NO, CLARE, NOT CREAM FIRST
You can go off people, yer know. Especially if it’s Clare Balding telling her TV audience to spread jam and cream on scones the WRONG way!
There she is, sitting comfortably on the South Devon steam train, about to tuck into her afternoon tea for her Tales From The Riverbank programme, when she comes to the jam and cream bit.
If you can bear to, just listen to her: “Because we’re in Devon and not Cornwall, I need to do this the Devon way, with the cream first, lots of it, and I think that makes sense because otherwise if you don’t do cream first you need to do butter as well. You don’t want to do butter as well as cream.”
Exactly. Sacrilege. Put out an all ports alert, I say. Guard the borders . . . ban her from entering Kernow . . .
Or maybe she just needs a little more time to get used to the ways we do and say things – as so many “furriners” do.
A case in point was a footballer called Norman Ashe, who was a huge signing for Falmouth Town in 1969 when, at just 25 years old, he came west with a track record that included being the youngest player ever, at just 15, to play for Aston Villa in the old First Division.
Over a drink in the clubhouse after one of his early Falmouth matches, he pointed to a fan heartily munching what was presumably his tea.
“That’s a nice-looking pie,” he said.
“That,” explained club chairman Warren Newell, “is our national dish, the Cornish pasty.”
I’m pretty sure Norman went on to consume any number of pasties in his many subsequent years down here. He just needed a little time to get used to them . . . he was doing so “dreckly,” as we say!
For Clare Balding, though, I fear there is no hope . . .
(PS: She Who Must Be Obeyed comments: “I never butter the scones anyway for jam and cream!”)
PRACTISING WHAT I PREACH (NOT)
I’ll swear the first half dozen or so fellow walkers I saw on Falmouth seafront this morning were all head-down-busy on their mobile phones.
I said as much to my mate on his mobility scooter as our paths crossed above Gyllyngvase Beach.
“Yeah, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it,” he agreed.
“I don’t know why on earth they can’t leave the blessed things at home and just soak up all this,” I said, with a sweep of my hand taking in the bay and the beaches.
We resumed our separate ways, only for me to stop again a few seconds later when, er um, my mobile pinged . . .
LOAD OF RUBBISH? NO, NOT REALLY!
So . . . our all-singing, dancing, whistles and bells, planet-saving new refuse collection arrangements finally became a reality this week.
How was it for you?!
I checked and double-checked the new collection calendar in the little “Go!” booklet before putting all my stuff out.
Yes, very clearly, it was general rubbish and food waste this week, with recycling instead of general next week.
Not really that difficult, was it? Not worth all the kerfuffle and negative criticism – controversy, even - that it had attracted in some quarters.
Still had fun checking everyone else’s output, though, as I set off on my dawn walk.
Most of my neighbours had got it right, but I spotted one with the recycling bags wrongly put out – and another with nothing at all beside the big wheelie bin.
Don’t they eat? I wondered.
Eventually, back at base, I heard the refuse lorry roaring up my road.
When it had gone, I tip-toed furtively out to my front gates, just that tad bit nervous in case I had somehow still managed to get things wrong (bearing in mind that if anyone could, I would).
But no, big sigh of relief; all was well. Mission accomplished!
JUST THREE MORE YEARS NOW . . .
. . . before David Barnicoat, surely, clocks up some sort of record. A quite remarkable landmark is beginning to loom into view for the retired Falmouth master mariner and maritime pilot.
As I was reminded by browsing through some old files during a de-clutter, in 2028 he will have been writing the Falmouth Packet’s In Port page for fully 40 years.
When he followed me in that role back in May, 1988, he took it to a whole new, authoritative level.
David is that comparatively rare breed, someone who both knows his subject inside out and can also write well (i.e. readably) about it. It’s usually one or the other, but not both.
On his Packet debut, i.e. when he was still working as a pilot, he commented: “My hobbies are the sea and ships and everything related to them . . . I am one of those very fortunate people who enjoy every minute of their job.”
Those near-four decades of dedicated writing bear ample testimony to his love of the sea.
Keep going, David!
NEW MOVE REVIVES FOND MEMORIES OF POPULAR PUB
How many hearts are freshly broken, I wonder, each time there is a news item about the FORMER Boslowick Inn in Falmouth?
The latest headline-winner is a developer’s fresh attempt to build ten homes there.
If there are any ghosts on this long-derelict site, some clues to their identity might be found in Nick Castle’s guest chapter for my book Falmouth In The ‘70s. Here are a few of his fond memories:--
“As was the case in many pubs, some customers had personal tankards kept behind the bar and one or two had laid claim to a certain bar stool, and woe betide anybody who trespassed. One chap used to bring his dog, which would lie at the foot of the stool, savouring packets of crisps while its master lingered over his beer and newspaper.
“The ambience on non-entertainment nights was like being a guest at a private country manor house, as indeed the building had been. Stylish wood panelling and solid staircase in the bar and the ornately plastered ceiling and cornices together with the Axminster carpet in the lounge made it a comfortable refuge.
“But, for the unwary, the wood décor held a secret, as one panel was actually the door to the under-stairs cupboard. I saw, on a couple of occasions, a drinker casually tilting their chair back against the wall until, with a loud click, the wall panel would give way and swallow the surprised and embarrassed punter, who, with all eyes watching, would sheepishly pick up the chair to sit on properly.
“Another place for a potential accident was the entrance door that had a step and low lintel with a sign warning the unwary to ‘Duck or Grouse.’
“On summer evenings, holidaymakers packed in with locals at The Bozzie, when the low-ceilinged lounge would be crammed for the live entertainment. Local musicians, Two’s Company or The Ferry Boaters, played cover versions of a variety of pop and folk songs. On other nights, one-man-band Mad Mitch kept crowds entertained with easy chorus sing-along songs like ‘Lamorna,’ ‘My Brother Sylvest’ and the ‘Mevagissey Lobster Song,’ interspersed with bawdy jokes that wouldn’t be acceptable in the PC world of today.
“It’s not just the acts that remind us of different times. In the 1970s, most people smoked cigarettes and on evenings like these the filled rooms quickly became a thick fog of blue smoke where barely a few seconds passed without the flicker of a match or lighter followed by the glowing of another fag tip.
“ . . . we went out to enjoy a drink or two and sometimes we had enough to get drunk, unlike more recent times where young people ‘pre-load’ on cheap supermarket spirits before going out, with the sole intention of getting smashed.
“Another difference back then was that landlords and barmen took some responsibility, by telling someone they’d had enough, or one more and that’s all. Opening hours were regulated, too, and the approach of closing time would be rung on a bell. ‘Last orders,’ then ‘time, gentlemen, please.’”
Sadly, time ran out for the Boslowick when it closed in October, 2021.
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