BOOM TOWN? RATS, SAID THE ANTI’S!
Was I alone, I wonder, in thinking “here we go again” when Falmouth Docks’ owners announced their £150 million development plan earlier this year, quickly sparking a grand economy v environment debate, and reaching the national stage last month with a major piece in The Guardian?
The massive plan – for dramatically increased cruiseship traffic and much more besides – is clearly the biggest and most controversial scheme to hit the port since the long-running Falmouth Container Terminal saga back in the 1980s.
Broadly speaking, the arguments for and against both projects had/have a number of similarities. The present scheme is no match so far, though, for FCT’s tendency towards chutzpah and arrogance.
Or at least those were among the more memorable qualities of the project’s figurehead, managing director Michael Tragett.
What the scheme wasn’t going to do for Falmouth – and Cornwall – wasn’t worth mentioning!
Time and again, he trotted out his projected ballpark facts and figures – 1,500 new jobs, directly and indirectly, perhaps even double that figure . . . “incalculable benefit” for the county’s economy . . . exciting new road and rail links . . . and Falmouth’s transformation into a boom town, doubly welcome in the wake of the near-closure then of the dockyard with almost a thousand lost jobs.
All nonsense, said many opponents, including Derek Toyne, secretary of Falmouth Civic Society, who dubbed it “Tragett’s Tragedy.”
I mentioned “arrogance” just now. I well remember covering a public meeting at the Greenbank Hotel. Leaning back, perched on the edge of a table, there was an unmistakable air of haughtiness about Michael as he casually swotted away a barrage of questions and criticisms.
Accused of not supplying enough information, he defiantly responded: “I don’t have to talk to you people. As for being patronising and unhelpful, I could quite easily have declined the invitation to speak to you tonight.”
As much as any project ever did, the container port plan split the town. Diplomacy was not Michael’s middle name, though, as when he dismissed some of the anti’s as “the lunatic fringe.”
He told Falmouth Chamber of Commerce: ““It doesn’t matter where you go, you will always have them. I don’t descend to the gutter; if people want to throw flack at me, let them get on with it.”
Then there was a Packet front page splash headlined GET LOST, reflecting Michael's response to one group of opponents.
As with so many imaginative plans for the port down the ages, his scheme never became reality, finally sinking under a mountain of debt in 1991, more than 20 years after the idea had first been floated.
CORNWALL AT ITS BEST – LET’S HEAR IT FOR OGGYART!
Afraid I’m still not quite there yet with completion of two new paintings, so how about this couple* from my archive – both, I hope, showing off the best of Cornwall to good advantage?
Both – Bedruthan Steps and Godrevy – are from my OggyArt portfolio.
OggyArt? That’s right. The project was going like a train until Covid got in the way, and since then my books in aid of Cancer Research, plus the priceless gift of a beautiful grandson, have pushed it well down the priority list.
It was one of my many little business ventures compulsively pursued down the years (success rate one in ten).
The basic idea was a recognisable Cornish scene complete with a special Cornish feature, in this case the Cornish chough and the Cornish ice cream (i.e. with the cream on top!).
Maybe I’ll pick it all up again one day, but I doubt it. And if someone wants to run with it in the meantime, be my guest; I promise I won’t sue!
* Teacher: Jeanni Grant-Nelson, https://visual-awareness.com
STRETCHED TO THE LIMITS
The Scruff (aka Andy Burnham) prompted much mirth back in June when, in the space of a short train journey from Manchester to London, we saw two versions of him.
At the outset, he was wearing his trademark black prole tee-shirt. On arrival in the capital, he had morphed into a grown-up – looking positively statesmanlike even, in suit, collar and tie.
A bit like Blair the chameleon (but behaving in distinctly un-prime-ministerial manner), he had presumably shuffled down the corridor of his coach for a quick change in the loo as the train sped south.
It made me think of the time, 30 years earlier, when my chief PR client was Cairns Boston. He was managing director at Land’s End and then assumed the same role at John O’Groats, when that location came under the same ownership (Peter de Savary).
Thus Cairns became the man in charge at both ends of Britain and found himself regularly clocking up the nation’s longest commute.
To make sure he was dressed for the occasion, as it were, he would pull over into a layby just south of the Scottish border and change into his kilt, reversing the process on the return journey.
Or that’s what Cairns, himself a proud Scot, told me. He was joking, of course. (I think.)
TOP DOC
Telegraph columnist Rowan Pelling recently bemoaned the loss of the one-time family doctor that we all took for granted.
Her long list of regrets included the time it can take these days – typically several weeks - just to secure a phone consultation, let alone the “maximum five minutes” if ever you’re lucky enough actually to see a GP in person.
I could have told her something else I can’t imagine happening now. A fortnight after the birth of Annabelle, our first child, in 1979, our Dr Joe Thomas turned up on our doorstep, uninvited and unexpected.
“I just thought I’d pop around to see how you’re getting on,” he explained, seemingly with all the time in the world.
We brought him in for a cuppa and a chat – and this was a Sunday morning, mark you – and we heartily agreed when he enthused: “You must be so proud.”
Yes, that really happened. I haven’t dreamt it.
Different world, eh?
HOT STUFF
There was much media excitement last month as the end of the latest heatwave edged ever closer. Among the headlines was this one on CornwallLive: "Heavy rain to soak 16 Cornwall towns and cities on Tuesday - Met Office forecast."
“Cities?” Well, c’mon now, you wouldn’t expect the county’s leading local news service to be hot on local knowledge, would you?!
‘SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT IT WAS ALL OVER’ . . . BUT IT WASN’T YET!
It wasn’t even a Stop Press moment. The news came in when it was simply too late. Barely a fortnight after Melville Benney’s book, 60 YEARS A SOCCER BOSS, had been printed,he dropped his bombshell.
In a two-line email, he told me: “I am not a manager any more. We had to fold our team at Constantine last night because we could not get enough players.”
And so it was all over, wasn’t it? Mel had been a manager almost non-stop for six decades, holding 24 such posts and looking after some 1,500 players in the process. He’d worked like a trojan behind the scenes, too, and even refereed a match at the grand young age of 74!
“But I bet even now you’ll go to another club,” I said. “You’ll carry on managing until you drop.”
“That’s my intention!” he confirmed.
Sure enough, it was all of TWO DAYS later that he was back on to me again, reporting his appointment as Saturday team manager for Speak Out United. (Long story – look ‘em up.)
Word had quickly spread that he was available, and it took just a couple of phone calls for him to be back in his lifelong “comfort zone.”
He had never been more in demand. It was his shortest-ever involuntary spell between managerial jobs, i.e. when one had ended without another lined up.
For further details of Mel’s book and how to purchase, email Mel at managermelvb60@gmail.com Wholly in aid of Cancer Research UK.
‘OK, GIMME THE FACTS . . . ER, HUBBY’
In my Summer Break blog, I rued the passing of the days, long ago now, when reporters used to work so much more closely with the local police, rather than having to jump through X number of long-range hoops before getting anything confirmed.
According to my spies, there’s also something of a Fort Knox nature these days regarding press coverage of Falmouth Docks, the area’s biggest private employer.
Back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, it was almost open house by comparison, with briefings for me on request in the office of the then MD, Dennis Pascoe.
Even those, however, were not as cosy as occasional radio interviews involving his predecessor, Ian Sutherland.
It was a time when the yard was much in the news for various reasons and, as well as being grilled by intrepid local reporters (e.g. moi), Ian was also occasionally to be heard interviewed on the BBC’s Morning Sou’ West programme.
As often as not, the interviewer would be announced as Peta Riley.
Initially, I knew nothing of her background and wondered who this fearless investigative journalist, attempting to lift the lid off the affairs of what was then a troubled yard, could possibly be.
It was only a little further down the line that I learnt the cosy truth. Peta was, in fact, Ian’s wife, using her maiden name.
And in local journalistic circles, it was widely understood that such interviews were conducted - wait for it - on the edge of the sofa in the comfort of the Sutherlands’ lounge!
JUST IMAGINE . . .
With a big new port development scheme on the go (see lead item) . . . I sometimes wonder how plans to create Falmouth Docks itself back in the 1850s/60s would have fared in the face of today’s level of environmental awareness.
You know the sort of thing . . . big-scale industrial project to transform a vast area of open water, with all the attendant issues, but with the focus of today’s mass media, mainstream and social, to report and debate it all ad nauseam.
Or ditto, for instance, the arrival of the steam engine and our nationwide rail network in the early 19th Century, with massive environmental impact.
Would either have stood a chance?!
NAUGHT TO BE SNIFFED AT!
The insane rise in transfer fees being achieved by our top footballers shows no sign of slowing down. Manchester City equalled the British record this week with their £125 million capture of Enzo Fernandez from Chelsea.
Whenever such fees are quoted, I think of the time a Cornish footballer made it onto the back page of the Sunday Express.
In the late 1950s, when there was still a £20 maximum wage limit in the Football League (get that, eh!), Geoff Peach moved to Falmouth Town from deadly local rivals Truro City.
Admittedly a class act, he did so for the then eye-watering sum (at non-League level) of £250.
That’s right – just the one naught!
RIP MR CONSISTENCY
So sad to learn of the death last month of David Toseland, one of Cornish cricket’s all-time greatest players.
I actually witnessed the start of his remarkable career when he turned up on spec at Falmouth Cricket Club, with his pal Geoff Impey (of Tony Paull knockout fame), during a Colts practice evening in the mid-1960s.
Coaches Wilf Perham and Arthur Allen quickly spotted young David’s potential and the rest, as they say, is history.
Consistency was his second name as he went on to take more than 1,700 wickets spread over 40 years of playing.
The “miserly, tall right-arm spin bowler,” as Michael Weeks, Cornwall Cricket League honorary secretary, described him, dominated the game for both club and county in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s.
In amongst a tsunami of public tributes, it was David’s loyalty and solidity in all aspects of his life, as well as his cricket, that shone like a beacon.
He was married to Sue for 47 years, they lived in the same house for 40 years, he stayed with the same legal firm all his working life and he clocked up 50 years’ service to Mawnan football club.
Owzat for one helluva guy!
GROUNDS FOR DISCUSSION
My current coffee treat – weekends mostly, when I have time for more than the instant variety – is a rich, smooth and aromatic little number all the way from the Bryon Bay Coffee Company in New South Wales, Australia.
Presented to me recently by my daughter Lisa and her musician hubby Greg (alias Helm de Vegas), it is one of a collection of hot beverages built up over the years through their annual globe-trotting adventures.
Lisa alone is far more knowledgeable about coffee nowadays than I ever was.
That doesn’t stop me reminding her, though, of the time when she had an aversion to the stuff – and especially when she very publicly declined an invitation to imbibe with the new Rector of Falmouth.
At the end of the 1986 Good Friday family service for Sunday School pupils, the Rev Roger Gilbert announced that all would be welcome to join him in adjourning for traditional hot cross buns and coffee.
It was at this point that Lisa, then aged four, plaintively declared for all to hear: “I don’t like coffee.”
With the Parish Church congregation silently waiting in their pews, a pleasant little discussion ensued between Rector and child.
“What would you like, then?” he asked.
“Orange juice, please,” she replied.
Mr Gilbert promised to see what he could do, and the two parties arrived at an amicable compromise of lemon squash.
BEATING THE FIREMEN TO THE FIRE
In memory of Brian Thomas, former Falmouth cartoonist, journalist and author who died last year, here is the first in a series of original cartoons he created to illustrate my book Reflections, published in 2014.
"Oy! You could at least be trying to put it OUT!"
It accompanied this piece about my gang of Penryn fire-chasers in the 1950s:--
. . . . I recall a time when life was so much simpler . . . and when Penryn’s firefighters had a little fan club . . . when this boy was already displaying promising news hound tendencies.
He discovered the Penryn fire siren, wailing away as it used to do up by Penryn train station.
Yours Truly assembled a gang of fellow eight- and nine-year-olds who would swing into action whenever the town’s retained firemen were summoned to duty.
The gang would hurtle down St Gluvias Street. The first to reach the fire station (sadly no more) on Commercial Road would climb onto the window ledge, peer inside and read the words being chalked onto the blackboard beside the permanent prefix “Fire At . . . “
I can still see Fireman Les Burge writing the location of the fire, as he took the details phoned through from Truro headquarters.
Les and most of his colleagues put up with us happily enough, but I can vividly recall a thunderous look of disapproval on the face of the local fire chief, Roy Curgenven, as he bemoaned our presence yet again.
Such dissuasion notwithstanding, there then followed another hectic sprint to the scene of the fire – with, just occasionally, the little blighters even arriving there first and waiting patiently for the fire engine to follow.
Ah well, at least we were getting exercise and witnessing drama for real. Computer games belonged to the future.
AND A FEW MORE CHUCKLES TO FINISH WITH (almost) . . .
Cutting Humour
I announced to Janet the other day that I was off for a haircut.
Quick as a flash, she replied: “Is there a search fee?”
Teasing Alexa
Being, as always, several years, minimum, behind everyone else with all things modern, I have only recently caught up with the wonders of Alexa.
So I couldn’t resist having a bit of fun with her. On completion of one timer alert, I said to her: “Alexa, I just want you to know that I am very impressed by your outstanding service at all times. It's very much appreciated.”
Her reply: “I’m not quite sure how to help you with that!”
(I know – unfair.)
Addressing A Divisive Issue
Long, long ago, before it became common practice, Yours Truly packed up his Falmouth Packet chief reporter’s job and launched himself as a freelancer - WORKING FROM HOME!
My little lieblings, daughters Annabelle and Lisa, bless ‘em, were then just five and two respectively.
The office types I left behind at the Packet were curious to know how I coped with separating work from family life.
I explained a few of the new dividing lines, including the closed door that indicated I was at work and not to be disturbed except in an emergency.
That prompted Brian Hurley, a wag of a transient Irish sub-editor, to enquire: “And when your children are allowed to see you, how do they address you: Dad or Mr Truscott?”
Mighty Midget
Another of those “office types” (see above) was the late Jerry Clarke, then (1980s) the Packet sports editor but known not least for his mischief-making.
We were all victims at one time or another. In my case, he managed to get this extract from a Falmouth Town match report of mine into the Peterborough Column of the Daily Telegraph:
“The diminutive Mike Pearce made a highly impressive debut and stood head and shoulders above his new colleagues in an otherwise poor Falmouth performance.”
As with all my best ones, this one was wholly unintentional.
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
How was it for you? My straw poll suggests that for many observers last month’s partial eclipse of the sun, for all its hype, was a distinctly underwhelming event.
But not to worry, only 64 years to go now before we have a TOTAL eclipse visible from the UK!
Meanwhile, for a reminder of the real thing, how about this extract from my book MEMORY LANE In Falmouth And Penryn:--
The Spectacular Experience That Eclipsed All Others
Tall Ships Races, Red Arrows displays, carnivals, royal occasion street parties, intrepid round-the-world solo sailor homecomings, etc etc etc . . .
The character and topography of Falmouth make it an ideal venue for the spectacular occasion, pulling in the crowds by the many thousands, involving numerous participants and all too typically bringing the town to a standstill with total traffic gridlock.
In amongst all these never-to-be-forgotten events, however, there is one that stands out like no other – the moment all the birds, utterly confused, suddenly went quiet as an eerie and untimely darkness replaced daylight.
It was the morning of Wednesday, August 11, 1999, when day swiftly turned into night as the long-anticipated last total solar eclipse of the millennium was finally upon us.
Offices and shops closed as everyone – locals and visitors in their tens of thousands – headed for various vantage points to witness the awesome experience of a lifetime.
At the Pendennis Castle site alone, it was estimated that well over 2,000 people, including many from the national and international media, had gathered. The first eclipse visitors there had arrived as early as 4 am, determined to secure the best spots on the lawn.
In the time-honoured journalistic cliché, the fact that low cloud kept the eclipse hidden from view except for a short glimpse immediately before and after totality “failed to dampen the spirits.”
The birds may have stopped singing, but a roar of delight went up from those along the seafront and elsewhere around the Falmouth coastline as a small break in the cloud allowed them to witness something they would be very unlikely ever to see again.
At sea, a huge flotilla of boats, their lights bobbing up and down, could be seen right out to the horizon, while there was an eerie light visible off The Lizard as totality time drew near. Street lights came on and there was the amazing spectacle in itself of thousands of flashes as spectators tried to photograph the weird images in the sky.
At Gyllyngvase Beach, overnight campers mixed with others who had taken to the sand for the morning, while in the nearby Boscawen Field a huge television screen beamed live pictures from a helicopter thousands of feet above the cloud.
One local resident, Heather Blewett, summed up the mood: “It was really incredible, well worth it – I couldn’t believe how dark it got. It sent a shiver down my spine and I just felt completely overawed by it.”
Another observer, no less excited, was Cornwall’s specially appointed eclipse co-ordinator, Gage Williams, who said: “It was a truly eerie experience. The sight of all those flash bulbs was amazing and the glimpse of the dawn to the left and to the right was just incredible.
“I came here today because it was right on the centre line; there is a wonderful view and the atmosphere in Falmouth has been tremendous.”
Two days before E-Day, popular Falmouth publican-cum-priest Barrington Bennetts had found himself turned into something of a celebrity on the national radio airwaves.
As licensee of the Seven Stars and an assistant priest at Falmouth Parish Church, his views were keenly sought by Simon Tillotson on BBC Radio 4’s You And Yours.
When asked what the eclipse meant to him as a man of the cloth, he said that God had created all things and perhaps the purpose of the ensuing darkness was to make us think about what He had made and maybe to persuade us to look after our world better than we were doing.
A special eclipse-themed Songs Of Praise evening at the Parish Church also featured on the programme.
No sooner was the eclipse over and daylight restored than the crowds dispersed and there was a steady stream of traffic heading out of the area once more during the afternoon.
