a variety of subjects, but specialising mainly in local nostalgia and sportsmen’s biographies.

The books are sold entirely for charity, and have netted thousands for cancer research.

Three recent publications spotlighted footballers, including Falmouth Town hero Tommy Matthews, whose memoir netted over three thousand quid for good causes.

Mike, a journalist of the old school who worked on Liverpool dailies as well as Cornish weeklies, ran his own PR enterprise for twenty-five years. Book publishing is one of his retirement hobbies.

I’ve read most of his books and enjoyed them all. My only gripe is that they’re too cheap, a measly five quid for books that ought to sell for at least £7.99.

I’ve told him to up the price, and I think he might consider it.

 

Many thanks, John – I’ll see to it that you stay on my Christmas card list. 

CORNISH FOOTBALLERS ALL SET TO BOOST CANCER RESEARCH

Delighted to confirm that we’re already steaming ahead nicely with the double-header of a Cornish footballers book boost for Cancer Research UK – see blog November 9.

 

After an all-too-long pause for various reasons beyond our control, I have now resumed regular sessions with Mark “Rappo” Rapsey for his sequel book RAPPO’S WORLD OF FOOTBALL FUN.

 

And I’ve fixed to meet up with Andy “Sledge” Street, principally ex-Falmouth Town and Newquay, early next month. He’s already sent me a whole stack of raw material which confirms beyond a doubt that we have another belter of a book on our hands.

 

Here are a few randomly-selected titbits:--

 

The great beer night that was followed by a tournament triumph the next day!

 

Sledge’s Gareth Southgate moment when he was “gutted” after missing a vital penalty – but how it made him a stronger person.

 

Playing 114 times for Cornwall, including captaining them to the County Championship Final . . . and keeping every single selection letter.

 

Being kicked out of the Cornwall Charity Cup – after beating Wadebridge 9-0!

 

Travelling the longest-ever recorded FA competition distance.

 

As for Rappo’s fun, here’s a taster:--

 

The player (not Rappo!) who paid a prostitute NOT to give him pleasure

 

The crazy conclusion to a booze-fuelled “rooftop” race across boats in Amsterdam

 

The hair-raising escapade that produced a bizarre “new signing”

 

A novel way of ruling the roost with a chicken

 

How a warped racket AIDED Rappo’s tennis comeback

 

Finally for now, here’s the first idea for Rappo’s new book cover, created by Colin Pascoe (see that previous blog, November 9):--

 

Colin will also be designing the cover for Sledge’s book, albeit in more conventional style! 

NORMAL SERVICE RESUMED – BUT BRRR, WHAT A SHOCKER!

It was good to be back . . .

As I waited for daughter Lisa to arrive (always three minutes late, bare minimum), I was joined for a chat on Falmouth’s Gyllyngvase Beach by Bruce Rioch, former Scotland football captain and Arsenal manager.

 

Bruce, who knows a thing or two about achieving, said: “I take my hat off to these swimmers, the ones who do it all year round. You’ll never get me doing that.

 

“I have just been standing here on the beach, gazing out in awe at the whole scene, with a fantastic sunrise over the bay and all these swimmers having their daily dip.  It makes me feel cold just looking at them!”

 

For Lisa and me, it was our first sea swim for a week.  All reports yesterday suggested the great jellyfish invasion (see recent blog posts) was all but over – for now, anyway.

 

And with today’s forecast of total sun and precious little wind, how could we resist that grand return?

 

We were not disappointed, but something else I picked up from one of yesterday’s swimmers was that the sea had turned markedly colder.

 

She was not wrong. It fair took our breath away.

 

And, together with today’s drop in the air temperature, there was a very real sense as we got changed afterwards that winter is upon us, for all the glorious dawn this morning.

 

At least all those jellies had gone.  All, that is, except for just one of them, lying dead on the sloping shingle as we walked down to the low-tide water.

 

Small mercies, eh? 

A SLIGHT CHANGE IN DIRECTION . . . 

 

STEPPING UP A GEAR: FOOTBALL LEGENDS’ LIFE STORIES TO SUPPORT CANCER RESEARCH

 

The outstanding success of Tommy Matthews’ book - £2,000-plus clear profit for Cancer Research UK in less than a fortnight – has encouraged me to switch my main writing focus from blog-ing to book-ing.

 

The books raise money for a great charity.  The blog, apart from occasionally promoting those books, doesn’t.

I have raised well over £20,000 in the ten years since I retired, writing and publishing 13 limited edition local nostalgia books and, latterly, Cornish footballer life stories.

 

But I’m now kicking myself because it could have been significantly more.

 

That is, I’m sure it would have been so if I’d had Tommy helping me push all these titles in the way he has with his own. He’s shown me, and reminded me, of little ways and means that can make a big difference in sales and marketing.

 

But then you’d expect that from a guy who is not just a great credit to the grand game of football but who was also a newspaper advertising manager in a previous life!

 

So here we go, then, with my “new direction,” namely two Cornish footballer projects under way simultaneously, with every penny profit going to Cancer Research.

 

I had already begun work on the Mark “Rappo” Rapsey sequel – Rappo’s World of Football Fun – and now another towering figure in Cornish soccer has joined the “club.”

 

Step forward Andy Street, one of the biggest names in South West non-League circles in the 1980s, ‘90s and early 2000s, principally with Falmouth Town and Newquay.

 

 

All told, Andy – “Sledge” to his team-mates – played in sides that bagged a massive haul of 30 trophies! He also captained Cornwall and won 114 county caps. 

 

His career also included spells with Nanpean Rovers, Bugle, Bodmin Town and St Blazey.  

 

Rappo’s sequel, meanwhile, has already begun to take shape nicely, and I can promise you a great many entertaining tales from that direction. And those are just the printable ones!

 

As bonus, I have signed up a retired professional illustrator to design the front cover for Rappo’s book in caricature style and to illustrate the chapters with appropriate cartoons.  

 

He’s Colin Pascoe, who by a very neat co-incidence is the son of Tommy Pascoe, who was Falmouth Town’s first skipper (and also a well-known Falmouth cricketer) when the club was reformed in the early 1950s.

  

So that’s how it all looks from here for the moment. Inevitably, my “new direction” will likely see me scaling back somewhat on my blog activity.

 

NO PROMISES, THOUGH  . . . 

 

RIP ERIC DAWKINS

Sad to read of the death of Eric Dawkins, aged 94, a man who made an immense contribution to public life and who gave us so much “added value” with his penchant for entertaining with the unconventional.

Eric was town clerk with Falmouth, Penryn and Truro at various times between 1970 and 2003, with other posts in his long career including  Carrick District Council amenities officer.

 

He was also memorably the man at the helm of Falmouth’s St Nazaire commemorations for over 30 years, as recognised by Falmouth Town Council in 2017 - https://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/15259093.eric-dawkins-recognised-again-for-his-dedication-to-st-nazaire-commemorations/

 

Eric has made so many appearances on my blog and in my various columns and books down the years that I really wouldn’t know where to begin right now. 

 

So here’s a couple of my favourites at random. He truly knew how to bring smiles to our faces.

 

TOWN CLERK’S ‘OUTRAGEOUS’ WAY OF MAKING MINUTES READABLE

 

Deservedly or otherwise, council minutes would probably be high up on most people’s lists of reading matter suitable for combatting insomnia.

 

There’s an exception to every rule, of course, and one man who managed to achieve the exact opposite was Falmouth and Penryn town clerk Eric Dawkins, who could even boast that his minutes once made a reporter jump out of his bed!

 

In an interview with him in 1986, he told me it had all been to do with his favourite trick of slipping in outrageously long and little-known words. 

 

I say “outrageously” because these words – or “Dawkinspeak”, as I christened them – were frequently beyond the comprehension of those for whom they were principally written – his councillors – let alone the public at large. 

 

As for that reporter who left his bed, Eric recalled: “He said he usually read council minutes in bed because they sent him to sleep, but when he read mine for the first time he leapt out of bed again to find his dictionary!”

 

Hardly surprising, really, if you had just read this: “A disputatious discussion on the sesquipedalian content of the draft notes for guidance ensued prior to the reconcilement on the utilisation of the budgetary allocation of . . . “

 

“Disputatious,” “reconcilement” and “utilisation” are straightforward enough in meaning, although magnificently supporting the “rule” that you should never use a short word where you can find a long one.

 

But you might well be stumped, as I was, by “sesquipedalian.” So Eric advised: “Use of words over a foot long . . . applying to long words.”  Well, yes, quite so!

 

Then, in the same minutes, came this mouthful: “During the ensuing discussion, it was the opinion that a delegation having a verisimilitude of hermeneutics should meet the county council highways committee chairman to clarify the situation.”

 

This time at least my dictionary came to my aid, as it had not done with “sesqui-etc”.  Verisimilitude: “The appearance or semblance of truth or reality.” Hermeneutics: “The science of interpretation.”

 

“I have achieved what I wanted,” Eric declared.  “People read my minutes.  Some of the council look at them specifically for these words!” 

 

It’s just a pity they so often couldn’t understand them, as per his last set of council minutes before the 1987 local elections, when his final phrases included “a disquisition of dissyllabic monomania” and “a display of noology to the perplexity of members.”

 

THE ‘SHEIKH’ WHO FOOLED THE MAYOR

 

The time is almost upon us for a fresh round of elaborate April Fools Day pranks, but they will have to go some to match one played on the then Mayor of Penryn, John Ashwin, in 1981.

 

In what can only be regarded as one of the great April Fools Day stunts of all time, John was a top-table guest at a Penryn Rotary Club lunch meeting in Falmouth’s Green Lawns Hotel. 

 

He found himself sitting beside another “guest,” in Arab headdress. He was introduced as Sheikh Muhammed Ali Aba Al Khaial, Minister for Finance and Economy in Saudi Arabia.

 

Club president Walter Trevena said a prolonged Muslim grace and, after a split vote the previous week, members had no alcohol with their meal. Their “Arab” guest chopped his lamb into tiny pieces . . . and ate a specially prepared dish of rice with his fingers.  Likewise the strawberry mousse.

 

An interpreter, it was explained, had been delayed on the way over from Newquay Airport, and the “Sheikh” had been brought in by Falmouth Town Clerk Eric Dawkins.

 

The former evidently had no idea what to do when everyone else stood up at the end of the meal for the loyal toast.  So much so that John Ashwin placed a glass in his hand and physically helped him out of his chair.

 

Afterwards, Eric drove the “Sheikh” away – to a nearby location where he took off the Arab headdress loaned by Falmouth’s Workshop Theatre and washed off his make-up.

 

David Woods, Helston Rotary Club member and actor, shook hands with Eric and reflected:  “It was the most uncanny feeling, knowing so many people and yet not being able to speak to any of them. I was received with great courtesy by everyone.”

 

Eric Dawkins later had a quiet word with John Ashwin . . . 

SO MUCH TO SEE, RECALL AND PONDER IN A 10-MINUTE STROLL THROUGH TOWN

I found myself with a wee bit of time to kill the other day before Falmouth Reference Library opened for one of my favourite pastimes, immersing myself in old Falmouth Packets in pursuit of material for my blog.

 

(Whisper it, but the really funny thing is when I occasionally come across a big page one splash with my name on it from 50-odd years ago which I just can’t remember at all!!)

 

Anyway, I decided to fill in that time by taking a roundabout route, which turned into a veritable Memory Lane job – with the sort of observations and thoughts that only come about from a lazy stroll rather than a fast dash from A to B.

 

First, it was up Quarry Hill, which I’d not traversed, slowly or quickly, for quite a while.

 

Once upon a time, starting off in my early teens, I was there every Saturday to collect their to-die-for fish and chips for lunch, for myself and Mum and Dad.

 

Would it still be there – same name, same business - some 60 years later?

 

Absolutely yes, albeit sporting a bigger, more sophisticated menu.

 

Cue thought:  what other businesses are there in Falmouth today which have existed for as long as the Gem and whose name, location and basic service have remained unchanged? (The business was actually established in 1933, I later noticed in an advertisement.)

 

Next, I was walking along Harbour Terrace prior to heading back down towards the top of High Street.

 

First, I looked across the inner harbour towards the Greenbank Hotel and couldn’t help noticing that its name in those big white letters along its quayside still has a discernible gap between Green and Bank, making it two words rather than the now more familiar one.

 

That’s how it started out – two words – but at some point in the mists of time it was decided to join them up, and it’s been that way for as long as I can remember.  Except on that quayside, it seems.    

 

Along the left of the road down to that hotel – again way back in my childhood – my Mum would take me to my first dentist, Captain Norman Black.

 

A dentist’s drill in those days was truly something to fear – or at least it was for me – but I nonetheless remember Captain Black as a charming, kind gentleman. 

 

I also seem to recall – and I’m talking purely from memory here, long before the Google era – that Captain Black was an accomplished fencer. Anyone elaborate?

 

Between his premises and the top of High Street - where the open green space and benches are now – there was for many years a “boot and repair” shop owned and operated by Richard Martin.

 

Hard to imagine now, but there was a time when you could have chosen from TWENTY shoe repair shops in Falmouth!

 

Next on my stroll it was High Street itself, and towards the bottom there was the John Miles photography shop for many years.

 

And this was the scene for one of my favourite jobs in my early trainee reporter’s days on the Packet. 

 

That was in the late 1960s, when everything was still physical and manual, and it was my role late on a Monday afternoon to call in at that shop and collect John’s weekend photos – mostly weddings – for publication in the paper’s next issue.

 

As well as John, there were three lovely young ladies who always greeted me with big smiles and a lovely bit o’ chat – Jackie Dominic and her colleagues who I believe were Diane and Hilary, although I may have got those wrong.

 

It was all quite a contrast to today’s instant “send” email option, although not quite as stark as that outlined in my recent piece here – “The Overnight Challenge That ‘Terrified’ Sally”, blog post September 25. 

 

And so to the bottom of High Street, with the Reference Library just round the corner.  I walked past The Baker’s Oven (now The Natural Store) where Mum used to take me in for a scrummy cake treat before strolling out, hand in hand, to the Prince of Wales Pier.

 

In those days you had to pay to get onto the pier, and just before the entrance Mum would take me into the long-gone aquarium to the left. 

 

Notalotta people remember that one now. Indeed, a year or three ago, a local newspaper reported the opening of “Falmouth’s first aquarium” in, I believe, Church Street – but it was NOT the town’s first!

 

With about five minutes still to library opening time, I sat down on the pier and gazed upriver.

 

But right in front of me was a more immediate memory, of something else long gone, and that was the sight of the old coasters that used to come right in alongside and discharge their cargo into the old Harris’s coal yard, literally a stone’s throw from the pier.

 

Boy, how this boy marvelled, wide-eyed, at the site of these ships so close up, doing their thing, with their cargoes being grabbed from deep in their holds and swung over to be sent crashing into that yard. 

 

It’s just possible, I guess, that this was the beginning of my lifelong love of shipping – both personal and professional.

 

In fact, it very probably was!

 

In closing here, feast on these four lovely shots of the way it used to look with those coasters so close to the town, courtesy of the DAVID BARNICOAT COLLECTION.

 

 

PEOPLE-WATCHER’S PARADISE

A few minutes before eight o’clock on a Sunday morning, and if you thought it would still be all quiet on Gyllyngvase, Falmouth’s main beach, you’d better think again! 

 

It’s already full of interest and activity in all directions.

 

This daily dawn dip business is about so much more than the mere swimming but, lush though that was again this morning.

 

The trick is to take all the time in the world with the before and after – especially the after, just switching off for a while, in no rush to get changed and leave, instead   indulging in a spell of people-watching all around you.

 

For starters, there are already two well-subscribed keep-fit classes under way, with stretches and jerks and press-ups and back-and-forth runs and everyone, even the notably over-weight participants, giving it their sweaty all. 

 

Closer to self, the swimmers arrive and depart, and the age range is big.

 

There are the “wrinklies” (oops, that’s me, too, these days – keep forgetting that) and the enviably lithe and muscular young ‘uns. 

 

Half a dozen of the latter – perhaps part of a visiting rugby team? – charge into the sea. And, just a little surprisingly, come out of it again in double-quick time! 

 

Ditto the young lady in the skimpy bikini who, I reckon, must have lasted all of 30 seconds fully immersed before shooting back out – while her partner, well out of his depth, looked on in barely contained glee.

 

Apart from these quick departures, I count up to 20 “regulars” in the sea at any one time during my Gylly stay.

 

Observers include the little infant – can’t be much more than a year old – who looks on from just above the water’s edge, with his protective mum right behind him.

 

All around there is much laughter and chatter – and barking as any number of dogs and their owners have their own daily beach outing.

 

One young man, alas, comes out of the sea clutching his head, complaining that it’s aching and he thinks he may have dived too deep.

 

Then, fully clothed once more and with my bag packed, tiz time for me to head back home. Cue hot shower and coffee, bickies and Sunday papers. (That’s right, for as long as they’re still printing, I will always prefer them to the screen variety!)

 

As I leave Gylly, I look back and hope matey with the headache will be okay – he’s busy now consulting a little group of fellow swimmers.

 

And I’m also feeling sorry for the elderly lady, still in her dry robe, who has been standing like a statue in the middle of the beach for at least the last 20 minutes.

 

I’m thinking that maybe she’s been “stood up” by a fellow swimmer – or perhaps she, too, has simply been people-watching . . .  

THE FINAL STORY: HOW MY WIFE’S HILL CLIMB GOT THE FALMOUTH NEWS OUT

As ever, the whole world (sort of) was able to watch, live, every moment, every emotion, every analytical replay, of last night’s Euro football final. Everything, absolutely everything, was instant, for all to see, with all the full reports and comments following not far behind after it was finished.

Once upon a time, there was another “football final.” That was the name of the Saturday evening edition of the Plymouth-based Evening Herald newspaper.

 

Its arrival, at around eight o’clock on a Saturday night, would be eagerly awaited by a crowd of 40 or 50 football fans in Falmouth town centre.

 

The newspaper was packed full of football results and early reports from matches nationally and locally.  Much of its content – a good three hours after the final whistles had blown - was the first its followers knew about their teams’ performances that day.

 

As well as my day job as Falmouth Packet staff reporter around that time – late 1960s/early ‘70s – I was also a hungry freelancer.

 

Among others, I would supply the Football Final with a 150-word half-time report on every Falmouth Town home match and then the result.

 

No instant laptop e-links, no mobiles, in those days, of course.  So how did I do it?  Well, as the game was under way, I would be furiously jotting down shorthand notes for my “full” match report in the following week’s Packet.

 

But towards the end of that first half, I would also be writing out – on another page of my notebook and in legible (I hoped) longhand – that half-time report.

 

The moment the ref blew for the break, I would rip out that page and hand it to Janet, my long-suffering wife.  

 

She would then leave the ground, rush up the hill to the nearest public phone kiosk, in Kergilliack Road, and dictate my report to an Evening Herald copy-taker in Plymouth. Then I’d do the same with the result when the 90 minutes were up. 

 

Came the day when the club took a giant technological leap forward and (fanfare) installed a land-line phone on the ground!

 

So Janet no longer had to dash up that hill to the kiosk.

 

But the breakthrough wasn’t without its downside.

 

Another of my freelance outlets was the Sunday Independent (alas, as with the Football Final, now sadly no more). 

 

For them (are you reading this, John Collings?), I would supply a 200-word match report. That would have to be in by six o’clock, latest. 

 

So, especially when a match had seriously over-run, rather than driving home and writing and phoning my report over from there, I would do it all while I was still at Bickland Park. All the more appropriate if I had to check a few things first and maybe get some after-match quotes.

 

But as for that “downside” . . . 

 

The new phone was located in the corridor at the rear of the main grandstand and players’ dressing rooms complex.

 

And because it was a more reflective match report, as opposed to the blow-by-blow nature of the half-term offering, there were times when – perish the thought – my beloved Town had played badly, maybe even LOST!

 

I had to tell it like it was, of course, and yes, there would be times when members of the Falmouth team on the receiving end of my verbal barrage would walk right by me just as I was filing my copy and spelling it all out.

 

With sick-as-a-parrot emotions still running high, or rather low, it was not unusual for me to be told, mid-filing: “Don’t talk ****ing rubbish, Mike.” 

 

I even once had Richard Gray, Town’s all-time most successful manager, complain:  “I thought you were supposed to be on our side, Mike.”

 

So you can see there were times when I was sorely tempted to risk missing the deadline and reverting to my old routine - by escaping up the hill back to that kiosk!