EASTER BREAK

Life’s been a bit of a struggle this past quarter, what with Janet in hospital and this boy getting no younger.

So, before I go any further, a huge thank-you to all those of you who asked after my wife and offered to help in any way.  As the saying goes, you get to know who your true friends are at such times.

As another saying has it, the show must go on, of course. So here I am with my promised Easter blog, if not in quite the manner anticipated, plus continuing book activity, as in ghost-writing and publishing in aid of Cancer Research. (Keeps me sane, as I tell myself.)  See BOOKS, BOOKS AND MORE BOOKS below.

 

ARTISTIC LICENCE?

Another way of keeping sane - or when I get the chance, bearing in mind the paramount need for an all-decks-cleared three-hour session, minimum – is with my art.

I was bemoaning the lack of such opportunities during a chat with my teacher and good friend Jeanni Grant-Nelson.

It prompted a little play with her ChatGPT thingie and she came up with this version of me – the me that no-one, myself included, has ever seen before, or is ever likely to!

Well, at least they – Jeanni and ChatGPT – got my face right! 

 

Could US Take Over Littl’ Ole UK?

 

In a remarkably short space of time, the once too-far-fetched-for-words has become the commonplace, thanks to the daily deeds and comments of President Trump.

 

Not least among these have been his designs and actions in the field of land-grabbing – Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, Panama Canal, Gaza Strip . . . 

 

Where and what next, you might reasonably ask?

 

How about littl’ ole UK?

 

Nah?

 

Well, there is a precedent, of sorts.

 

(In fiction, that is.)

 

Daphne du Maurier fans will recall her final novel, Rule Britannia, published in 1972.  

 

It portrays a fictional near-future where a bankrupt UK, having left the Common Market, wakes up one morning to find it has been on the receiving end of a “friendly” invasion by the United States.

 

I bought it many years ago and found it a compelling read, especially with its focus on the resultant unrest in Cornwall. 

 

At its heart is the tiny Cornish village of Poldrea, where resistance builds after the discovery one morning of American  aeroplanes overhead, trigger-happy US marines marching across the fields, and an American aircraft carrier, which is later blown up, in the bay.

 

Power, initially cut off, is restored and the Prime Minister goes on TV to announce that the US and UK have joined together as a single nation – USUK.  

 

This was, in fact, the final novel by Daphne, the prolific best-selling writer who spent most of her life in the Duchy.

 

Perhaps the US “invasion” here will remain the stuff of fiction, but “bankrupt Britain” certainly sounds familiar, doesn’t it!

 

WHAT A HOOT – SPOT THE ‘OWLS’

As long-term readers of my blog may just have noticed, I never tire of walking around Falmouth’s Pendennis headland. And that, mercifully, is something else I’ve managed to keep up.    

I could do it all day long, I sometimes say (with tongue only partially in cheek). There’s so much variety – the ships and boats, the weather, the ever-changing sea conditions and, not least, all the birds.

To that latter category, I have recently noticed an intriguing addition. Here it is:--

Not only this one, but I suspect there may well be more scattered in trees elsewhere, having since also noticed one nearer home, in the Dell (beneath the “Falmouth Town” railway halt).

Anyone recognise the species? Clearly a member of the owl family, it would seem. Or perhaps more likely a cunning cut-out creation emerging from our uni community . . . 

 

 

LANDING A SCOOP – AND DAD’S DISAPPROVAL

 

Shook hands the other day with a new arrival in one of the Ministry of Defence houses at the bottom of our road.

 

Turned out he was a young Royal Navy pilot stationed at Culdrose.

 

We got talking and it took me back to my very earliest reporting days – when I was still a trainee, in fact, on the Packet.

 

That’s almost 60 years ago now and I’ve long since forgotten the exact details, but I recalled a very proud moment when I secured an exclusive interview, around breakfast time one morning, with a Culdrose pilot who had just landed after a dramatic rescue incident.  

 

Barely 19, I was still living at home with my parents, and my Dad was listening in from another room with the door ajar.

 

The phone interview went really well, with some great quotes, and I was dead chuffed when it concluded.

 

But . . . “Just a couple of points there, lad,” said my Dad, who (I’m so grateful now) was my sternest critic. “You didn’t thank that pilot anywhere near sufficiently at the end.”

 

And even worse was to follow: “I’m very aware that our phone bill has increased substantially of late on account of your use of it for the Packet. I think it’s time you started to pay a bit towards it, don’t you?“

 

Well, that took the wind out of my sails, I can tell you.

And of course I didn’t dare tell him I’d already been pocketing a fair sum by way of Packet expenses for home phone use that I had somehow forgotten to pass on to the Old Boy! 

 

WHEN IT WAS ‘GOOD TO TALK’ (FOR REAL)

Talking of Culdrose, Sue Bradbury, one-time public relations officer there, once told me a delightful tale about a “very surreal” moment back in the day when live voices over phone lines still dominated communications.  

“The phone never seemed to stop ringing,” she said.  “Making and receiving calls was the way I got things done.

 

“When there was a search and rescue going on, I could spend endless hours answering calls from across the world whilst also keeping myself updated on what was happening.”

 

That led to her very surreal moment . . . 

 

“I was bleeped at home with news of yet another big story and, in the ensuing journalistic scramble for information, ended up being interviewed live on one of the main national news channels.

 

“My television was on at the time, so I could see the presenter picking up his phone, knowing that it was me on the end of the line!”

 

Life and technology had moved on swiftly since then, as Sue acknowledged:  “There are no phones visible on a newscaster’s desk now, just a computer, and instead of talking to people all day long most of us are glued to a screen tapping out message after message.”

 

 

A RIGHT ROYAL DUMBING-DOWN?

 

The new Archbishop of Canterbury took selfies with worshippers last month and insisted: “Just call me Sarah.” What next, then, in the great dumbing down of everything sacred? “Just call me Charlie” –The King?

 

OH DEAR, SEEMS THERE REALLY IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN  

My eye was caught the other week by a Packet headline reporting trouble at Falmouth’s Prince of Wales Pier.

Fresh concerns had been raised over “foul language, intimidation and long-running disputes on Falmouth’s waterfront, as police warn trouble this season will not be tolerated.”

Here we go yet again, I thought – recalling all too clearly some of the Pier aggro that occurred very early in my Packet trainee reporter days – and which, in various forms but usually involving rival boat owners, has regularly returned down the decades since.

Certainly, it was an enduring feature of waterfront life in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as I recalled in one of my books covering that period:

In August, 1967, boatmen touting for custom were ordered by police to leave the Pier approaches after complaints from visitors that they were being pestered and annoyed. 

This was the first time police action had been necessary since the introduction of a new borough by-law prohibiting touting or soliciting for custom.  

Up to 13 boatmen had been observed “importuning” passengers in the vicinity in previous weeks.  

Police officers went to the pier and ordered them to stop, warning of serious consequences if they continued to annoy visitors.  Later a police sergeant told all the boat operators that they would lose their permits to run trips from the pier if touting were resumed.  

Chief Inspector Trevor Lewis said both Falmouth Borough Council and the police had received numerous complaints from the public about touting and they now had no alternative but to see that the by-law was enforced.  

“The police will have no compunction about prosecuting future offenders,” he added. “Both the boatmen and their employers have had fair warning.”

When I returned to my homeland in 1975 after four years with the Liverpool daily newspapers, one of my first stories was about more Pier aggro.

And I remember Captain John Whitehouse, Carrick District Council’s maritime officer, telling me then as he surveyed another ugly scene: “Welcome back, Mike.  As you can see, nothing has changed here, and I doubt that it ever will!”

Seems he wasn’t wrong . . .  

OH THE AGONY

You know you’re getting older when . . . . you’re no longer king of the road, or rather the footpath.   

 

Nobody, but nobody, used to overtake me during my walks.  I’m talking walkers, obvs, not runners/cyclists/motorists.

 

But now, increasingly over the past year or so, I’ve had the somewhat startling experience of a fellow human suddenly beside me along the way and slowly forging ahead. (It wouldn’t be so bad if they could just cough or clear their throats as they approach me.)

 

And the really concerning thing has been that I wasn’t aware that I was walking any more slowly than I used to. Perhaps my legs have grown shorter . . . 

 

AND THE IRONY

 

When time has to be spent waiting in A&E or doctor’s surgeries, or when you’re lying awake for ages in the middle of the night, you get to do a lot more reading.

 

Or I have done anyway. Books, newspaper supplements, magazines, even The Spectator, a reading luxury I never thought I’d have the time for.

 

Trouble is, I find the (cynical) journalist in me still automatically resisting anything that can be identified as an advertising puff masquerading as editorial.  

 

Any big-name feature – profile piece – for instance will almost always have a footnote flagging up his/her latest book, film/TV programme or whatever. Or it’ll even hit you in the face with a shameless plug in the opening paragraphs.

 

Any self-respecting journalist will have much the same attitude towards anything smacking of free advertising – even though, in the same breath so to speak, they will always seek and expect all manner of assistance from PR people when it suits.

 

Which makes it all a bit ironic in my case, considering it is fully 40 years ago now that I quit as a journalist and climbed over the fence . . . to begin just short of 30 years as a PR man!

 

AND THE SHAME – OUT-SCOOPED ON MY OWN DOORSTEP

 

I’ll keep him anonymous to spare his blushes, but I’ll never forget the true tale of how a contemporary of mine, freshly qualified as a reporter, spectacularly missed a big story right on his own doorstep.

 

He was only a week or so into his new post with one of the Birmingham daily newspapers when he turned up for duty one morning, ready to start from scratch in the hunt for fresh news.

 

His editor was very surprised to see that Matey had nothing of his own to offer. It turned out, you see, that his landlady had been MURDERED  overnight, a fact already picked up by a colleague during that day’s first round of calls to the emergency services.

 

(In fairness, Matey had come straight into the office after spending the night away from his digs.)

 

Something similar, sort of, happened to me in February this year. It was on a Thursday afternoon when a young grey seal was dramatically rescued after becoming entangled in 30 metres of fishing net.

 

It took fully four days before the Falmouth Packet carried an online  report on the event and it was only two days earlier that I had learnt of it – when a prominent report, together with pic, appeared in the Daily Telegraph.

 

Thing is, the drama took place on Gyllyngvase Beach – which I visit or pass virtually every day of the year and which is all of eight minutes’ walk from my home!

 

As my younger daughter Lisa told me: “The journalist in you is clearly no more!”

PEOPLE-WATCHER’S PARADISE

In more ways than one, as you can imagine, I have sorely missed my Lisa these past two months.

But she returned yesterday from her two months in Oz and will no doubt be hauling me back into the sea at Gylly any morning now. The last time I managed it on my own – boring – was early January.

I love the dawn swim routine – from spring through to late autumn – so here’s a reminder of what it’s all about, with one of the favourites from my blog archive.  It was first published in September, 2024:-- 

A few minutes before eight o’clock on a Sunday morning, and if you thought it would still be all quiet on Gyllyngvase, Falmouth’s main beach, you’d better think again! 

 

It’s already full of interest and activity in all directions.

 

This daily dawn dip business, preferably with my oh-so-keen daughter Lisa, is about so much more than the mere swimming bit, lush though that was again this morning.

 

The trick is to take all the time in the world with the before and after – especially the after, just switching off for a while, in no rush to get changed and leave, instead indulging in a spell of people-watching all around you.

 

For starters, there are already two well-subscribed keep-fit classes under way, with stretches and jerks and press-ups and back-and-forth runs and everyone, even the notably over-weight participants, giving it their sweaty all. 

 

Closer to self, the swimmers arrive and depart, and the age range is big.

 

There are the “wrinklies” (oops, that’s me, too, these days – keep forgetting that) and the enviably lithe and muscular young ‘uns. 

 

Half a dozen of the latter – perhaps part of a visiting rugby team? – charge into the sea. And, just a little surprisingly, come out of it again in double-quick time! 

 

Ditto the young lady in the skimpy bikini who, I reckon, must have lasted all of 30 seconds fully immersed before shooting back out – while her partner, well out of his depth, looked on in barely contained glee.

 

Apart from these quick departures, I count up to 20 “regulars” in the sea at any one time during my Gylly stay.

 

Observers include the little infant – can’t be much more than a year old – who looks on from just above the water’s edge, with his protective mum right behind him.

 

All around there is much laughter and chatter – and barking as any number of dogs and their owners have their own daily beach outing.

 

One young man, alas, comes out of the sea clutching his head, complaining that it’s aching and he thinks he may have dived too deep.

 

Then, fully clothed once more and with my bag packed, tiz time for me to head back home. Cue hot shower and coffee, bickies and Sunday papers. (That’s right, for as long as they’re still printing, I will always prefer them to the screen variety!)

 

As I leave Gylly, I look back and hope matey with the headache will be okay – he’s busy now consulting a little group of fellow swimmers.

 

And I’m also feeling sorry for the elderly lady, still in her dry robe, who has been standing like a statue in the middle of the beach for at least the last 20 minutes.

 

I’m thinking that maybe she’s been “stood up” by a fellow swimmer – or perhaps she, too, has simply been people-watching . . .  

 

WOT, NO LITTER?

And for a more recent people-watch, I give you Brian, retired hotel owner turned champion local litter-picker-upper.

He is to be seen every morning, armed with grabber stick and bag, doing his pubic-duty stint along Falmouth seafront.

But when I saw him the other day, I couldn’t help noticing his look of concern as he surveyed the scene at the entrance to Gyllyngvase Beach and along the adjacent footpaths.

Uniquely, so far as the eye could see, it was a litter-free zone and he had yet to grab his first scrap of refuse.

“Perhaps you’ve got a rival,” I suggested.

“GOOD!” he replied.

Somehow I don’t reckon that will last, though!

 

BOOKS, BOOKS AND MORE BOOKS

 

For my final five years of paid working life, I created and ran the Golden Replay Biographies service, ghost-writing and publishing 30 life-story books.

 

And I’ve continued the limited-edition books biz, as a Cancer Research fund-raiser, long into my retirement.  Following on from last year’s main project – Andy Street’s Streets Ahead, which netted £2,500 - I’m nearly there now with my latest Cornish football memoir, for Melville Benney.

 

 

While Andy was a serial trophy winner and long-serving captain of Cornwall, Mel has clocked up the remarkable record of 60 unbroken years as a football manager (at grass roots level), and he’s still going! 

 

That book is well on schedule for launch this summer and two more are now under way – Mark “Rappo” Rapsey’s sequel, Rappo’s World Of Football Fun, and another one that is still under wraps for the moment but will be my most ambitious, and hopefully most successful, yet.  Watch this space for Project X!

 

 

How This Writer’s Life Could END At 40!

 

Subject to one or two ifs and buts, it’s entirely possible that Project X, above, could turn out to be the 40^th and final book in my collection of ghost-written life stories.

 

This one is likely to be a two-year project, rather than one, and when it hits the light of day I won’t be far short of my 80^th birthday.

 

Time then, perhaps, to call it a day and take life just a little more easily?  

 

No promises, mind, but if that does turn out to be the case, I shall take with me one thought in particular borne of those 40 autobiographies and prior to that so many years of writing as a journalist and PR man.

 

Hand on heart, I am more convinced than ever that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BORING PERSON!

 

Came perilously close with one of my Golden Replay clients, mind you! Had to work extra hard to draw her out. Now that DID make her interesting!

 

 

SOME FINAL THOUGHTS . . . 

 

Falmouth’s Castle Beach Café was due to re-open today after its winter break and at the last count, i.e. a few hours ago, it was all looking good on the sand front. That is, there is currently plenty of it, which was emphatically not the case, uniquely in my memory, last summer.

 

Here’s hoping it will stay that way, with no late spring gales to alter the natural order of things. Keep that “Sand This Way” direction board, pointing away from the “beach,” under lock and key, Emily!

 

****

 

It was the breaking news I never wanted to see . . . the demise of the historic packet ship emblem in the Falmouth Packet masthead, to be replaced by a brightly coloured packet of crisps.  

 

It had me tearing my hair out/ shedding gallons of tears/ losing the will to live for fully ten seconds . . . until I realised the date: Wednesday, April 1!

 

***

 

You know you’re getting older when . . . you agree with a lifelong friend that whenever one of you starts a tale you’ve told many times before the other will say “DING!”

 

****

 

Was I dreaming or did I really hear, in the news on Monday this week, You-Know-Who coming out with this Quote Of The Millennium: “We keep negotiating with people and then we have to blow them up.” 

 

****

 

Admittedly it’s a common failing, not just in the professional media, but the Packet was at it again last month, with its front page lead story kicking off with “Residents . . . .have successfully safeguarded much-loved community land . . . “  Question: how would they have UNsuccessfully safeguarded it?!!

 

****

 

There’s been a lively readers’ correspondence in the Daily Telegraph of late concerning our national dish, the good old Cornish pasty. How’s about this offering from a London reader, recalling one way of doing it in days gone by, by a farmer’s wife:

 

“One end contained ‘teddies (potatoes), turnips puddin’ and flesh,’ the other stewed apple. On delivery, she would hand the pasties out, then cover each one with home-made clotted cream!” 

 

 

 

THAT’S ALL FOR NOW, FOLKS.

 

I will return to the blogosphere

with my Summer Break. Watch

out for it in July (ish). 

 

GOLDEN OLDIES!

Mark “Rappo” Rapsey (right) and Andy “Sledge” Street, two of the biggest names in Cornish football in the ‘80s and ‘90s, enjoyed a golden get-together when they swapped memories with the aid of their respective books, IT’S A RAP and STREETS AHEAD.  

 

Both had stellar careers principally with Falmouth Town, Newquay and the Cornwall county side, which Sledge captained.  Their books have been sold wholly in aid of Cancer Research UK. Together, the pair have raised £4,400.  

 

Rappo, unofficial world champion non-League goalscorer, and Sledge both have a small number of their books left. WOULD YOU LIKE TO HELP THEM GO PAST THE £4,500 MARK? The books are priced at £5 “or more if you can!”  For details, email Rappo at rappoandrach@sky.com or Sledge at a.street831@btinternet.com.

 

Rappo and Sledge have joined Kevin Miller, Tommy Matthews and John Garwood RIP in this fund-raising exercise over the past decade, with all books edited and published by myself as principal retirement activity.  All told, they have raised approximately £11,000 in this way.  

 

John Garwood, who died in 2020 aged 93, was from a much earlier era. He was the only local player in the Falmouth Town side that historically reached the FA Cup First Round Proper in November, 1962, losing 2-1 to Oxford United before a Bickland Park crowd variously recorded as 6-8,000. 

 

See also other articles about Rappo and Sledge on this site. 

BREAKING NEWS

A very Happy New Year to you all . . . and special thanks for the encouraging feedback I’ve had from my temporary return to blogging, with Festive Break below.

 

It’s been so encouraging, in fact, that – sucker as I am for taking on extra stuff (but you know I love it really) – I will now upgrade it from annual to quarterly.

 

Or that’s the aim, anyway!  So watch out for my Easter Break, then Summer Break and Autumn Break.

 

In the meantime, for any readers new to me – or perhaps just fancying a fresh read of earlier offerings – you’ll find a few of the “ones I did earlier,” stretching back to my blog’s launch in 2015, in the Blog Archive to the right, here. 

 

Weekend Break launched in February this year and the ones prior to that were the blog’s original, longer version - with plenty of good old local nostalgia, local current life notes and only occasional footballer stuff! 

 

FROM ONE BLOGGER TO ANOTHER

You’ll forgive me, I’m sure – you will, won’t you? – for reproducing this extract below from the world-beating blog of John Marquis, accomplished author, journalist (my all-time favourite editor), artist and many more things besides

 

SELF-PUBLISHING PARTNERSHIP

EARNS THIRTY GRAND FOR CHARITY

 

I’VE written before about the merits of self-publishing, and the well-known novelists who have turned their backs on the mainstream trade.

Take the Chinese novelist cum sports writer Timothy Mo. He considered the advances offered by established publishers too puny for his gilded talents.

So he launched his own imprint, Paddleless Press, and went it alone with some success.

His fellow Booker short-lister J.L.Carr also became disillusioned by the shortcomings of major houses and launched his own firm, Olive Tree Press,  from the back bedroom of his semi in Kettering, Northants.

But one of the most heartening, and lucrative, ventures into self-publishing that I’ve encountered features my pal and former colleague Mike Truscott, whose many books on local history and Cornish sports heroes have now earned just short of £30,000 for charity.

Each title is diligently researched by Mike before he commits words to paper, then he hires a commercial printer to produce his attractively presented books.

While Mike himself researches and writes the story, his wife Janet supervises production. Their teamwork has created one of the most remarkable self-publishing ventures I’ve ever known.

Most remarkable of all is that every penny goes to Cancer Research UK, with all their labours donated free.

Latest titles from this Falmouth-based partnership is Streets Ahead, the story of Cornish footballer Andy Street, and Sixty Years a Soccer Boss, the astonishing tale of Melville Benney, Britain’s longest-serving football manager.

Mike, in an earlier incarnation, was the doyen of Cornish journalists, working as chief reporter for the Falmouth Packet group, and for rival weekly The West Briton. He also spent four years with the Liverpool dailies (the Echo and Daily Post), and freelanced for Lloyd’s List. For 25 years, he ran his own PR business, a tribute to his entrepreneurial flair.

He also happens to be one of my personal Top Twenty - the finest newsmen (and women) I’ve worked with during a 50-year career in newspapers and magazines. 

FESTIVE BREAK

OF BOOKS, BLOGS AND PAINTINGS

£30,000 CANCER MILESTONE IN SIGHT

 

Not quite sure why, but I see this blog website (latterly Weekend Break)  is continuing to attract healthy interest despite my having closed it down a few months ago for all but occasional footballer memoir promotions. 

 

One should “never say never,” of course, but for the time being at least I see no prospect of returning to its broader-interest base. 

 

Much though I’d like to have continued with it – because I loved doing it – circumstances had conspired to force me into concluding that something simply had to give. It was either my books (and occasional paintings) or the blog. 

 

And as the books and paintings raise money for Cancer Research, but the blog doesn’t, at least not directly, it was a no-brainer. 

 

That fund-raising will hopefully pass a major milestone in 2026.  If my current ghost-writing project – provisional cover design below – performs anywhere near as well as expected, then the grand total raised from my books and paintings since I retired in 2015 should pass £30,000. 

 

 

So a big thank-you to each and every one of you who has supported me these past 11 years with purchases or assistance in any way. 

 

It’s been a true labour of love – and all for a wonderfully worthy cause – and I certainly intend to continue with it all, majoring on a new book every 12 months, for just as long as I can. 

 

But meanwhile, as tiz Christmas time, ‘ere be a one-off festive foray back into blog territory for ee. . . 

 

THE WAYS WE CORNISH DE TALK - ALLEGEDLY

 

My sudden departure from “proper English” in that last paragraph above is a sort-of introduction to my theme here.

 

For starters, I’m wondering if ANYONE from any part of Cornwall ever talks, or has talked, in the way I’m about to exemplify. (Blowed if I recognise it, speaking as a Cornishman of 71 years’ residence here):--

 

“I’s never knowed ee go especially to church to do so. Not when there ain’t no service taking place” . . . . “ I’ll tells ee what; I could make ee a sandwich” . . . “You’re the Froggie, ain’t ee?” . . . “That’s how they sees it, but tain’t stopped me working” . . . “Ee tweren’t romantic in the least” . . . “Then I comes awake and remembers; they be the loneliest nights of all.”

 

These examples are taken from the novel I’ve just finished reading, Wild Strawberries, by Emma Blair (pen name for Iain Blair), which is set in Coverack in the Second World War.*

 

It reminded me of something I was once told when I made my first stab at novel-writing: “The moment you start using dialect and accents in dialogue, you’re treading on a minefield.” 

 

That is, getting any kind of balance between authenticity and readability is well nigh impossible.  In other words, the greater the “Cornish” consistency, the bigger the threat to fluency.

 

The “minefield” warning - 40 years ago - came from now-retired Cornish author Jane Pollard, whose Cornish-based historical novels were written as Jane Jackson, or similar. 

 

And it’s as true today as it was then – as I discovered when I recently caught up with her.

 

“I, too, have seen some dreadful examples of so-called Cornish dialect which was actually an all-purpose totally inaccurate bastardisation!” Jane told me.

 

“When you consider that Penryn dialect is different from Camborne, which is different again from Bude, it’s not surprising so many authors get it wrong.

 

“Most of the time this is due to sheer laziness!  They don’t bother to check Cornish grammar or sentence construction, yet there are plenty of books on the subject.”

 

In Wild Strawberries, there is a striking, nay hilarious, example of inconsistency when a returning merchant seaman relates over a thousand words or so how he survived a sinking.  

 

Without exception, his tale - entirely in quotes - is told in perfect English, in masterly prose in fact, only for the guy to revert immediately, upon completion, to talking Cornish, or at least the author’s attempt at that, e.g. “ . . . then a drink it be. Tis a long while since I had a pint of cider . . . I’s dog-tired anyhow. ’Twas a long journey down . . . You can’t imagine the times I’ve thought of ee." 

 

Oh, and another common failing when authors have their characters talking “Cornish” is to forget to drop their H’s, which again makes it all sound instantly and totally inauthentic.  

 

Lest you think I’ve got it in for Mr Blair, let me readily add that Wild Strawberries overall is a cracking good read, with the Paris Hotel at its heart and with at least one episode based on true life.

 

*  Notta lotta people know this, as Michael Caine might say, but Coverack was hit by an audacious daytime bombing raid in August, 1942, killing four people, injuring 21 more and destroying five houses.

 

WHEN IT SEEMED EVERYONE IN 

FALMOUTH (ALMOST) LOVED ME!

 

And while the Festive Season is still with us, here’s one from the archive, from one of my Packet columns back in 1984, in fact, published three days before that year’s Christmas Day (soon after I had become Falmouth Rotary Club’s youngest-ever member!):--

 

. . . there was one evening last week when for nearly three hours I was the most loved, lovable person in Falmouth. Despite the fact that my white moustache kept falling into my mouth whenever I spoke, scores of children beamed bright-eyed into my face, and their parents, too, were delighted to see me.

 

(Have you guessed who I was yet, this dark and cold winters night?)

 

My hood was altogether too big for me, too, and I had to cross roads very carefully and hold it above my forehead as I stooped to talk to the little ones.

 

One little boy – clever brat that he was – remarked: “I didn’t know you wore glasses.” Another, with an equally high score on the brat scale, said: “Hey, you’re wearing brown trousers.”

 

(Oh, come on, you’ve surely cottoned on by now!)

 

Close by me throughout my vigil was a giant snowman hauled on a trailer to the accompaniment of taped seasonal music. And members of Falmouth Rotary Club were knocking on doors with collecting tins for the club’s Christmas charities.

 

Oh, the unrestrained joy and innocence on those sweet little faces and whispering so precisely into my ear what they wanted for Christmas.

 

Oh tragedy that these delicate creatures must grow up and encounter this world’s wicked realities.

 

Happily, the reality for me and those collectors last week was nearly always a warm welcome and a generous donation.

 

In streets were you would anticipate little spare cash, residents without exception – from pensioners to toddlers in their night clothes – would come running with handfuls of coins.

 

At some of the more sumptuous households, however, we came across instances of people peering through their curtains and then not even coming to the door. 

 

To them, I say: shame on you, you latter-day Scrooges of Falmouth. To them goes this Santa’s blackest mark of the year!

 

HOW MY WIFE WAS TRAPPED - AND 

A CITY’S TRAMS WERE HALTED

 

We don’t have a big family – it’s not an endless stream of seasonal social visits to and from all and sundry – so during the Festive Season I usually turn my time to a bit of extra spring-cleaning/decluttering.

 

What often happens is that I stop and dwell on so many items from days gone by that I rarely shift anything like the amount I had in mind.

 

This year is no exception and included a reminder of the day, back in April, 1993, when a crash involving three of my family paralysed a city’s new tramway system.

 

“Once a newshound, always a newshound,” of course, and Guess Who duly issued this press release:--

 

A Falmouth woman was trapped for nearly an hour in a city centre accident that knocked out Manchester’s new tramway system on Thursday evening.

 

Mrs Janet Truscott, 41, was a front seat passenger in a car that collided with a tramcar. As a result, the city’s much-heralded  new transport system was brought to a standstill for one-and-a-half hours.

 

She was eventually cut free by firemen and taken by ambulance to Manchester Royal Infirmary Hospital, where she was treated for minor cuts, bruising and shock.

 

Mrs Truscott, wife of Falmouth public relations expert Mike, had travelled to Manchester by train with the couple’s two children, Annabelle, 14, and Lisa, 11.

 

The car was being driven by Mrs Truscott’s father, Mr Herbert Lowe of Swinton, who was unhurt. Annabelle, Lisa and Mr Lowe were treated in hospital for shock.

 

WHAT A BLAST – NOT!

 

Doubtless it will be a blast in many ways when the New Year is ushered in . . . but one “blast” that will be sadly absent, once again, will be the cacophony of ship’s horns from a rich variety of shipping in Falmouth Docks.

 

Long gone are the days when anything up to 20 vessels or more would be in dock and alongside, including two abreast and just occasionally three, with any number of ship types and company colours. 

 

You can just imagine what a great sound that lot made, can’t you, when the clock struck midnight.  

 

That was back in the post-war boom years of the 1950s and, to a lesser extent, into the early ‘60s.

 

Now you’ll be lucky to hear just one ship trumpeting away. That’s all it amounted to last year and the current picture is pretty much the same, with just three MoD ships constituting the seemingly permanent Docks scene. 

 

The long-term all-grey look is great for the yard’s stability, of course, but enough to make any keen shipspotter - or New Year’s reveller - cry into their bubbly!

 

MY IDEA OF CORNISH HEAVEN

 

Sadly, my painting is not progressing at the pace I would like. Art, of all things - for me anyway - requires total focus and if humanly possible a minimum of three hours at a time, to the exclusion of all else.  Say no more . . . 

 

So no freshly completed paintings for another month or two.  I’ve got two on the go at the moment, and in the meantime here’s a reminder of one of my all-time favourites (acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30cms), from a photo (Gunwalloe) by daughter Annabelle.

 

 

Apart from the particular technical challenges I overcame, I think its principal appeal for me is that it is so Cornwall . . . so my idea of escapism and relaxation, so that switch-off moment when you arrive at a beach, with peace and the sea awaiting, maybe at the end of a little walk with nothing but nature around you (e.g. Sunny Cove near Falmouth).

 

This one’s already spoken for – it was quickly snapped up when I put it here a couple of years ago – but you can see some others of mine, along with an insight into my art world, if you visit the gallery on my teacher’s website, Jeanni Grant-Nelson:  https://www.visual-awareness.com/store/c16/Mike.html

 

 

YOU KNOW YOU’RE GETTING OLDER WHEN . . .

 

. . . For the fourth time now in five weeks, you forget to retrieve your pound coin from the Tesco trolley slot! 

 

 

SO . . . POINTING THE WAY TO A BETTER MEMORY?

 

(Spring-chicken readers below 60 may wish to skip this item!)

 

Senior moments . . . doncha just love ‘em!  I have devised a mind game to keep the little pests at bay as best I can.

 

This is how it works. Quite simply, start each day with ten points and lose one each time you have one of those moments – or, more precisely, whenever you forget to do something, or do something familiar the wrong way.

 

It can be any little thing – including the classic “now what the blazes have I come into this room for?”   

 

And if you have what you would regard as an exceptional massive senior moment, whatever that might be, then you lose two points. 

 

Yesterday was the first day I tried this, and I was down to seven points after just my first three hours. (No, I’m not going to tell you my final score!)

 

Part of the challenge, of course, is not to forget how many points you’ve dropped as the day goes on. In which case – let’s now make another rule – that day’s challenge is red-carded and declared void. 

 

I’ll let you know how it all goes for me when I post my next Festive Break this time next year.

 

(If I remember to, of course. . . )

 

POSTIE’S PUZZLE

 

One of the photos in the Step Back In Time feature in this week’s Falmouth Packet was of a man identified in the caption as “Mr Wagstaff.”

 

That was it, just the two words, albeit with a reference elsewhere on the page acknowledging him as “a well-known face of the (1977) era.”

 

Robert Wagstaff was indeed well-known, as head of his namesake Falmouth-based group of china and glass stores. 

 

I also fondly recall him as the recipient of what has to have been one of the most creative postal addresses of all time on an envelope.

 

Here’s how it read:--

 

The Manager or Manageress

The China and Glass Shop

Quite Near To The Falmouth Bookshop, I Believe

And Not Far From Where The Road

Curves Around With A Pub And A Church

With Shops In Between

Leading To A Phone Box

The Main Street

Falmouth, Cornwall

 

NEXT BOOK – THE FIRST SNEAK PREVIEW

 

And finally, for a flavour of the Melville Benney book publishing later this year (see first item), try these extracts from its Foreword, written by Leon Prynn, Packet Newspapers Sports Editor, 1987-2010:--

If enthusiasm was the barometer for achieving success, then Melville Benney would have been one of the most successful football managers at the highest level in the country.

. . . during his time Melville, now 74, has probably ushered thousands of players through the early learning curve of adult football, which in itself is a major achievement. 

. . . he has also kept many clubs in existence by taking on additional off-field duties such as treasurer, secretary, linesman and even groundsman. If no-one was willing to do a particular job, Melville would volunteer to fulfil the role – or, on many occasions, all the roles even in a league capacity.

. . . Speaking to Melville after a match a while ago about pitch markings, he revealed that he didn’t have time on the day of the match to mark out the pitch and did it at 8.45 pm on a Friday evening because no-one else could – or would – do it. The knockout punch was that Melville had to mark the ground with a torch, but not a word of complaint, he just got on with the job as he has so often done over the years.

STOPPED IN MY TRACKS – BY NOTHING

Took a rare day off from dawn walking yesterday, but normal service quickly resumed this morning.

Except that it wasn’t normal.  I rounded Pendennis Point at 0802 and was struck by that rarest of sights:  no ships, no boats, no cars, no pedestrians.

Nothing, just me and the birds!  And there was another thing missing, even at that time:  full daylight.  

So here’s to those longer days and the first hints of spring – and a bit more “company” when I go round that Point!

THANKS FOR READING – AND WATCH OUT FOR ANOTHER FESTIVE BREAK FROM ME AROUND THIS TIME NEXT YEAR!