WEEKEND BREAK (4)

PROPER ‘ANDSOME – THE ‘PROPER’ CORNISH PASTY!

 

I wonder how many Cornish pasties have been consumed this past week, and how many different recipes have been involved . . . ?

 

It’s a fair question, bearing in mind that it has indeed been Cornish Pasty Week (as I was reminded by one of the presenters on Classic FM, no less).

 

I’ve had a couple, but then again I am Cornish and have enjoyed a lifelong love affair with our “national dish.”

 

The debate over what makes the perfect Cornish pasty is as old as the Cornish Alps.

 

To take but one example, during my PR days, award-winning client Chough Bakery at Padstow shared with me their “secret ingredient” – Cornish clotted cream!

 

The explosion in varieties of the good old tiddy oggy is not a recent phenomenon – as the “doyen of pasty makers” back in the early 1980s made clear.  

 

“No food has been more run down than the pasty,” declared Richard Bordeaux.

 “No food has had more bad imitations. No food has had more abuse from ignorant people. No food has been more improperly served – sometimes with chips, or even with gravy.”

 

Richard was very much an authoritative voice, reflecting a production rate of as many as several thousand pasties a week for more than half a century from the same bakery at Praze, near Camborne.

 

At one year’s Ideal Home Exhibition in London, he and his staff made 3,000 pasties a day – and still could not meet demand!

 

None of this surprised Richard, who spelt out his pasty gospel: “It’s a meal in itself. It’s got to have good pastry; it’s no good having rubbish.  It’s got to be made of all raw vegetables and raw meat. 

 

“When ‘foreigners’ try to do this, they do it with tinned vegetables and cooked potato. Sometimes they put carrots or parsnip – even peas – and that’s all wrong.

 

“A Cornish pasty is good meat, potato, swede and onion, and a good pastry at the back. Where a lot of people fall down is that they try to cut corners and only end up cooking disasters.”

 

Few dishes have survived the test of time – changing tastes and circumstances – so defiantly as the good old tiddy oggy.

 

All of which encouraged Richard Boardeaux to affirm: “Provided it’s made properly and attractively, I have no doubt that the Cornish pasty will survive as one of our greatest foods.”  He wasn’t wrong!

 

YOU KNOW YOU’RE GETTING OLDER (AND LONG INTO RETIREMENT) WHEN . . . 

. . . you walk past Falmouth Docks every day and suddenly realise you’ve forgotten what “A&P”, painted in huge letters over the buildings, stands for.

Forgotten, that is, after writing hundreds of thousands of words about the place and its owners in my 40-plus years as a journalist and PR man!

Quite hard to find the answer, actually, but its roots apparently lie in the creation of a joint venture company between Austin & Pickersgill and Appledore Shipbuilders in 1971.

You see, you can (re)learn something every day!  

 

‘THE WAVE OF HIS LIFE’

 

The run of easterlies earlier this month had surfers making a beeline, as always, for the likes of Falmouth’s Gyllyngvase Beach, with seafront spectators marvelling at their grace and daring.

 

Some of their feats fair took the breath away – even though most of those waves, at an uneducated guess, looked barely more than four or five feet.

 

That’s a long way short of the 20 feet or so that can come with one of the world’s deadliest waves - the “Backdoor” in Hawaii.

 

And 16-year-old Lukas Skinner has just stunned onlookers with what he regards as the best wave of his young life by riding down Backdoor like, as CornwallLive put it, “the pro he is shaping up to be.”

 

Lukas is the son of Ben Skinner, whose PR I handled back in the 2000s when he was introduced to me by his dad, Steve, then head of his namesake Truro-based brewery.

 

Ben was European longboard champion and world No 2, and if the CornwallLive report – and the explosion of admiration on social media – is anything to go by, it would seem Lukas’s like-father-like-son bid is no idle target.

 

Falmouth’s Gylly Beach, meanwhile, can never hope to see a wave to come anywhere near matching the Backdoor league.

 

Unless, perhaps . . . a big chunk of rock the size of the Isle of Man just happens to break off a volcanic island in the Canaries.

 

WHAT?

 

Well, “when – not if” – this happens, it will trigger giant mega-tsunamis, with Britain among those in the firing line.

 

So if you feel there’s still room for more doom and gloom in our lives right now, try this for size:--

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/aug/10/science.spain#:~:text=But%20yesterday%20a%20leading%20expert,battered%20with%20similar%2Dsized%20waves

 

 

SPOTTED IN A CAR WINDOW

 

“Don’t commit a crime – the Government dislikes competition”

 

THE FRIENDLY BANK MANAGER WITH THE OPEN DOOR – AND CONTENTED CAT

Working with Andy Street on his autobiography*, telling the story of one of Cornish football’s most accomplished players over the last 40 years, the conversation inevitably strays from time to time into what was his “day job.”

 

I say “inevitably” because his career was a tad more interesting than usual.  With no disrespect to footballers, being a bank manager for 15 years is not the first sort of work you associate with them.

 

It’s also not surprising that Andy and I have occasionally reflected on how banking has, er, changed in recent times.

 

Certainly, the days of your local manager’s door being “always open” have long gone.

 

Ditto finding a cat contentedly purring on the manager’s desk!!

 

Such was the case with Bedford Daniel, when he represented Barclays in Penryn back in the ‘60s and early ‘70s.  See what I mean with this blog from my archive, first published in February 2022:--

 

There’s no shortage of moaning these days about customer service, or rather the lack of it, and in particular the lengths many of our public utilities and larger corporations will go to prevent direct human contact.

 

I’ve even been known to sound off occasionally in this direction myself.

 

And as my fellow retired journalist Brian Thomas put it the other day: “I well remember all the bull***t from the Post Office when they came up with their brainless ‘leave it with a neighbour’ scheme for parcels and packages. 

 

“They really don't give two hoots for their remaining customers, and never did. And so many are going the same way. Service? Long gone, sadly.”

 

Sadly indeed.  The banks are perceived to be among the biggest culprits, of course, with the days of a local manager, let alone his/her door “always open,” having long gone.

 

I will never forget a one-time manager of Barclays Bank in Penryn, Mr J C Bedford Daniel, who later became a mightily proud Mayor of ye ancient borough.

 

Bedford was a lovely man and very accessible. His door truly was open, and when you had a friendly meeting with him over a cup of tea you always had company – in the form of his pet cat purring contentedly on his desk!

 

He was a different man on Saturday afternoons, mind you. 

 

If you were up Kernick way and watching the then kings of Cornish rugby (i.e. Penryn), you would occasionally hear a frustrated spectator shouting for all he was worth – almost to the point of screaming - if he felt his side was under-performing.

 

That was our Bedford, but it was all harmless enough, and come Monday morning he would be back to his unfiery, avuncular best at his bank.  

 

He even called everyone “my dear” – St Ives vernacular, apparently, whence I believe he came.  

 

Ah, those were the days (and not least when Penryn, in great style, conquered all before them on the rugby pitch!).

 

*  STREETS AHEAD will be published in the autumn, wholly in aid of Cancer Research UK.  Andy played for Cornwall 114 times and enjoyed outstanding success at club level, chiefly with Falmouth Town and Newquay.

WEEKEND BREAK (3)

JUST AS I WAS GETTING USED TO GOOGLE . . . 

 

Dinosaur that I am, and ten years into my retirement dotage, you will forgive me, I’m sure, if I don’t always appear to be at the very cutting edge of modern technology and all things digital.

 

For instance, even when I was still working, I only really caught up with fax just as it was going out of fashion.

 

I took an age to adapt to email as my go-to form of communication . . . and I only latched on to Facebook (purely for business and blog promotional purposes, I should add) just as we were reading that its days had become numbered.

 

So you can imagine where I am now with AI and all that goes with it.  

 

But I didn’t half enjoy the fun I had with my introduction to something called ChatGBT  the other day.

 

My “fun” experience came courtesy of a coffee break in an art lesson with my teacher, Jeanni Grant-Nelson, https://www.visual-awareness.com.

 

On her mobile phone, she verbally instructed ChatGBT to provide ten policies that could get Britain’s economy growing again.

 

The long and detailed answer came up within two seconds, max.

 

Fair enough, that wasn’t the most challenging of questions.

 

But how about this one: “can you create a full-colour cartoon picture of a crowded street scene in Barcelona, beneath a cloudy sky, and featuring a young lady in a bright red coat and a thieving mouse close by?”

 

Blow me down, there it was within . . . all of 15 seconds!  A vivid image, all as briefed, right down to the little mouse complete with swag bag and mask!   

 

This sort of thing will be the death of Google, it is suggested, with the latter’s speed, detail and creativity, if any, positively so last century by comparison.

 

That’s actually no idle comparison, either, as a little more research quickly revealed.  

 

AI’s array of applications is positively mind-blowing.  It can, for instance, write your CV or explain in step-by-step detail how to edit and upload a video.

 

Or how about creating a recipe solely from a photo of the contents of your fridge?

 

And all, mark you, literally within seconds!

 

As Jeanni observed: “Hardly anyone I work with or talk to has yet realised what it can do. I’ve had it on my phone a year or more before grasping its true potential.”

 

Reassuring, then, to learn that I’m perhaps by no means alone in my dinosaur status! 

 

 

I’M NOT ANGRY, SAID THE LADY ROBBED AT KNIFEPOINT

 

Jeannette Preston, founder of the Pants Cancers charity, has called for restorative justice for the youths who were allegedly caught on CCTV breaking into her premises at Ponsharden, Falmouth.

 

She reportedly confessed to being “bloody angry” – but then declared that she didn’t want the boys, aged 15 and 16, to be prosecuted and acquire a criminal record. Much better, she said, if they could be ordered to help clean up the mess they had left.

 

Some might have a decidedly different view, but such gestures IMO do help restore faith in human nature, which is an ever greater challenge as one gets older and in these difficult times.

 

My all-time favourite in the genre is something so profoundly touching that I still often think of it, four years on, whenever I pass Castle Beach, i.e. pretty much every day. 

 

Fiona Crump, then proprietor of the Castle Beach Café business, had been robbed at knifepoint when she arrived to open up one morning.

 

The very next day, she posted on Facebook: "Please don’t be angry on my behalf.   There’s too much anger in the world already. I am genuinely not angry.

 

"Mostly I feel sad that a frightened young man could be so desperate that robbing me on a Monday morning seemed like a good idea. I am sad that he did not know he could simply ask for help.

"Today is a day to restore peace and enjoy the view. And if you get a chance to be kind to someone, please take it."

 

 

 

DINNER DATE WITH PHANTOM BARBER

 

Despite appearances to the contrary, to say nothing of merciless teasing, I do still need a haircut occasionally.

 

Like yesterday.

 

It was mid-afternoon and I guessed correctly that the barber’s shop would be quiet. 

 

It was, in fact, totally empty. No other customers.  Couldn’t even see the hairdresser.

 

Then a voice, from a barely visible, almost ghostly figure sitting at a table in the darkened rear, greeted me with a “hello, love.”

 

I asked if she were open.  “Oh yes,” she replied. “I’m just having my dinner!”

 

“It’s okay, I’m in no rush,” I assured her, so she invited me to take a seat and I began reading a magazine . . . while she continued to tuck in to something I couldn’t make out in the near-darkness.

 

Five minutes or so later, she came out into the light and was ready for me. We chatted, with her accent leaving me in no doubt that she was from Oop North.

 

But, with that delay while she tucked into her din-dins, she had made it abundantly clear that she was adapting to our Cornish ways – by doin’ things drekkly, my andsome!

 

 

NEVER TOO SOON

 

Gotta feeling we have another winner on our hands with my next-but-one book in aid of Cancer Research UK.

 

I’ve just taken the first order for Melville Benney’s SIXTY YEARS A SOCCER BOSS – before a single word has been written!

 

Optimum schedule: begin interviews, July 2025; forward to printers, July/August 2026; publish, October 2026.

 

 

(WORKING) LIFE’S A BEACH

 

CIVIL SERVANTS ALLOWED TO WORK FROM THE BEACH ran the headline this week over a report revealing that thousands of them are being allowed to work from exotic locations including the Bahamas and the Seychelles.

 

Whitehall bosses apparently granted nearly 2,500 requests for working abroad last year amid (surprise surprise) growing concern over plummeting public sector productivity.

 

I guess such information would not have improved the mood of Jamie Dimon, head of America’s biggest bank JP Morgan, who let rip against the work-from-homers amongst his staff in an expletive-laden leaked recording.

 

“Don’t give me this s--- that work-from-home Friday works,” he spat. “I call a lot of people on Fridays and there’s not a goddam person you can get a hold of.”

 

Be that as it may, the beach “working” is actually nothing new.

 

I first came across it all of 40 years ago, in the mid-1980s, when I spent a week in Gibraltar gathering material for a 10,000-word Lloyd’s List annual review of the place.

 

A key interviewee was Joe Bossano, its chief minister for eight years and leader of the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party for 33.

 

Ahead of my meeting with him, his PA asked me: “Would you like to join him on the beach?”  

 

Anticipating a leisurely half-hour or so under the Mediterranean sun, I readily said yes.

 

But there was no cuppa on offer, ditto small talk.

 

I found him, still in collar and tie, sitting on a deck chair amidst a collection of papers and files and accompanied by two of his staff.

 

Turned out he regularly decamped thus – when that sun was shining.

 

No security detail and definitely no mobile phones, which didn’t come into common use until much later, of course.

 

“I can get so much more done this way,” he explained, before inviting me to begin the interview immediately.

 

Another instance of working from the beach long, long ago occurred much closer to home, in Falmouth.

 

Early 1967 was marked by some distinctly unseasonal weather, with the town’s main beach, Gyllyngvase, assuming the role of outdoor office.

 

On February 8 of that year, members of Falmouth Hotels Association took the novel step of transferring their briefcases and documents out of the Hotel St Michaels and onto nearby Gylly.

 

That day recorded eight hours of sunshine for the town, with temperatures up into the mid-50s Fahrenheit, way above the seasonal average.  The hoteliers, it was said, found the St Michaels central heating altogether too much for them.

 

Resort manager Ron Smith hurriedly arranged for tables and chairs to be produced so that the nine executive ladies and gentlemen could hold their open-air meeting in comfort.  

 

Deck chairs were taken out of winter storage, but these had not been aired sufficiently, so other chairs were brought onto the beach, along with cups of tea made by Ron’s staff. 

 

Facing puzzled glances from others on the beach, and with one or two dogs sniffing suspiciously, chairman Mr  C W Hammond ran through the agenda. 

 

One member, Mr A G Sawden of the Melvill Hotel, found the beach sunshine too hot and – shock, horror! – removed his jacket.  Earlier, Ron and his team had enjoyed a picnic lunch and a swim in the sea (with the St Michaels indoor leisure complex 17 years away).

 

Still talking beach, I well remember how, as I targeted my dream lifestyle of being my own boss living and working from home in Cornwall, I believed one of the great advantages would be that I could just down tools and take several hours off at the seaside just whenever the sun shone.

 

How naïve I was.  I reckon I actually did that – spur of the moment stuff – all of twice in my 31 years as a full-time freelance writer  Whenever I felt tempted, the golden rule always kicked in: “if you’re not working, son, you’re not earning.”

 

Bet things would soon start to stir if civil servants had to think that way, eh!  

  

WEEKEND BREAK (2)

RIP MUMMERS

 

So sad to learn of the demise of Falmouth’s King Charles Mummers theatre group after 84 years. See full feature below, after this week’s shorties. 

 

WHALES ON THE RISE

 

In the past two months, there have been 17 reported sightings of humpback whales  around the Isles of Scilly.

 

The whales, which can grow up to 50ft and weigh around 30 tonnes, have also been spotted in the English Channel around the Kent and Sussex coastline, an area considered particularly unusual for them to visit.

 

And a year ago Falmouth had its own big whale event when hundreds of people flocked to Pendennis Point to see three humpbacks in the bay, majestically rising out of the water.

 

None came close in enough, though, to repeat the once-in-a-lifetime experience of a woman swimming off Castle Beach in 1978.

 

Vera Legg suddenly realised she was not alone.  Right beside her was a 12ft whale!  It was bleeding and, she said, “came up to me chattering away.  I’m sure it was trying to tell me it was injured.”  

 

At first, she thought it was Beaky the friendly dolphin (remember him?), not seen for many months, but she wasn’t staying to find out and sped out of the water with the whale seemingly in hot pursuit.  

 

She reported the incident to Falmouth Coastguard lookout and coastguards were promptly on the scene, calling in the services of a veterinary surgeon as well.  The surprise visitor, identified as a baby pilot whale, was left struggling on the beach as the tide receded. 

 

Coastguards kept it wet by throwing buckets of water over it. While they fitted a sling to the whale, onlookers rolled up their trousers, took off their shoes and socks and helped lift it back into the water. 

 

Then the whale swam off, with abrasions to its back and dorsal fin but apparently none the worse for its experience!

 

 

THE REAL THING: OBEY OR ‘YOU WILL BE DESTROYED’

 

I’m currently watching the Channel 4 documentary series Top Guns: Inside The RAF.

 

It’s TV at its riveting best – and pretty scary stuff it is, too, when you’re right there with the pilot in the cockpit, seeing and hearing a potential combat situation unfold.

 

The pilot certainly knows this is the real thing, for instance, when a menacing Russian voice warns him: “You have entered a combat zone. If you don’t leave, you will be destroyed.”

 

That, undoubtedly, is real “pressure.”  

 

Not the kind felt by footballers in a hard, red-blooded top-of-the-table match, but the more convincing definition as famously offered by Keith Miller, Australian cricketing legend and World War Two fighter pilot.

 

“(These sports people) don’t know what pressure means,” he told Michael Parkinson in the latter’s autobiography.  “I’ll tell you what pressure is. It’s having a Messerschmidtt up your arse at 20,000 feet.  That’s pressure!”

 

 

QUOTE of the week* . . . 

 

. . . comes courtesy of John Marquis:  "The idea that a reporter should get out of the office and actually meet real people is an alien concept in today’s press.”  

For a brilliant insight into the clickbait revolution – what passes for journalism these days and why - see https://www.johnmarquis.net/comment and scroll down to A Great Institution Nose-Dives Towards Extinction As Standards Plummet.

 

* Well, after Trump’s “terrible Meghan”,” of course! Oh, and these two from the Madeline GrantParliamentary Sketch in yesterday’s Telegraph:  On Kemi Badenoch: “She has the linguistic dexterity of a pot plant.” On Lord Hermer: “ . . . the Attornery General, a man whose record of assisting Britain’s enemies with legal advice basically makes him Lord Haw Haw in a wig.”

 

 

INCONVENIENT CONVENIENCE

 

Notice seen at the entrance to the men’s loo in Asda’s Penryn store:

 

“Sorry for any inconvenience. Due to availability of a needed part, there is a small odour.”

 

There was indeed a bit of a pong . . . and one can only surmise, from the wording of that notice, that the air might have been fresher had the offending part been UNavailable!

 

 

FEAR  NOT, JACOB, I’M SURE THE CLUB IS ‘DELIGHTED’ REALLY!

 

I do hope the club’s welcome for Jacob Bowker, Falmouth Town’s new signing, hasn’t left him feeling “gutted.”

 

On their website – https://www.falmouthtownafc.co.uk/news/ – they say they are only pleased to have him on board.

 

I say “only” because this is at odds with the long-established near-golden rule that Town – and all other clubs – are always “delighted” to make such an announcement.

 

But I for one welcome the change – because there are indeed other words equally well suited.

 

Similarly, I just wish “incredible” could run its course now and start to be used less often. Quite the contrary seems to be happening, though, with the word being chosen more than ever to describe the exceptional.

 

Quite apart from it rarely being justified – at least in the literal sense – here again there are perfectly good alternatives, e.g. remarkable, brilliant, amazing, sensational, stunning, spectacular etc etc. 

 

Fair enough for Joe Bloggs over the bar or chatting on the street corner, but professional commentators really should know better and try harder!

 

STOP PRESS:  Delighted to note that “pleased” has been upgraded to “delighted” in this week’s Falmouth Packet report of the signing.  Clearly, the word is not going to be relegated without a fight!

 

 

RIP MUMMERS

 

So sad to learn of the demise of Falmouth’s King Charles Mummers theatre group after 84 years.

 

Their statement, at least as reported in the Packet, makes no mention of why, but I’ll wager it’s symptomatic of the modern trend right across the board, with so many institutions struggling to attract younger blood to keep them going; ditto the appeal, in this case, of live theatre versus all the stuff instantly available on a screen.

 

Desperately sad.

 

Appropriate, therefore, to feature the Mummers in this week’s archive spot, first published in April 2017:--  

 

Pure Theatre – Jane Puts Me Right After 50 Years!

 

A lifelong prejudice of mine was dramatically shattered last night, thanks to a lady who is small in stature but big in spirit. 

 

A lot of people have good cause to be grateful to Jane Stevenson, who will be remembered by many as head of drama at Falmouth School. 

 

Her students included my younger daughter, Lisa, now 35.  Jane, as much as anyone, set Lisa on her career as a professional entertainer (https://www.aerialartiste.com).

 

The pair hadn’t seen each other for some 20 years, but with Lisa now back living in Cornwall we spotted the chance to put that right. Janet and I invited her to join us – ourselves, Jane and her husband Mike – for one of our regular coffee morning get-togethers at Falmouth’s Gyllyngvase Beach Café.

 

And that’s where it happened.  While I was nipping out to the loo after my second cuppa (one’s never enough), the quartet hatched their plan and by the time I returned to the table it was a done deal, with which I could not argue.

 

Jane and Mike, you see, are in the cast of the current production of Death By Fatal Murder by Falmouth’s King Charles Mummers.

 

And in my loo absence, at Jane’s prompting, it had been agreed that Janet and I, along with Lisa and her partner Greg (or Helm, as he is known to everyone else) would go along to last night’s performance, at the King Charles Theatre.

 

So why should that have been a “problem” for me, you might well ask?

 

Well, to explain, it is necessary to turn the clock back literally half a century, to the time when I was just a few weeks old as a newly-recruited trainee reporter on the Falmouth Packet.

 

As such, Muggins was landed with all the jobs that everyone else didn’t want.  (Actually, the “everyone” was just husband-and-wife team Ken and Enid Thompson, editor and chief reporter respectively, in the days when the Packet was still a small, privately-owned concern.)

 

So I was duly given the task of reviewing a Mummers’ show, and the Thompsons kindly informed me in advance that, not to be too unkind about it, I should not expect to experience the dizziest heights of stage brilliance.

 

The precise details have long since been jettisoned from my memory, but I can’t deny that I was left with the lasting impression that the Thompsons’ warning had not been without merit.

 

Add to that unfortunate fact my early discovery that a) every journalist has his or her “blind spot” and b) mine was reviewing plays (about which, more in a moment).

 

Anyway, all I can say now is that the Mummers, 2017 version, did a grand job last night. (One more show tonight, folks!) It was a hilarious, chaotic comedy by Peter Gordon and a moving reminder that, for all the attractions of modern entertainment in its multitude of   instant, electronic forms, there remains no substitute for the “real thing,” the live stage version.   

 

And, as we quickly discovered, the Mummers are about rather more than just the stage entertainment.  As Jane had enthused earlier, over that Gylly coffee, the Mummers are not just an am dram company performing twice a year; they are an institution.

 

In association with Falmouth Parish Church, they’ve been on the go for all of 77 years now and have produced more than 140 plays.  Their stage performances are the highlights of a programme of related events throughout the year, and their followers come literally from far and wide to see them.

 

As for last night’s show, there were two big bonuses. Firstly, we could hear every single word of what was said on stage – no mumbling from the Mummers!!  (Take note, BBC.)  

 

Secondly, I was able to sit back and enjoy the whole thing without having to face up to that lifelong black spot that always got in the way of my attempts to write a review.  (Well, apart from this blog, obviously.)

 

The black spot was never more apparent than when I wrote one of my very earliest reviews.

 

There used to be an annual production by the Penryn Amateur Operatic Society in the town’s Temperance Hall, and Yours Truly was dispatched to cover one such.

 

Really, black spot or no black spot, there was no excuse for observing that X and Y (names long since forgotten) “were so convincing as man and wife that you could have been forgiven for thinking they were actually married in real life.”

 

Well, you can guess the rest, can’t you . . . ?

 

I can laugh about that now.  Just.  

 

But not as much as I did last night, at the Mummers’ splendid spoof of the Agatha Christie “whodunnit” genre.  

 

So, complete with lifelong prejudice now dead and buried, warmest congratulations to all involved in Death By Fatal Murder.  Seventy years on, the Mummers are still attracting new fans! 

WEEKEND BREAK (1)

So here goes with a slightly different blog, and with acknowledgements to John Marquis for the title, having got me to launch a column under this name when he was editor of the Falmouth Packet back in 1986. No promises, but I’ll do my best to make it a weekly thing – so do check in!

 

FLUSHED WITH SUCCESS? DEFINITELY NOT!

 

When the time comes to replace the hand-wash facilities in Falmouth’s public conveniences (and elsewhere in Cornwall for all I know), dare we hope they will be a big improvement on the present lot?

 

They’ve been there for fully six or seven years now, maybe longer, and they don’t get any better.

 

They’ve always been the same, right from the start.  You get your soap foam okay, but then the water runs for ages . . . only for the drying bit to finish almost instantly (no exaggeration) if you don’t keep your hands almost touching the hot air outlet and pretty much stationary.

 

Even if you manage that feat, and no matter how long you keep your hands there, the drier simply doesn’t do the job properly anyway and either you’re left with wet hands or you head for the toilet rolls.

 

You could say these driers are a right shower. And definitely all very INconvenient!!

 

 

YOU KNOW YOU’RE GETTING OLDER WHEN . . . 

 

. . . a pal from your childhood days tells you his SON is a police chief superintendent contemplating retirement!                                 

 

 

MAKING A BIG SPLASH – AGAIN AND AGAIN

 

There’s an old song by Gloria Gaynor titled “Never Can Say Goodbye.”  The Falmouth Packet this week couldn’t STOP saying it!

 

That was all thanks to the departing Falmouth lifeboat, which had the grandest of send-offs afloat and ashore.

 

For the latter, that was not least down to the Packet, which certainly could not be accused of inadequate coverage of the big event.

 

First, it was the front page picture splash.  Then it dominated pages 2 and 3, along with ten photos.

 

The page 2 piece began with “it was an emotional day for many as crowds gathered to say a final farewell to . . . “

 

Then, not to be outdone, David Barnicoat had his say on his In Port page, kicking off with: “Hundreds of people around the harbour witnessed the departure of . . . “

 

Oh, and complete with five more pics!

 

All thoroughly deserved, of course, in view of the 23 years’ sterling Falmouth service clocked up by the Richard Cox Scott.

 

And I’ll tell you one thing:  AI and robots may be trying to take over the world, but I don’t see them replacing our wonderful human lifeboat crews any time soon, do you?

 

THOUGHT FOR TODAY:  

Has Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou EVER been spotted smiling?

PENMERE PLAN STEAMS AHEAD 

 

Plans for Falmouth’s Penmere Halt Centenary Celebration Day later this year are shaping up nicely. 

 

The big date has been confirmed as Saturday, July 26, with the station’s car park taken over for this purpose from 10am to 5pm. 

 

Confirmed attractions include two steam traction engines, Helston Railway sales and information tent, Skinners Brewery beer stall, Mission To Seafarers and Falmouth Model Railway Club, who will display their model of Penmere Platform as it was in the 1950s. 

 

The day will also feature the Friends of Penmere's history, with Station and group display.  

As bonus, it is hoped to have the unveiling of a plaque supplied by GWR commemorating the actual date of opening, on July 1, 1925.

 

Visitors will be welcome to bring along their own memories – and old photographs – for sharing on the day.

 

 

GRAND REBIRTH – AGAIN – OF A GRAND HOTEL

 

Great to see the ongoing dramatic resurrection of the Falmouth Hotel (although I’m not sure its current residents will appreciate the builders’ noise at dawn!).

 

For too many years, this grand old lady of the seafront left so much to be desired, and it was assuredly not earning high marks among the locals at least.

 

But now – from my own morning coffee and lunch experience and first-hand reports from overnighters – the Falmouth is once more ticking every conceivable good-news box and is resoundingly BACK!

 

All of which marks another big, big milestone in its history, which, by my arithmetic, dates back 160 years now.

 

And it’s even more noteworthy when you consider that its Mark 1 version lasted all of 16 years . . . 

 

Cue one more from my archive* . . . 

 

. . . It was the town’s very first hotel and was the first building to materialise on the previously unspoilt and undeveloped seafront. 

 

Its creamy, elegant form is an imposing reminder of the heyday of the Victorian train-to-seaside holiday.  

 

As the railway line extended westward and the balmy delights of the Cornish Riviera became better known, the hotel ran a fleet of stage coaches (and later buses) to ferry its guests to and from the nearby station.

 

What was upstairs-downstairs back home became inside-outside on holiday as lords and ladies took their places in hotel suites while their butlers, servants and maids set up in a separate building within the hotel’s five acres.

 

Following its grand inaugural dinner for 70 distinguished guests in 1865, the prospects for Falmouth’s only purpose-built hotel looked rosy indeed.

 

Trading difficulties increased, however, the more so after the Public Health Act in 1875 codified the sanitary laws with the introduction of rigorous rules and regulations.  

 

The construction of Truro Cathedral in 1878 brought more visitors to the area and for a while it looked as if the company’s problems might have been overcome.

 

But debts incurred during the initial building of the hotel proved too much and towards the end of 1881 an official winding-up notice was served. The original hotel company was liquidated.

 

Happily, the company was re-registered under the same name in the following year, with a capital of £20,000 in £5 shares, and business notably improved.  

 

Among the many significant developments since then, the area between the hotel and the sea below was opened up in 1908 for public use.

 

Until then, the Marine Walk, as it was known, had taken a detour around the rear of the hotel from the seafront.  The opening-up ceremony is recorded as “something of a grand occasion.”

 

During the Second World War, the Falmouth’s corridors bustled with top brass of the British and American services, particularly the navies.

 

Its creamy white exterior was painted an austere grey to camouflage the building from enemy bombers. 

 

All its windows were shattered one night when a bomb hit the cliffs, but the hotel escaped major damage throughout the six-year conflict.

 

And today it is still surviving – albeit as something of a threatened species. 

 

With the Falmouth having shown the way, the seafront gradually developed into an almost unbroken row of hotels, but now it is one of just four left there.

 

* See blog post 31 December 2024