‘FOLLOW THAT?’ HERE’S ONE WAY FALMOUTH COULD - AND SOON!

It’s Falmouth Town’s annual awards night tomorrow and rarely, I guess, will the mood have been more triumphant.

It comes just a fortnight after the club clinched promotion to the Southern League for the first time in its history.

 

Few who were at Bickland Park for the play-off final that gloriously sunny afternoon will ever forget the momentous scenes.

 

So . . . follow that, Falmouth Town!  

 

What, indeed, will next season have in store for them?

 

Well, the normal script will have them being very satisfied with just holding their own first time round in what will very likely be a significantly higher standard of football.

 

Will manager Andy Westgarth want to give all his 2023-24 heroes a chance first . . . or will he strengthen and ruthlessly recruit a few “better” players, with disappointment for those forced to make way?  That’s a hard one, and Westy is welcome to that responsibility!

 

For the moment, though, let nothing get in the way of tomorrow’s celebrations.

 

For it’s a fact that this present Falmouth side, in moving up to the Southern League, have put one over on all the great Town teams of the 1960s and ‘70s.

 

And as it happens, there is one way they could do that again – outperforming those ghostly greats – before this year is out.  

 

Back in 1961-62 something similar happened, in terms of achievement and scenes, when the club became the first-ever to win the Cornish treble of South Western League championship, League Cup and Cornwall Senior Cup in the one season.

 

And they did follow that with something else very special, of course, by becoming the first Cornish club to reach the FA Cup First Round Proper, going out 2-1 to Oxford United at Bickland in November of that year.

 

They reached the First Round Proper twice more, in 1967 and ’69 – but never since.

 

So could Town’s 2024 squad maybe go one stage further, into the Second Round Proper, with the world’s best-known knockout cup competition revving up again before this summer is out?

 

Nice thought, isn’t it? 

 

The FA Cup is uniquely special for the number of intriguing sub-plots and delightful anecdotes that it routinely throws up.

 

One such was the remarkable saga that ended with Town exiting the cup in the autumn of 1973.

 

A key figure in that saga was one of the all-time most respected Cornish referees.

 

Bill Pearce was a familiar and formidable figure on the field of play.  He was very much “loud and clear,” with his voice echoing around the grounds, and his commanding gait was instantly recognizable, with his big, rapid strides.

 

As such, he was very popular – most of the time. He was definitely not flavour of the month, though, when Falmouth and Bideford were involved in a record-equalling FA Cup third qualifying round saga.

 

The turning point was the third replay at Bickland Park, played on a midweek afternoon to avoid power cuts at that time.  

 

It was well into stoppage time, with Town leading 2-1 and everyone in the Falmouth camp screaming for Bill to blow for full-time . . . but where oh where was that final whistle?

 

Alas, an innocuous-looking cross from Ben Murphy deceived concussed Town goalkeeper Phil Hewlett to level the tie. 

 

Player-manager Richard Gray went into goal for the extra time and, with an injured Tony Kellow moving on to the wing, Falmouth held out for another replay – and for a good while after that Bill was not quite so popular with Falmouth fans!

 

For it was Bideford who eventually went through to the next round, winning the fourth replay 2-1 at Plymouth Argyle’s Home Park.

 

At a grand total of 540 minutes’ playing time, it equalled the record for the longest-ever tie at the third qualifying round stage of the competition.  

 

Present-day Falmouth would at least be spared that ordeal. That record can now never be matched, with the introduction since then of the, er, dreaded penalty shoot-out after a first replay.

WEIRD, WONDERFUL, ENTERTAINING, COURAGEOUS – THEY’RE ALL HEROES IN THE END GAME

Summer’s a-comin’ (well, it should be), and with it, no doubt, a fresh batch of travellers tackling one of the world’s most famous routes in all sorts of weird and wonderful ways.  

 

Tens of thousands of pounds are raised annually by an intrepid band of charity-supporting folk known as the “End-To-Enders.”  They travel in either direction, and sometimes both, between the two “ends” of Britain – Land’s End and John O’Groats.

 

This year, as widely reported, it’s all change in the management and presentation of the iconic clifftop attraction at the south west tip of England -  

https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/famous-lands-end-signpost-being-9003217

 

The signpost has been in “outsiders’” hands for nearly 70 years, and the challenge actually dates back to the 1870s, when two brothers walked from John O’ Groats to Land’s End.  

 

Walking, cycling and driving are the favourite modes of transport, but every now and then someone does something a little, er, daft – such as deploying a motorised bath tub, a penny farthing or jump stilts!

 

It was in 1960 that the craze really took off.  In that year, there was enormous interest generated by two End-To-End walkers, Dr Barbara Moore and Wendy Lewis – plus a £1,000 challenge issued by holiday camp tycoon Billy Butlin that persuaded another 700 people to hit the road.

 

Russian-born Dr Moore, described as “eccentric and litigious,” walked the near-900 mile route in just 23 days.  

 

Then 56, she did it with the aim of achieving a higher profile for vegetarianism – which she did handsomely via national newspaper front page headlines.  She lived on a diet of raw vegetables, fruit, nuts, fruit juices, honey and milk.

 

Wendy Lewis followed just three days later, and was so exhausted that she ended up being carried into the Land’s End Hotel by two police officers! 

 

In numerous amazing performances, the trip has since also been done on horseback, roller skates, unicycle, tractor, JCB digger, wheelchair, shopping trolley and even in a Phantom jet.  

 

Then there was 70-year-old Charlie Hankins, who had lost both legs and the sight of one eye in the Second World War.

 

He propelled himself from Land’s End to John O’Groats in a 50-year-old hand-operated invalid carriage.  Along the way, for good measure, he did a parachute jump and dived into the murky depths of Loch Ness.

 

Celebrity participants have included cricketing legend Ian Botham, DJ Chris Evans, singer Gary Barlow, broadcaster James May, TV presenter Davina McCall and comics David Walliams, Miranda Hart, and Russell Howard. 

 

I did Land’s End’s PR for ten happy years and in 1997 found myself interviewing the site’s very own End-To-Ender with the arrival from John O’Groats of Charles Matthews, night porter at the Land’s End Hotel.

 

He did it all on foot and gave this illuminating insight: “It’s been a long time on the road and you really have to exercise a lot of discipline, when you have to get up day after day, regardless of the weather, to walk around 30 miles every day for a month.

 

“On at least a dozen days, I was absolutely soaked through to the skin within half an hour of the start, and stayed that way all through the day.”

 

He added:  “There were some absolute pictures in the expressions on people’s faces when they first saw me.  One motorist who stopped alongside and offered me a lift during a downpour just could not believe it when I turned him down!

 

“Then there were the people who opened the door to me at the B&B houses and saw me standing there with the rain water just cascading off me.  I don’t think they would have had the heart to say no.”   

THEY MADE A DIFFERENCE: SHEILA BIRD, PROLIFIC AUTHOR AND MONSTER-SPOTTER

They always used to say that if you’re an “outsider” trying to make a new life in Cornwall, you’d have to be here for at least 20 years before having any hope of being “accepted” as one of us – and then only on probation!

It was still more difficult for a writer from east of the Tamar to gain the trust of would-be Cornish interviewees - especially those of the nautical fraternity, i.e. waterfront characters and old seafarers.

 

Or so it was said.  

 

In the case of Sheila Bird, late author and historian, it would seem she enjoyed precisely the opposite experience.

 

Over almost as many years, she had published nearly 30 books on the Westcountry, many of them about Cornwall, its characters and its mysteries.

 

That was quite an achievement for a former Lyme Regis schoolteacher who moved to Falmouth and set out on the writing trail in the mid-1980s, all too well aware of the apparent resistance she would encounter.

 

“I know I am an outsider or an emmet,” she acknowledged when her book  Bygone Falmouth was published in 1985.  However, in 18 months of research, she had received nothing but generous help and warm friendship from people in the town.

 

Her reception – and success of the book – prompted a great deal more of the same, including Memories of the Cornish Fishing Industry, which features interviews with prominent fishermen dating back to the early 20^th Century.

 

Before Bygone Falmouth, Sheila only wrote part-time.  One of her articles in Cornish Life magazine was spotted by a London publishing agency, which invited her to write a history of Falmouth.

 

She told me at the time:  “I have been coming to Cornwall since I was a child. For the last 18 months I have been meeting Falmouth people and now I really feel part of the town. 

 

“The Cornish have a reputation for giving people the cold shoulder and I had a hard job on my hands when I took on the Falmouth book, but I have found the characters I have met to be very warm and friendly.”

 

As well as interviewing many notable Cornish personalities, Sheila also researched in depth a “character” of a different kind – namely Morgawr, the legendary Cornish sea monster, the subject of many reported sightings off Falmouth and beyond.

 

Some of those “sightings” were open to question, but Sheila was widely acknowledged as one of Morgawr’s most credible witnesses. 

 

She told me how she had seen the monster off Portscatho, to the east of Falmouth, in 1985.  She described it as some 20 feet long, with a long neck, small head and a large hump protruding high out of the water, with a long muscular tail visible just below the surface.

 

The sighting was shared, in fact, by her brother, Dr Eric Bird, an accomplished scientist.  They said they watched the creature for several minutes before it submerged.  It did not dive, but “dropped vertically like a stone, without leaving a ripple.”

 

Sheila added:  “The sea was as calm as it could be, a silver millpond, and the sea creature came towards us in stately fashion with head held high in the serenity of the evening.  Other walkers saw it.  I realised it was a special moment in my life.  It moved slowly and swiftly, scarcely making a ripple.  It moved in a swan-like manner, with head held high.

 

“It is not a legend.  It probably comes up from southern waters with the warmer seas this summer.”  

 

She said that after her own sighting she had been told that what she had seen may have been “a plesiosaurus, a prehistoric creature.”

HOW RITA CUT BIG BUSINESS PAIR DOWN TO SIZE

As I was saying (blog 27 April), once upon a time the readers’ letters page in any  local weekly newspaper was an absolute must-read. 

Sadly, those days are long gone, but I had a pleasant reminder of them recently  when I came across a letter from one of the most prolific contributors to the Falmouth Packet.

 

Rita Hill, of Frogpool (and one time, I suspect, of Penryn) impressed as a gentle, caring soul with a neat turn of phrase and nice touch of humour, but she could also put the verbal boot in when she felt like it.

 

One such occasion was when she took to task two of the biggest names on the Falmouth port and business scene in the 1980s.

 

As she made abundantly clear in a letter published in December, 1988, she had had quite enough of Peter de Savary, all-action entrepreneur, and Michael Tragett, head of the ill-fated Falmouth container port scheme, thank you very much.

 

“Please, dear Packet,” she wrote, “ask Mr de Savary to invite Mr Tragett to have their face-to-face meeting far away from our beautiful town, preferably on an atoll in the Pacific. Christmas Island for Christmas would be perfect for them to thrash out their differences.

 

“I am not alone in being sick to death of the names Tragett and de Savary.

 

“Tragett should be Dragett, so long has he dragged out the pie-in-the-sky dream of a container terminal for Falmouth.

 

“In the beginning, I always thought he wanted to be a big man in a little town, but now we have two fighting for the title, and as an old Cornish pirate so named (sic) I really believe the little town will still beat them.”

 

Maintaining her direct message to the Packet, Rita declared: “You still hold us in the enchantment of your printed word and the Tragetts and de Savarys of this world come and go and they really are beginning to be stale names.

 

“So let’s have a rest over Christmas.  The Packet never did need overfilled cheeses to sell its product, even if de Savary thinks it does. That’s one thing he’s got wrong along with a few others.

 

“Stay as sweet and news-filling as you always are and were, and my grandsons, who like me cannot wait to get you on Friday, will be still reading you when they are my age. Quite a while to go yet, but the tradition will carry on as long as you do.”

AAAH . . . SO THIS EXPLAINS TRUMP AND BIDEN!

Now, more than ever, I guess, what with Trump currently courting much media exposure and the US presidential election on the horizon, many of us this side of the pond must be asking: “Just how is it that a nation with so many people can manage to come up with such utterly inadequate candidates for the top job?”

I recently put that question to a great pal of mine who has lived in the States since 1991.

 

Mike Otterson was a close colleague of mine in the early 1970s on the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo newspapers.

 

Then his journalism took him to Australia and Japan before he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where he went on to head up the church’s public affairs worldwide.

 

So when I put that question to him – adding, for good measure, that many of America’s inhabitants were presumably of high intelligence - Mike’s reply was instant and dismissive:--

 

“Politics in America is utterly brutal – it’s such a brutal business that no-one in their right minds would ever dream of running for president.”

 

So, in a weird, roundabout sort of way, perhaps the Yanks by and large aren’t so daft after all!

KEN GILL: THREE OF HIS BEST POEMS (IMO)

THE DOCKYARDIE’S SONG

 

I’ll sing a song one day, my friend,

That as songs go will be the end.

A song that’s full of hammers banging,

Chain-blocks rattling, steel clanging.

A song that’ll shriek, quiver, shake

With a noise and din to make you quake.

A song of men in nightmare places, 

With filthy, oily, grease-grimed faces;

Men who struggle, sweat and swear,

Whose curses are a form of prayer.

Yes,

I’ll sing a song of “things” and men, 

Of “Daniels” in the lions’ den.

Of a diff’rent world, with “lock-up” gates,

Where the “facts of life” are “hourly rates.”

Oh,

I’ll sing a song one day, my friend,

That as songs go will have no end,

And the song I sing will be sung “off-key.”

That’s the way that song should be,

For it will have no “sweet” refrain.

Its chords will sound – ”frustration,” “pain,”

And it will last a “lifetime” long.

Yes,

I’ll sing for you - the “Dockyardie’s” Song!!

 

GOODBYE AND HELLO  

 

The Missus was going away for a spell

She asked “could I manage?” I answered “Well,

I’ll struggle on bestways I can

Tho’ I’m gonna be a real lonely man.”

But all the time me mind was teeming

I was plotting, planning, scheming

Of all the things I’d do, and try

I could hardly wait to say Goodbye.

I had visions of forbidden delights

Y’know

Loose-living ladies, abandoned nights

Buckets of beer with the boys in the bar

Oh, as a middle-aged rake I’d be a star

But

Nothing turned out as I thought

Being on me own weren’t so hot,

I don’t savvy the quirks of life

‘Cos all I did – was miss the wife!

 

Oh, I tried a night out on the town

But all it did was get me down

I winked at some ladies once or twice

But the ones I winked at weren’t nice

In fact, they scared me half to death

And all of ‘em seemed to have bad breath (Ugh).

So, 

Despite ceaseless shots of self-derision

I stayed in, watched television,

And at night in that bare bedroom

I’d be all self-pity, misery, gloom,

I knew in my heart I would crack

If she didn’t hurry and soon come back.

But then came word she was on her way

Oh, I was up at the crack o’ day

I dusted, polished with no “breaks” or “halts”

I went thro’ the house like a “dose of salts”

I shaved me chin, I combed me hair

Got to the station with an hour to spare,

Couldn’t keep still, was all aglow

Felt like shouting for the world to know

Oh, a real old stupid “so and so”

But you see,

I couldn’t wait to say – Hello!!!

 

DRINKER’S PRAYERill

 

Dear Lord, don’t let me be shifted

‘Til at least 

Six more pints I have lifted.

Let me carry on proving

That at draught beer removing,

I’m really, exceptionally gifted!

 

This imbibing, for me, is a must.

I don’t care if I swell up and bust,

And if I become alcoholic

Or develop the cholic,

Well, there’s no need to kick up a fuss.

 

For there’s one thing 

That makes it alright,

I’m alive and I’m shining - tonight.

 

(But tomorrow!! Oh God, what a sight.)

 

 Ken Gill, “Penryn’s Man Of Verse” who died in 1988, has long since passed into the realms of legend with what he insisted on calling his “scribbling.”  He published books of his poems and made many broadcasts on TV and radio.  Ken was a tank cleaner at Falmouth Docks for 22 years.    

THE POPULARITY OF "POPULAR"

If you didn't know Falmouth's Swanpool Beach is "popular," you certainly will after reading this report: https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/boat-runs-aground-popular-falmouth-9266650 

 

THE ‘REVOLUTIONARY PORT PLAN’ FOR ST JUST TO RIVAL SOUTHAMPTON AND PLYMOUTH

David Barnicoat was only eight months into his role as Falmouth Packet shipping writer when he was able to reveal one of the biggest and most ambitious, and no doubt controversial, development projects ever to involve the port and its neighbourhood.

 

That’s how he worded it anyway – he “revealed” it. It was all (or almost all) written in the present tense and presented as fact, and it was published in October, 1988, not on April 1.

 

Even the caption for the definitive map read “work should start on this new terminal at the end of March.”

 

David, who took over the Packet port page from me and is still writing it 38 years later – which must be some sort of record, surely – was clearly relishing (aka on this occasion having fun with) his new role.

 

“This plan,” he said, “could one day revolutionise the Fal estuary, transforming the  sleepy village of St Just In Roseland into an internationally recognised passenger liner and cargo handling terminal.”

 

Here’s how David’s report continued:--

 

Called the St Just (Falmouth) Ocean Wharves and Railway Development, the new docks complex, consisting of enclosed docks, deep water berths and graving docks, would stretch from St Mawes to Turnaware.

 

Principal architect of the scheme is the Railways and General Development Board, who envisage St Just being a major threat to the ports of Southampton and Plymouth if the financial backing is forthcoming.

 

Centred on St Just, the multi-million pound St Just Ocean Terminal scheme would involve a huge dredging and reclamation programme, especially to the south where large areas of outstanding underwater beauty and live maerl beds would have to be buried under thousands of tonnes of infill.

 

To the north towards Turnaware the problem is somewhat smaller with the proposed construction of an enclosed dock system, coupled with the erection of warehouses on the foreshore to accommodate cargo.

 

The total reclamation of St Just creek is seen as vital to the new port in order to provide the necessary land required for the massive railway marshalling area and the construction of a graving dock capable of handling the largest liners.

 

St Just (Ocean Terminal) railway station may well be sited near to the beautiful 13^th Century church, keeping passengers away from the main cargo handing areas.

 

Vitally important to the newly-found cargo passenger trade is the proposed railway link that will join the main line between Probus and St Austell, thus providing an expeditious route from the port.

 

Strictly from a marine point of view, the idea is well conceived as it utilises the natural topography of the estuary to provide deep water berths easily accessible at all states of the tide.

 

Although only at the drawing board stage, indications are that the design of the new port will only have a minimal effect on the prevailing tidal conditions found in the harbour. 

 

Like the container port project, there may be a few hiccups over environmentally sensitive issues, but in general terms the concept of creating a deep water port within the sheltered confines of the harbour and with improved rail links is to be congratulated.

 

Since the early 1900s, it has generally been admitted that Falmouth Docks were constructed on the wrong side of the harbour so far as deep-drafted vessels were concerned.

 

Alas, as might be said about some of the other big projects for Falmouth down the ages, this plan ultimately belonged to the realms of fantasy, as David confirmed in his final paragraph:--

 

(For those who haven’t clicked, this plan was first mooted by a Mr Ryan in 1909 and has not been considered as a serious proposition for nigh on 80 years.)    

DICKIE DUNSTAN: SMALL IN STATURE, BUT HUGE IN TALENT AND HEART

This cartoon by Brian Thomas is not a million miles removed from reality, as Penryn’s Dickie Dunstan was for many years famously known as “Britain’s Smallest Blacksmith.” 

Well, you really did mean you had a BIG horse, didn’t you?

 

I featured Dickie, together with the original cartoon, in a Falmouth Packet column circa 2012 and reproduced the piece, together with the cartoon, in my book REFLECTIONS, published in aid of Cancer Research, two years later. Here’s that column:--  

 

“BRITAIN’S SMALLEST BLACKSMITH”

My current reading is "Heart of Stone," by Mylor novelist Jane Jackson, and I was surprised to see a mention of blacksmith Dickie Dunstan, who was anything but a fictitious character in Penryn's 20th Century history.

 

I put this to Jane and she explained that it was her way of “paying tribute to a remarkable man known far beyond Penryn.”   

 

Dickie was "Britain's smallest blacksmith."  He was just 5ft  1in tall, weighed 7st 12lbs, and worked from his base at The Praze for over 50 years.  His fame even earned him a spot on Wilfred Pickles' long-running national radio programme "Have A Go."

 

Jane told me: “Dickie was small in stature, but he had a huge talent and an even bigger heart.  ‘Larger than life’ was not just accurate; it summed him up.”

 

In my Packet feature on him in 1971, I noted how he rarely worked on a horse without a handful of passers-by, mostly children, stopping to watch. 

 

Outside was the ceaseless roar of motor traffic – in stark contrast to the way of things when Dickie began his working life.  Then his only accompaniment was the clip, clop and trundle of horses and carts slowly passing by.

 

In 1964, he felt sure his career had been cut short when a momentary slip with a power cutter, spinning at 1,200 revolutions a minute, landed him in hospital with horrific leg and arm injuries – but 21 months later he was back at his “smithy.”  

 

As for working with horses, the former Penryn Mayor (1973-75) and chamber of commerce chairman never felt threatened.  As he told me: “My job isn’t dangerous - I’m so small I can always walk under the horse!”

 

* I am reproducing extracts from REFLECTIONS – the columns and cartoons – on an occasional basis throughout this year to mark the 10^th anniversary of my retirement and the start of my fund-raising for Cancer Research UK. To date, I have donated around £25,000 to the charity from the sale of my books and, latterly, my paintings.