HOW A SWEDISH BEAUTY HELPED SELL FALMOUTH
Project Declutter at Truscott Towers is proceeding apace (or even at pace, as our current “leaders” like to say).
And just look at what I turned up this week:--
It’s a dusty old copy of the official Falmouth Holiday Guide for 1967 and it immediately had me wondering: just who was the lovely young lady gracing the cover?
Didn’t recognise her at all. Certainly wasn’t Cherry Pritchard, described around that time as “the most beautiful carnival queen I have ever seen” by Westward TV personality Ken Macleod.*
Nope, Cherry was dark-haired.
Nor was it Dawn Philpott, another well-known carnival queen from that era. Dawn was emphatically shorter.
No, it turned out that Falmouth resort manager Ron Smith, ever the unconventional, had turned to Scandinavia for help in wooing our visitors.
For, tucked inside my copy of the guide, a West Briton cutting from January of that year reveals the cover girl’s identity as none other than 22-year-old Asa Thylin, of Granitvagen in Sweden.
She had apparently spent her previous summer holiday with Lesley Jewell, of Mabe, the pair having become pen friends when Lesley was at Falmouth County High School.
The Briton described the guide as “the brightest Falmouth has ever produced” and explained that Asa had been spotted on the rocks at Swanpool Beach when Ron and his unnamed cameraman had been “out looking for attractive pictures” for the publication.
Beneath a “Welcome To Falmouth” message from Mayor Sam Hooper on the inside front cover, it was explained that a nominal charge of 9d (4p) was requested for the guide as “the postage alone amounts to 7d” (3p).
Further inside, an advert for the Caludon, one of several hotels long since disappeared from the seafront scene, highlighted its “electric fires in all bedrooms” and “separate tables in dining room.”
* Ken Macleod was one of the three original presenters on Westward Diary for Westward Television, which was the first ITV franchise holder for South West England, from 1961-81. See also FROM THE ARCHIVE, ITV TAKES THE TRAIN INTO TOWN, below.
I HOPE YOU REMEMBERED . . .
. . . to say “White Rabbits” this week, at the start of the new month, for good luck.
You know the rules: it’s the first thing you say when you wake up at whatever time past midnight. But no cheating, no waiting up, staying awake to say it as soon as the new day arrives.
As a gold-standard superstitious Cornishman, I naturally remembered when I woke up on Tuesday morning – just as I have done every month now for 34 years, no kidding.
I will never forget the last time I forgot. It was end-March, 1991, and I was in the middle of a two-week assignment in Belgium for Lloyd’s List.
Yes, I FORGOT. Result? I found myself temporarily stranded in that country with the collapse of the Air Europe airline!
Clear proof, if such were needed, of the vital importance of those two magic words, uttered at the right time . . .
SCORING WITH THE CLICHES
It’s started up already. Truro City “are delighted to announce . . . .” the signing of a new player. Clubs are always “delighted to announce”.
Oh for a bit of variety!
But no, Truro currently have no fewer than three “delighted to announce’s” on their website home page, reporting contract signings for the new season.
Any day now you will also start to see clubs declaring that “there’s a real buzz about the place” in the build-up to the new season.
For many, the mood won’t last long. Far from being “over the moon,” they are more likely to revert to being “sick as parrots!”
BROKEN BRITAIN
PA announcement on Truro Station this morning: “We regret to announce that the 0854 service to London Paddington has been cancelled “due to more trains than usual being repaired.”
Not heard that one before!
WHEN POSITIVE THINKING DIDN’T WORK FOR RAPPO
I mentioned recently how a former (mature) PR student of mine, Colin Edwards, had turned tutor, teaching me much about sales and marketing and, more broadly, about positive thinking for life itself.
The latter gospel included the great value of employing positive rather than negative language in your thoughts - “accentuate the positive.”
For instance, “I am returning to full fitness,” not “I am recovering from illness.”
The idea is that your thoughts will brief your sub-conscious, which will in turn create your state. So we wouldn’t want “illness” to play any part in your sub-conscious.
Another “rule” was to visualise, as clearly as possible - see it, hear it, feel it, smell it - your desired outcome. By so doing – same principle as above, really – you would make it that much more likely to become reality, a self-fulfilling prophesy.
That doesn’t always work, though, and someone who can testify to that fact is Cornish footballing legend Mark “Rappo” Rapsey.
See what I mean with this extract from his memoir IT’S A RAP, recalling his chance to seal victory in a cup final against St Blazey at Truro in 1991:
Three minutes into injury time, I was suddenly clear, with the goalkeeper coming out to meet me.
It was a favourite finishing scenario of mine. The ball was still bouncing nicely for me and begging to be lobbed over goalkeeper Steve Nute and into the net.
In my head, I was actually already celebrating – I could see the headlines (no kidding). Only snag, my lob hit the bar and bounced safely behind the goal!
If they get the equalizer now, I thought, I will never live it down; I will blame myself forever. I felt certain that if it went to extra time, St Blazey would win it.
But it didn’t, and when the ref finally blew for time, I fell to my knees with relief.
MY PROBLEM WITH ‘NO PROBLEM’
Talking, as I was above, of “accentuating the positive,” and where possible avoiding negative words, if there’s one term I wish we could eliminate it would be “no problem,” at least in the hospitality industry.
Surely – surely – “you’re welcome” would be so much better, wouldn’t it? And a whole lot more meaningful.
FROM THE ARCHIVE . . .
Extract from my book, “Falmouth In The ‘60s”:--
ITV TAKES THE TRAIN INTO TOWN
A critic’s daily review recently began with the phrase “In this age of too much TV.” It would be hard to argue with that. At the last count, there were just short of 500 linear television channels (traditional, scheduled broadcasting) in the UK alone, available through a variety of providers. Back in early 1961, the total number of TV channels in Britain was all of two (both terrestrial) and Cornwall was still awaiting its first regional commercial station, but things were about to change . . .
For “the train now arriving” at Falmouth Station (these days the Docks Station) on Tuesday, February 14, 1961, was a very special one – one like no other seen there before or since. It heralded a giant publicity campaign for the launch of Westward Television, bringing the age of independent TV to the Westcountry. The trailblazing company had hired an entire train from the Western Region of British Railways and had it completely refitted as a travelling exhibition. Nearly 5,000 local people stepped aboard the train at the Falmouth station, with CCTV enabling many of them to enjoy the novelty of seeing and hearing themselves on TV screens dotted around the train. Their interviewer was one of the best-known radio personalities of the time, appropriately named Jack Train, of ITMA (It’s That Man Again) and Twenty Questions fame. The special train, repainted in Westward’s distinctive blue and white colours and with the company name prominently lettered on the side, was pulled by the renowned locomotive City of Truro, the first steam locomotive to travel at more than 100 miles per hour.
The six coaches housed a 36-seat cinema and exhibition area, a fully operational TV studio, generating van and three coaches in which manufacturers showed off the latest in TV equipment. The train had stood at Olympia Station, London, for two days prior to travelling to Truro, where it began its six-week tour of the Westward area – Devon, Cornwall and parts of Somerset and Dorset. The tour had 23 stops, each involving a ceremony performed by the local Mayor or other civic dignitary and giving visitors a foretaste of what they could expect when the new broadcasting station opened in April (at the start of a franchise that would run for more than 20 years). In all, several hundred thousand people reportedly filed through the exhibition train during its tour.
Westward took to the air for real on April 29, transmitting from its brand new purpose-built HQ, described as “imposing,” in Derry’s Cross in the heart of Plymouth city centre. A major advertising campaign included the line: “Look Westward – for the clearest ITV picture you have ever seen.” It trumpeted three of its highest-profile presenters in Sheila Kennedy (who I can still clearly recall seeing, accompanied by Gus Honeybun, on my parents’ little black and white TV screen), Guy Cory, former Battle of Britain pilot, and “the lovely” Jane Fyffe. Gus was the station mascot for Westward, and later Television South West, from 1961 to 1992.
The Rt Hon Lord Mayor of London, Sir Bernard Waley-Cohen, “launched” the train at Olympia. At Falmouth, it was the turn of the town’s Mayor, Alderman W E Cavill. The train closed at 9 pm, but many of the visitors stayed on for the sight – within the hour – of the City of Truro steaming into action once more as she hauled the train away bound for its next stop, Camborne.
