Very hard to believe now, especially when you walk through its main street and see so many empty shops, but there was a time in the not-so-distant past when Falmouth was being hailed as the South West’s boom town.
That was probably never more so than in the summer of 1988, with Peter de Savary (PdS), then Falmouth-based, at the height of his swashbuckling Cornish entrepreneurial powers.
Not only was he seemingly buying up everything that moved (or at least trying to), he was also attracting much international publicity with his revolutionary new monohull Blue Arrow, targeting the America’s Cup yacht race.
The media spotlight came to a head in July of that year with the launch of the Blue Arrow at Falmouth Docks, where she had been built by Pendennis Shipyard, itself another of PdS’s projects.
As was customary, no expense was spared for the grand launch event and among the special celebrity guests that day was none other than Bobby Moore, captain of the 1966 England World Cup-winning side.
The guests also included someone a little less famous, Falmouth Packet reporter Moira Holden.
According to the paper’s unidentified Pendennis columnist, she was “star-struck” and “all a flutter” for a week or more after the great man himself had stopped beside her and asked: “Is that seat free?”
Moira, a self-confessed football fanatic, later commented: “I have told the tale of my chance meeting with my hero so many times I’m even getting a bit bored with it myself!”
Elsewhere in town on that launch day, however, some hearts were set racing in an entirely different way.
The best-kept secret of the day was the arrival of a Sea Harrier jump jet to join in the celebrations with a ten-minute demonstration of low-flying over the harbour, followed by its trade-mark rapid ascent.
Mrs Ruth Dunstan, a no-nonsense local councillor and figurehead of the feisty Falmouth Action Group, complained to local MP David Mudd about the aircraft’s “bizarre and unwarranted intrusion.”
She told Moira: “The visitation was entirely unexpected. The sudden and deafening noise was alarming even to those with strong nerves and would certainly have been devastating to the infirm, the elderly and domestic animals.
“From a business point of view, telephone and other conversations were drowned out.
“And from a personal point of view, why should those of us resident here not quietly enjoy our homes and surroundings without such cavalier treatment?”
There were also reports of people out walking in the Greenbank area who thought it was an emergency, with the jet about to pitch into the sea.
Mr Mudd confirmed that he had raised the matter with the Ministry of Defence.
As for what PdS made of it all, I was his Cornwall PR man at the time and am pretty confident, looking back, that this was one occasion when he chose not to go public with his feelings . . .
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