WEEKEND BREAK (23)

FLOATING A POSSIBILITY: ‘BEST-EVER’ CARNIVAL NEXT MONTH?

 

My mention of carnival queens last week prompted a fresh look at the Falmouth Carnival scene and I see this year’s event, on August 9, is going to be something of a landmark job.

 

The big parade will see the return of float entries – decorated platforms on vehicles or towed on trailers behind them – after an absence of 20 years.

 

Their return should reinforce its reputation as “the biggest, happiest, brightest, jolliest, noisiest, gayest, liveliest and most popular carnival of them all.”

 

Or that’s the description in a delightful black and white Pathe News-style video on Falmouth Carnival’s website, anyway.

 

And it must be true because it’s delivered, it seems, with all the authority of none other than Bob Danvers-Walker. 

 

Bob was famously known as the voice of Pathe’s cinema newsreels during the Second World War and for many years afterwards.     

 

There’s just one snag – Bob died in 1990.  

 

So either the carnival organisers have discovered an invaluable bit of footage buried deep in the archives (but the footage strongly suggests a more recent recording!) or they have hired one of several very impressive soundalike voiceover artists now available.

 

Either way, if you haven’t already seen it, take a look. It’s really good and makes you feel proud,  seriously, of one of Falmouth’s great long-established summer highlights.

 

When they come to reflect on this year’s big show, it’s even possible, I guess, that the organisers might just be declaring it the town’s “best-ever.”

 

That was the verdict – at least once! – back in the day when Yours Truly used to cover it.

 

I’m recalling the late 1960s when I was in my first stint on the Falmouth Packet, then still a broadsheet, and we would serve up full coverage – I repeat “full coverage” – with anything up to a thousand words of a report, excluding the complete set of results.

 

There would also be full caption details beside a page or more of pics taken by a staff photographer (those were the days!).

 

Typically, I would start my coverage by joining the participants’ throng at the Recreation Ground, chatting to a goodly number of them as they put the finishing touches to their entries.

 

Then I would move out to Killigrew Street to see the start of the parade . . . before shooting across town to either Arwenack Street/Grove Place and/or the seafront for the final stages.

 

Then, on the Sunday morning, I would join the organisers for their reflections and updates.  The likes of Chris Powdrill (Packet printer)  and Arthur Pankhurst (customs launch Mongoose) spring to mind.  

 

They would still be counting the contents of all those collecting tins and, yes, the event was declared “the best-ever” at least once! 

 

I loved it – with just one wee exception.  More than once, as I stood at the roadside with the procession filing past, a voice would cry out “Hi Mike, all right?”

 

Cue worst fear realised. The voice would be familiar, but I was blowed if I could put a name to it – even after the guy concerned had briefly removed his/her mask or whatever and declared: “It’s ME, Mike.”

 

Hence my giveaway response: “Ah, hello THERE, all right?”  

 

And that was long before I had even heard of “senior moments”, let alone come to suffer them almost daily.  

 

But it was all part of the fun!

 

 

FORTY UP FOR JAMES!

 

They say an excellent pointer to the quality of a hotel is the length of service of its employees.

 

In a sector more notable for its high turnover of staff, Falmouth’s Royal Duchy need have no worries on that score.

 

And congratulations in particular to James Pellow, doorman and concierge, who has just clocked up 40 years with the hotel. 

 

He leads a goodly number of loyal long-servers in the Duchy service stakes – with seven of his colleagues having together clocked up more than 200 years there. 

 

There surely can’t be many, if any, other Cornish hotels that can boast such statistics. 

 

 

Do NOT Try This ‘At Home!’

 

My mention of walking in my carnival piece above brought me in a roundabout way back to a remarkable piece of footage I first saw on Facebook some ten years ago.

 

I count myself lucky that I could still easily take part in the Falmouth Carnival, asa walker, if I so wished (I don't, thank you!).  

 

I can still very easily do four, five or six miles a day, which I reckon is not too bad, given that this old feller is now nearer 80 than 70.     

 

Mind you, I have begun to be overtaken occasionally . . . and my treks are taking that little bit longer. 

 

And I very much doubt if I will ever again attempt something I last did a few years ago now, which almost killed me (or so it felt) even then – namely, to climb UP Falmouth’s Jacob’s Ladder two steps at a time, all 111 of them!

 

But the one thing I would never have dreamed of doing, even in my prime, would be to CYCLE down that Ladder.

 

It’s been done, at least once, as this video clip shows.  Hold on to your hats:-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy5OehnXe2w

  

 

You CAN Believe What You Read In The Media!

 

According to The Times, Falmouth is the best coastal town to live in the

UK:-- 

 

https://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/25302169.times-falmouth-best-coastal-town-live-uk/

 

 

HAIRY QUESTION

 

It’s nice to put one over on a youngster occasionally . . . 

 

I’ve always had trouble remembering whether it’s sideboards or sideburns – those strips of hair beside my ears.

 

I was having my hair cut recently by a young hairdresser who was clearly relatively new to her trade.

 

It came to those two aforementioned features and I had no choice but to confess my difficulty thus: “I never remember whether it’s sideboards or sideburns.”

 

There was a pause, followed by the young lady hesitantly pointing to them, as if she hadn't even heard of such a thing, and asking: “What . . . you mean these things here?”

 

Seems I knew a thing or two more about hair than she did!  (And either “side-” word will apply, apparently.)

 

 

What DO They Take Us For . . . ?

 

C’mon now, can there have been a bigger collective laugh across the nation this week than the one for this prize quote from the Treasury: “We are a pro-business government.”

 

 

FROM THE ARCHIVE . . . 

 

Like any long-standing annual big event involving thousands of participants and spectators, Falmouth Carnival has known occasional controversy.

 

Here’s one bit o’ bovver that caused a stir with a new attraction in the week leading up to the big parade back in 1976, from my blog first published in 2017:--

 

 . . . you might have witnessed a new spectacle with the first-ever waitresses’ race along the seafront.

 

This proved a tad controversial, with at least two competitors disqualified, according to the Falmouth Packet, “for running with their glasses, bottles and trays clutched tightly to their bosoms.”

 

And a Packet reader’s letter from M Winter, of the Green Lawns Hotel, complained: “As far as Falmouth is concerned, we would be better to save the expense, rather than waste time bending over backwards to make ourselves and the town a laughing stock.

 

“It was not advertised as an open race . . . only one waitress walked the quarter of a mile with a bottle, glass and tray carried in the manner one would expect in such a race.”

 

Fortunately, it wasn’t all aggro.  The race was part of Falmouth Carnival Week, which was opened by Westward Television personality Ken Macleod.  He described Cherry Pritchard as “the most beautiful carnival queen I have ever seen.”