Cornwall In The First World War

Among the Cornishmen who joined up when the First World War broke out was St Austell-born Percival Phillips; later he served with the Royal Flying Corps in Mesopotamia, Persia and Kurdistan.

This image was taken during 1918; Percival sits in the cockpit of his R.E.8 two-seat biplane at Baqubah. ‘PP’ survived the fighting and returned safely home. After a spell as a partner in a St Austell motor garage, in 1924 he formed the barnstorming Cornwall Aviation Company.

My new book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', is published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy. It's also available on line through Waterstones, with free UK post: http://bit.ly/I47c9p

The C Word: Caravans

Know your enemy

Each Easter, Satan sends caravanners to torment the people of Cornwall. Even on the shortest journey I meet lines of terrible white boxes, choking every bypass and lane west of the Tamar.

You’d think caravanners would squirm with embarrassment and guilt at the enormous traffic tailbacks they cause, humbly move aside to let normal road-users pass. But no: shamelessly, their wretched convoys torture us with snail-like progress.

To tow a caravan, training is not required. You just hitch up your little tin home and lurch off down the road, swaying like a cobra. Caravanners’ towing cars are often dreadful, unsuitably small or old, while the vans have bizarre brand-names: ‘Speedbird’, ‘Carefree’ and stretching things beyond breaking-point, ‘Popular’.

What sort of people are caravanners? Stony-faced old gits whose driving is best described as 'cautious'; they can’t read maps and sat-navs are modern rubbish, so everywhere they dither. Or else it’s poor families of sweaties, crushed into grimy derelict vehicles; if only the parents had tried harder at school, today they could afford a holiday ‘abroad’.

I'll just put the kettle on

Caravanners drive 500 miles from their conurbations to ‘the country’, and park in a turd-strewn field one foot from another caravan. They unload smart-price trashy garden furniture; little plastic fences are put out to mark their territories, like some incontinent mongrel dog. For two weeks caravanners eat from Tupperware containers, sleep on planks and play cards in the rain.  Full marks for resilience; no wonder they’re serene about causing road misery.

I don’t like Top Gear, a TV programme, but it has the right idea with caravans.  Every week, new ways are shown of ridiculing caravanners and destroying their ‘homes-on-wheels’. Normal people who all detest caravans can watch appreciatively as ‘emmet-bins’ are dropped from great heights onto concrete, or thrown in the sea.

Caravanning: it’s like a tow-along house, except it’s shit.  Come on caravanners, why not give it up and take a decent holiday? Give us all a break.

Cornwall In The First World War

Newlyn's seaplane base, 1918: a Short 184 floatplane under power

My new book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', was recently published by Truran. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy and on line at Waterstones with free UK post: http://bit.ly/I47c9p 

The First World War affected every Cornish town and village; no-one stayed untouched. At the outbreak in August 1914 thousands joined the colours, while Cornwall soon became a vital part of Britain’s all-consuming war effort. Ships of the Royal Navy, aircraft, even airships arrived to defend the sea lanes off the coastline, in a brutal campaign against marauding German submarines. On the home front, for four gruelling years Cornish men and women worked tirelessly to support those fighting in distant battles overseas.

Today, although a century has passed there’s a strong connection with the First World War, through family histories and community heritage. We don't have to look too far back to find those who joined up, whether frock-coated, flat-capped or long-skirted. Conflict raged on a scale never seen before, and Cornwall would play a crucial role in the struggle.

The First World War's centenary represents a unique moment in history. As well as the military events, the book focuses on the people of that time; it's a glimpse of Cornish life a hundred years ago. I hope it will appeal to everyone interested in Cornwall's past. It's also available on Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Easter: Chocolate Heaven!

I have mixed views on Easter. On the one hand, I dislike any intrusion of religion into my daily life. I see the church – that’s to say, the Christian church in this country - as an idiosyncrasy in an ever more secular society. I'm not the only one.

The British Social Attitudes survey has been asking us about our religious views since 1983. The survey reveals that today, well over half of us aren't at all religious while Christian faiths are fast losing believers. Many British people who retain spiritual beliefs aren't Christians.

I visit churches for weddings and funerals, but really these are parties. When I fill in forms asking for personal religious details, I scrawl 'N/A' and move on. If the church is given airtime to 'speak out' on issues that don't concern it or about which it knows nothing, I shout at the television.

But at least we can all enjoy Britain's annual chocolate egg-fest. Maybe it's a hangover from childhood, but I have a great fondness for the old Easter egg. The satisfying snap as the first piece of shell is broken off; picking through the sweeties inside (to make this interesting, really they have to be different); wrapping the remaining shell in its foil, as we save a fragment for later.

So over the Easter break I'm looking forward to receiving loads of eggs, touch wood. Although if you like to believe it, touching wood didn't do much for Jesus.

St Patrick's Day: Forty Shades of Piss-Up!

St Patrick's Day is nearly with us again.
 
Sales of Guinness skyrocket; around the world, Plastic-Paddy pubs give out shamrocked t-shirts and hats to everyone who manages 20 pints of the old craic-juice. Lá Fhéile Pádraig is an enjoyable ritual, a vigorous mixture of culture, extreme drunkenness and fighting. But there's a deadly ingredient too: music to make your dog howl.

I love Irish traditional music; for years I've played the tunes on my trusty flat-back bouzouki. To listen to at home, I've a collection of beautiful, exciting songs and melodies. 

But what I find utterly toe-curling are the Irish standards, those terrible songs which every Paddy's Night get thrashed to death. 'Irish Rover'. 'Wild Rover'. 'Gypsy Rover'. And the all-time worst, most hated of all: 'Leaving of Liverpool'. 

Why do I dislike them so? Because year after year, on 17 March I've been driven quite mad by hearing them bawled out in bars by sweating pissed people who want to be everyone's friend. Thank God they generally know only half the words.

So this year let's really search our hearts, make an effort and learn some new songs. Come round to my place, I've got the really good stuff.

Valentine's Day: Shop In The Name Of Love

It's here. February sees the first of the year's Megacorp manipulations, as we're induced to show love and affection for our partners by purchasing hopeless junk.

I love Valentine's Day, though I never get any cards. That's not important. It's the laughable rubbish touted in the name of VD, as I like to think of it, that I especially admire. On VD, if you don't shower the lodestar of your life with tat you're in deep trouble.

VD - To Do List
Garage

• Petrol for shopping expedition
• Bunch of flowers

Supermarket

• Chocolates
• Card with badge, song and arse-clenchingly embarrassing message
• Useless doll, or four-foot tall toy animal in pink: lurid pig, Mr Hippo, perhaps a great big hephalump.

Restaurant

• Book table for two (early-bird). Not Indian.

Or instead, maybe the thing to do is have a competition to see which of you can find the most pathetic or stupid VD gift. You'll still have to spend a bit of money on rubbish, but you'll have a great laugh presenting each other with the item you've chosen.
 

I guess it's important to get your other arf's agreement on this wheeze.

Happy New Year

In Cornwall, for many 2013 has been gruelling. Job prospects and real wages continue to drop away. Housing stock is ever-reducing, though I see in estate agents' windows second homes being flogged off in St Ives or St Agnes: not helpful. Cornish folk are strong, and many live in communities which try to look after everyone. Yet even in these close-knit societies people seem near to unravelling.

More and more I encounter a weary resignation, a battered worn-out acceptance of the next affliction or sacrifice demanded. Constant food price rises; dwindling public services; small businesses starved of cash; the disappointment of the young unemployed; elderly people too frightened to put an extra bar on the fire. Cliches? Not any more.

Just recently it’s been the expense, for many the worry of Christmas. And all the time cruel advertising pounds out the same command: buy more stuff, and be quick about it.

We’re about to enter the sixth year of recession without an end in sight. Banks prosper, everyone else is on their uppers. This is the Cornwall of Cameron and Clegg; it’s unbelievably harsh. I don’t know about you, but I’m almost out of Dunkirk spirit.

Cornwall In The First World War

Newlyn's seaplane base, 1918: a Short 184 floatplane under power

My new book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', was published by Truran last month. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy and on line at Waterstones with free UK post: http://bit.ly/I47c9p 

The First World War affected every Cornish town and village; no-one stayed untouched. At the outbreak in August 1914 thousands joined the colours, while Cornwall soon became a vital part of Britain’s all-consuming war effort. Ships of the Royal Navy, aircraft, even airships arrived to defend the sea lanes off the coastline, in a brutal campaign against marauding German submarines. On the home front, for four gruelling years Cornish men and women worked tirelessly to support those fighting in distant battles overseas.

Today, although a century has passed there’s a strong connection with the First World War, through family histories and community heritage. We don't have to look too far back to find those who joined up, whether frock-coated, flat-capped or long-skirted. Conflict raged on a scale never seen before, and Cornwall would play a crucial role in the struggle.

The First World War's centenary represents a unique moment in history. As well as the military events, the book focuses on the people of that time; it's a glimpse of Cornish life a hundred years ago. I hope it will appeal to everyone interested in Cornwall's past. It's also available on Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Cornwall In The First World War

Naval motor launch ML350 leaves Newlyn harbour 
for an anti-submarine patrol off the Lizard, 1917

My new book, 'Cornwall In The First World War', was published by Truran last month. With 112 pages and 100 images, you'll find it in bookshops across the Duchy and on line at Waterstones with free UK post: http://bit.ly/I47c9p 

The First World War affected every Cornish town and village; no-one stayed untouched. At the outbreak in August 1914 thousands joined the colours, while Cornwall soon became a vital part of Britain’s all-consuming war effort. Ships of the Royal Navy, aircraft, even airships arrived to defend the sea lanes off the coastline, in a brutal campaign against marauding German submarines. On the home front, for four gruelling years Cornish men and women worked tirelessly to support those fighting in distant battles overseas.

Today, although a century has passed there’s a strong connection with the First World War, through family histories and community heritage. We don't have to look too far back to find those who joined up, whether frock-coated, flat-capped or long-skirted. Conflict raged on a scale never seen before, and Cornwall would play a crucial role in the struggle.

The First World War's centenary represents a unique moment in history. As well as the military events, the book focuses on the people of that time; it's a glimpse of Cornish life a hundred years ago. I hope it will appeal to everyone interested in Cornwall's past. It's also available on Amazon: http://amzn.to/19JbtZm

Mangling Our Sacred Language!

Goddess: perfect elocution

What’s this current linguistic vogue for stuffing extra syllables into perfectly good words? More and more, the trait’s being adopted by TV presenters and ‘personalities’. Perhaps they’ve picked it up from Engerland’s football supporters.

This isn’t evolution of language; these aren’t new words. Such affectation sits alongside the equally irksome upward-lilt, the ending of spoken sentences as if to say: “D'ya follow?"

So today, instead of struggling to make ends meet, we’re said to be ‘struggerling’. People who run quickly are atherletes, while gamberling is no longer what lambs do. Those who speak in this way aren't composing poetry, nor are they always from Essex. It sounds idiotic and often a touch self-conscious. Please stop it.

While we’re on the subject, TV’s weather forecasters (with one exception against whom I’ll hear nothing) now treat 'Ireland' as synonymous with 'island'. I’m sure that’ll please everyone in the nation of bogs, little people, and great filums like Von Ryan’s Daughter.