CONGRATULATIONS . . .

. . . to Tommy Matthews on his outstanding success with his book GAME OF TWO HALVES (see previous blog posts). All profits have been donated to Cancer Research UK and the final total is £2,554.    

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? 

JELLY BAD SHOW, WHAT?

Latest reports from the front indicate that the great jellyfish invasion, although receding, is still far from gone. (See WHAT A SHOCKER – WHO NEEDS JAWS! Blog 04 Nov.)

 

I’ve been without my regular sea-swim fix, at Gyllyngvase Beach on Falmouth’s seafront, for more than a week now and the withdrawal symptoms are setting in alarmingly, I tell you.

 

On Friday, as I checked with a swimmer just leaving the water, the “mauve stingers” were thinning out but were still there in small clumps – and he had duly been stung several times.

 

This morning, I sidled up to another fellow swimmer, still in her dry robe, having decided not to go in, and she told me that a gentleman had just tried his luck but got no further than knee depth before he was surrounded by them.

 

Hopes had risen, with winds now that much more south-ish, rather from the east/south east, which seems to be the direction most likely to drive the little blighters in.

 

This is getting serious.  And I’ve yet to meet any long-term regular who can recall a precedent – and in November of all months! 

 

The normal form is for the jellies to spoil things - albeit not this variety and in nowhere near such numbers - when the sea warms up a bit for a few short weeks at the height of summer. 

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 . . .