WHY THE FALMOUTH FREEDOM MEANT SO MUCH TO THESE RUSSIAN SAILORS

That Russian “invasion” of Falmouth 35 years ago – see blog August 24 – was given added significance with this sobering piece by David Barnicoat in the Falmouth Packet:--

 

Falmouth witnessed ‘glasnost’ at its best when the 600 young Russian sailors enjoyed the complete freedom of a democratic Western society without having a political officer or pompolit to oversee their every move.

 

For decades seamen in the Soviet merchant and fishing fleets have been plagued by the ruthless Maritime Division of Russia’s infamous secret service, the KGB.

 

Normally signed on as the First Officer, the pompolit or commissar, as the fishermen contemptuously call them, are responsible for ensuring that the captain and crew toe the party line.

 

Each individual crew member, even the captain, undergoes constant assessment by the political officer throughout the voyage and in off-watch periods they must attend political lectures, film shows and technical instruction from the man most feared on Soviet ships.

 

Shore leave in foreign ports is normally only granted with the permission of this so-called officer, who draws up lists of crew members eligible to go ashore.

 

Divided into small groups of five or six persons, each group is allocated to a party member and is ordered to remain together at all times while ashore.

 

Locals will remember seeing serious-faced fishing crews acting similarly in the town during the days of the mackerel bonanza and invasion by Eastern Bloc fishing vessels during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

 

Defection, an act of treason in Russia, is comparatively rare in the Soviet fleets, with the sailors under immense psychological pressure from the KGB and Communist Party, who threaten to punish their relatives in retaliation should they defect.

 

Whether the spirit of glasnost has filtered through into all facets of Soviet shipping in such a pronounced manner as recently experienced in Falmouth, after years of Communist indoctrination and ideology, remains to be seen.

 

Nevertheless, the sight of young Russian men and women laughing and enjoying themselves without the KGB thugs to continually harass them was truly gratifying and long may it continue.  

  

WHY THESE RUSSIANS RATED FALMOUTH ‘BEST PORT IN WORLD’

The recent Falmouth Week was undoubtedly another big success, but I wonder if we will ever again see the likes of one momentous programme, linking east and west on an epic human scale, that was a highlight of the same week 35 years ago. 

 

August, 1989, saw an invasion of the friendly variety of some 600 sailors from four magnificent Russian square riggers.

 

Local families acted as hosts, inviting them into their homes and joining them in a large number of social and sports events.

 

At the end of it all, Arthur Carden, secretary of the Port of Falmouth Sailing Association organising committee, was waxing lyrical: “We were told that in no other port in the world had so much contact been made with so many local people, and that they valued this direct contact even more than the sightseeing trips, receptions and so on.

 

“We were told again and again how much they enjoyed the home visits. That they were a success was proved by the fact that many hosts and guest arranged to meet again for more.”

 

The four vessels concerned were themselves a major sightseeing attraction for hundreds of visitors. They included the Sedov, then the world’s largest sailing ship, and the Pallada, Druzhba and Mir.

 

Nearly 200 local families extended the hand of friendship. For the visiting officers and cadets, it was a rare chance to get a peek at English living. Their hosts, in turn, enjoyed a unique insight into life behind Iron Curtain, then still two years away from its end.

 

To help make the visit unforgettable, an operations room was set up at Falmouth Docks for a full week’s programme.

 

There were civic receptions, ferryboat trips, five-a-side football, outings to attractions elsewhere in Cornwall, plus daily servings of our very own Cornish cream teas. 

 

After presenting town plaques to the ships’ captains, Mayor Gordon Harrison hailed “the excellent bridge-building exercise between the two countries.” 

 

He added: “I am absolutely delighted by the response of Falmouth people to the visit. It was a little unexpected and every organisation we spoke to pulled out all the stops to make the Russians feel at home.”

 

The visiting sailors, many with little more than a few pounds in their pockets, were seen busily snapping up bargains in the town’s shops.

 

At Trago Mills, manager Tony Acton-Page had signs welcoming them in their own language.

 

They weren’t just interested in souvenirs of Falmouth, he said. Also on their shopping lists were items of cheap jewellery, chocolates and toiletries - they loved the smell of our after-shaves.  Some were even taking back lipsticks for their wives and girlfriends.

 

“They seemed quite a pleasant lot,” he added, having invited four of them to meet his family.

Reports circulated that some of the sailors were literally prepared to sell the shirts off their backs to buy goods in Marks and Spencer, but store manager Ian Laws commented: “The only shirts people are trying to sell here are ours!” 

FALMOUTH IN THE ’80s (19)

OLIVER PRICE – TOWERING FIGURE IN THEATRE AND THE ARTS

 

August, 1983, saw the sudden death at his Mawnan Smith home of Oliver Price, one of the best-known Cornish figures in theatre and the arts.  Aged 71, he was probably best remembered for his work with the Falmouth-based Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, of which he was a former president and chairman. He was also chairman for a number of years of the South Western Arts Association, based in Exeter, and curator and librarian of the Maritime Museum in Falmouth. He moved to Cornwall from the Home Counties and became a partner in the Falmouth solicitors firm of Reginald Rogers. In retirement, he remained active in the community and served on Mawnan Parish Council.   

        

VICTOR MARTIN - MUCH-LOVED SPORTSMAN AND TEACHER STRUCK DOWN IN PRIME OF LIFE

 

The Falmouth area lost one of its most popular and respected residents in the fields of sport and teaching with the death of Victor Martin, aged 46, in January, 1982, after a long illness. Formerly a top class rugby referee and careers master at Falmouth School, he was struck down in the prime of his life by motor neurone disease. At the peak of his refereeing career, he was a touch judge at Twickenham for England’s game against the All Blacks in 1973.  He was a lock forward for Falmouth for several years before retiring as a player and joining Cornwall Referees Society. He became one of its leading officials, controlling a number of county championship matches and top John Player Cup fixtures.

 

He was born in Falmouth and spent all his life in the district apart from two years’ national service in the Royal Artillery. He was a teacher for 22 years at Trescobeas County Secondary School, which became Falmouth Comprehensive during his time there. For the last few years of his working life, he was the school’s careers master, being the first person to hold the post full-time, and he previously taught in the metalwork department.  In sport, he was also a very keen cricketer. A left arm spin bowler, he skippered Falmouth Seconds, Falmouth Wayfarers and Falmouth Old Grammarians.  In 1981, his illness prompted Cornwall rugby officials to arrange a charity match at Falmouth between Dave Thomas’s and Kenny Plummer’s XVs. The result was a cheque for £1,000 presented to Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Area Health Authority towards purchase of equipment used in detecting motor neurone disease. 

 

GORDON DAVEY – DISTINGUISHED MAYOR AND LABOUR AMBASSADOR

 

Gordon Davey, a distinguished Falmouth councillor and Labour Party ambassador, died in 1982, aged 59.  Known for his knowledge of protocol and his persuasive speaking in his 30 years in local government, he was respected by his political opponents as well as his own party.  Falmouth Mayor Councillor Mrs Olive White said: “Whatever action he took at this council, he always had the interests of Falmouth at heart and we and the town are the poorer for his passing. Councillor Davey, who represented Penwerris ward, was town mayor from 1973-75.  Born in Inverness, he came to Falmouth in 1943 and was a British Army Commando during the Second World War. Leader of the Falmouth Council Labour group for many years and a former county councillor, he worked in shipyards for most of his adult life, having two spells in West Germany after leaving Falmouth Docks. A civic funeral service was held in a crowded Falmouth Methodist Church, preceded by a procession through the town, with Councillors Geoffrey Evans and Desmond Timmins among the bearers. The service was conducted by the Rev Malcolm Benton.  

 

TOM RICHARDSON – FALMOUTH TRADES COUNCIL CHAIRMAN 

 

In the same year, the death occurred of Tom Richardson, aged 71, who six years earlier had received the Boilermakers Society gold medal for his services to the society and trade union movement.  Tom did much voluntary work in the Falmouth area and was connected with many local organisations. Born and bred in the town, he spent 49½ years at the Docks and was local secretary of the Boilermakers Society.  He was chairman of Falmouth Trades Council for a number of years and sat on the Industrial Tribunal and Social Security Panel.  He was involved in Falmouth Rugby Club, Age Concern, Falmouth Youth Club and the town’s carnival and Britain in Bloom committees.

 

“JOCK” LOGAN – FOOTBALL FANATIC WHO WAS “EVERYTHING” TO DOCKS CLUB

 

Within an hour of playing in a friendly football match, 50-year-old George Falconer “Jock” Logancollapsed and died in November, 1984, at his home in Saracen Way, Penryn. National service brought the much-loved Scot to Cornwall in the early 1950s. He made his name in Cornish soccer with Falmouth Town and then the neighbouring Docks club, where he spent nearly 30 years as a player and hard-working official. 

 

Close friend and former Docks club colleague George Lewis said: “Jock was a dogsbody, but he was the club. He kept it going and has been everything to it. He would never go as chairman or secretary, but whatever was needed he would do.”  Neil Macdonald, Falmouth-based secretary of Cornwall Combination League, commented: “He was known all over the county on any football ground.  He was fanatical about the game – I don’t think I have met anyone else with such enthusiasm for it.”  

THE SMART WAY TO WIN A GIRL’S FRIENDSHIP

Something a bit different today, with a real lump-in-throat email from 21 years ago.  

It resurfaced while I was leafing through some old files relating to Peter Gilson, fondly remembered by so many as a long-serving Falmouth school teacher and latterly a local historian of note.

 

My daughters Annabelle and Lisa have their own special reason for remembering him  well.  So here goes with that self-explanatory email to my girls, who by now were well into adulthood.

 

“Once upon a time . . . there was no such thing as email.  Photographs had to be transported by post or, in certain very special cases, by hand.  

 

“Those special cases included the return of precious old photographs to historian Peter Gilson at the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic after they had been published in the Falmouth Packet.

 

“They would be returned by Mum, accompanied by yourselves, then aged around five and two, bless you.

 

“As you entered Peter’s office, your eyes, almost popping out of your heads,  would settle on a drawer in his desk.  

 

“Tantalisingly, Peter would open that drawer, slowly lift out a colourful tube – and pour Smarties into your outstretched hands.

 

“Such memories were recalled at the Poly last night when my pal David Rowe (ex-Packet   journalist) launched his Cornish gardens book.  I bumped into Peter there and he was keen to know how those two little girls were doing now.

 

“I brought him up to date on your careers and Peter recalled that Smarties ritual.

 

“Just think – if there had been email in the early ‘80s, we would not have such fond memories to treasure now . . . and two dear little girls would have consumed nowhere near so many Smarties!”  

THE TINY ACORN THAT GREW INTO A BIG FALMOUTH SCHOOL SUCCESS

Every mighty oak, as we know, starts off with a tiny acorn. As with trees, so with various aspects of our own lives.

 

There can be few more striking examples of this than the evolution of education, as in the means, methods and systems down the ages.

 

The thought was prompted by the discovery that this year is the 200^th anniversary – no less – of the seed that proved the forerunner of Falmouth Grammar School (full story another time).

 

My, how things were different in those far-off days!

 

See what I mean with this extract from A School To Remember by Peter Gilson, published in 1997.

 

“Against this background of increasing prosperity, it was perhaps natural that parents wished to give their sons a good education locally (girls, it seems, were not to be educated in those days) rather than subject them to a long and often hazardous journey to ‘upcountry’ boarding schools.

 

“In 1824, after a meeting of prominent townsmen, called by the Mayor, Mr E C Carne, several gentlemen formed themselves into a group of ‘proprietors’ of what was to be known as the Falmouth Classical and Mathematical School ‘which should provide an efficient system of education in classical and mathematical learning with additional instruction in writing and the French language.’

 

“A pamphlet published at the time goes on:  ‘ . . . the property of the school and all things belonging thereto has been divided into 75 shares for each of which the sum of £15 has been subscribed.’   

 

“Each proprietor would then pay seven guineas annually for each share (some held more than one share) which entitled each of them to send one scholar to be educated at the school.

 

“ . . . A site on the outskirts of the town at the junction of the expanding Killigrew Street and Upper Brooke Street (the lower part of the present Trelawney Road) was granted by Lord Wodehouse through his agent, Mr Gould.

 

“The tenant had to be persuaded to remove his sheep from the field before building could begin, for which he received 50 shillings (£2.50) and the guarantee that the sheep could carry on grazing as long as this did not interfere with building work.

 

“ . . . Several men in education were consulted by the proprietors about the rules of the school, curriculum, textbooks and other matters.

 

“One of them was the Rev Thomas Sheepshanks, vicar of Budock and Gluvias and Archdeacon of Cornwall.

 

He met the proprietors to advise on such matters as teaching methods and selection of staff and so impressed them that he was offered the post of headmaster in January, 1825, which he accepted at a salary of £250 per annum. 

 

“ . . . The opening ceremony took place on August 1, 1825. A procession of townspeople and parents, together with the Corporation, left the Town Hall to be met at the entrance to the school yard by the staff and (all 75) pupils.

 

“ . . .Before the 1902 Education Act, all secondary education was run privately and not only had parents to pay for their children’s education but other expenses, such as buildings, staff, books and equipment, had to be raised by the school.

 

“Schools competed for pupils and advertisements in the local papers were commonplace.”

 

 After changes of title and location, the Falmouth Grammar School finally closed in 1971, when it was absorbed into the comprehensive system.