CAROLINE KEEPS ON WORKING - NATURALLY
One sunny July morning in 1977, the Falmouth Packet acquired two new reporters on the same day – myself as chief and Caroline Donovan as trainee.
I always felt there was only so much she could learn from me as I quickly came to regard her as an absolute natural for the work.
And I wasn’t wrong – as I have just been delightfully reminded in our first get-together for fully 40 years or more.
Caroline (soon to become Righton after marrying local businessman and councillor Mark) was a prominent name and face in Cornish newspapers and on radio and TV before climbing to national level in 1983.
Since then, she has scaled the heights as a presenter and producer – and achieved so much more besides.
Retirement doesn’t figure in her thoughts – “why should it when I enjoy my work so much?” – and, as I write, she is busy finalising her two latest ventures.
Caroline has media-coached senior personnel of many blue-chip companies and is currently putting that experience to good use as a strategic communications advisor for the NHS and Church of England.
That brought her into Cornwall and hence our long overdue catch-up, during which she told me that this year is the 20th anniversary of her first book, The Life Audit, a self-help plan and guide that became an international best-seller.
She will commemorate that anniversary with the launch later this year of an online video course of the same name - https://www.lifeaudit.irtmediagroup.com
And there’s more . . .
She has discovered “commonplacing” (look it up – there simply isn’t space to do it anything like justice here) and she has written a book on it, also for publication later this year.
Commonplacing enables her “to collect deliciousness every day,” she told me, adding: “That is my gift to you today.”
So I’m going to give it a try. You, dear readers, might like to do so as well – in which case, please regard it as “my gift to you today!”
WOT, NO BEACH?
That’s right. As happens at least once every winter, Falmouth’s Castle Beach has been robbed of, er, its beach, or at least the main part of it. This is the current rocky picture.
But fear not. Every year, Mother Nature unfailingly does what it needs to do to restore order, and usually in good time for the start of the holiday season.
But then again, we live in strange times, do we not . . . ?
THE NEWS I NEVER WANTED TO SEE
Broadway Boy’s sickening fall in Saturday’s Grand National sparked a renewed debate over TV coverage of the great event and in particular ITV Sport’s alleged lack of injury updates during real time.
It had indeed looked really bad, with fears, eventually unfounded, of an addition to the apparent 16-strong horse death toll in the showpiece race since 2000.
Reading all about this (I’m not a racing follower), my mind was taken back to circa 1972 and my inclusion in the Liverpool Echo news team covering that year’s National.
Just a few short months into my move up north after training on the Falmouth Packet, I was the reporter selected to be stationed, quite literally at ground level, beside the notorious Becher’s Brook fence.
Crouching down in the sopping wet grass (it was pouring with rain), I kept seeing this macabre line contained in my briefing note from the news editor: “WATCH OUT FOR DEATHS.”
I’ve never forgotten that one. Mercifully, there was no death, but if you were to ask me to choose my all-time least-favourite reporting job, this would be right up there among the very worst of them.
FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING?
You (or rather I) can obsess over the tiniest things . . .
With the passing of each day, it was looking more and more as if I was going to fail for the first time in well over 40 years.
It had reached the point where I was checking every few hours.
Shouldn’t have to wait more than ten days, the instructions said.
Then finally, one sunny afternoon this week, fully 18 days into the annual process, I breathed a mighty sigh of relief as I spotted the first two of them poking through.
Yes, at last my tomato seedlings were visible, just about, and one of nature’s many minor miracles was under way for another year . . . but it was a long and anxious wait, I tell you.
(I blame global warming myself.)
DECLUTTERING: This week’s little gem . . .
. . . resurfaced amongst various keepsakes from my Falmouth Packet chief reporter days, when a succession of trainees came under my wing. This note, from a young man whose first attempts at good stories often needed a fair bit of re-writing by me, was pinned to the front of my desk:--
“The strongest desire is not to love or hate but to change another person‘s copy!”
And one from the archive . . .
With summer, dare we hope, not too far away now, here’s a timely reminder of one of the delights in store down here in Falmouth, first published in 2015:--
SUNNY CORNISH MAGIC
With summer hopefully here at last, it will not be long now before I make my first trek of the year out to one of my favourite little places on God’s earth. Among those before me who felt the same way about this place was Falmouth’s celebrated artist Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929), who many times captured its magic on canvas.
Tuke had his house and studio on the outskirts of the town, just above Swanpool Beach and overlooking the bay. A short walk away is one of the coves where he would paint his trade-mark male nude figures. Although that cove is not named as such on any map, it was and is known to all locals as “Sunny Cove.”
The remains of Tuke’s studio and house, now long since gone, were still clearly visible when I first visited this delightful little beach. That was way back in the early 1960s when, as part of a group of pupils from Falmouth Grammar School, we were led down there by our teacher, Mr F L Jukes, to obtain our 25 yards swimming certificate.
It was a world without fear, long since lost. I was not quite out of childhood then and the health and safety brigade belonged very much to the future. Which was just as well, given the precarious nature of the cliffside access to Sunny.
But that trek, which is not a lot safer even today, was and is well worth it. More than anything, it is a beautiful escape to an enchanting little oasis of peace in a troubled world.
It is “far from the madding crowd,” yet just 15 minutes’ walk from the bustle of Falmouth town life. Indeed, one travel writer described it as “the most remote beach close to any urban conurbation anywhere in the south west.” I can believe that.
On a fine summer’s day, the walk to Sunny is a treat, with countless insects buzzing away in the fields and woodland, the seagulls circling overhead, and an azure Falmouth Bay stretching out for as far as the eye can see.
The approach is almost as delightful as the place itself – that lovely clifftop walk followed by a descent through the woodland, then a bit of hard work down the cliffside and along the rocks. Finally, Sunny greets you with its crystal-clear waters shimmering in the sunlight. It is truly a little bit of paradise found.
Two arms of rock about 35 yards apart jut some 30 yards out to sea. Sunny Cove is disturbed in the main only by nature’s sounds and, being tucked in behind Pennance Point, is sheltered from the prevailing south-westerly winds.
It all makes for a wonderful swimming haunt – for me and, latterly, my children, too. And now, with Father Time getting to grips with me, I find sitting on those rocks beside the water to be a restful, reflective experience beyond measure. Sunny Cove’s magic lives on . . . and I will shortly savour it anew.
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