A Year in Kernow

It has been some time since I have written anything for KernowCalling—not out of laziness, I should add.

I spent the last year whenever I had a spare couple of hours travelling around Kernow, visiting houses, villages, and hamlets, and the experience has left me questioning much of what I have believed in and whether it is all too late to do anything as the Kernow I have known and loved is quietly disappearing.

I have no wish or intention to go into a long, meandering travelogue about the different areas of Kernow or an exhaustive list of every place I visited. This is just a small snapshot. The amount of data and interviews I collected would fill a book, so I made from my notes a very condensed version of my journey around Kernow, starting in the spring of 2021 and finishing in the early summer of 2022.

I spoke to many more people than the three quoted here, and I thank everyone I spoke to for giving me their time and views. 

Around the beginning of spring 2021, I was emailed by an aide to George Eustice, who wanted to know if I could help with a couple of projects they were working on. They needed someone in Kernow with local knowledge to do some of the legwork. I was interested in their ideas, though with some qualms about working with politicians, but it’s always useful to have contacts in low places, so I agreed to help. 

It was obvious looking at the project that I would need to travel around Kernow—not just a quick stroll around Truro but really get out and experience the Duchy, meet people, and get their views on what is going on in Kernow.

I drive every day from Truro to Launceston, so I initially planned to spend the spring and summer doing detours on my daily journey as the mood took me, and in my naivety, I looked forward to it. It gave me a reason to visit places I had not been to for some time or villages that I had only ever driven through or had never had any reason to get to.

It’s strange how things change around you without you really noticing,childhood memories can be deceiving, the Kernow I remember back in the early to mid eighties was a very different place more like the west of Ireland,life was taken at a more leisurely pace, dreckly was an everyday word ,miles of unbroken open fields ,small homely villages with their Leo’s and Maces and Spar shops ,garages with a couple of old rusty cars parked outside,fetes and carnivals,the remains of the occasional abandoned cottage spotted on car journeys,fishing boats coming into harbour, the air in the evening that smelt of coal and wood smoke and salt air, the tourist gift shops that sold Fairingbiscuits, tin piskies ,candles and pirate figurines. These shops always had an overpowering smell of incense; the roads that had high hedgerows and wild flowers in summer had far less traffic than today, and most importantly, there seemed to be a lot more Cornish people then.

Maybe it was never really like that; maybe it’s created by thoughts of childhood nostalgia and the Celtic soul longing for the romance of yesterday. So I wanted to know if that Kernow was real, and if so, does any of it still exist today?

A short background to migration patterns from 1951 to 2021.

According to census data, Kernow’s population reached a peak in 1861 at 369,390 and then saw a population fall in nearly every census until 1931 due to emigration to England and other parts of the world in search of work, when the population was recorded at 317,968. There was no census during the war years, and the next census was picked up in 1951 at 345,442. There was a fall in 1961 to 342,301, then in 1971 the population grew to 381,672. The population has grown with every census until 2021, with the population standing at 568,210.

The reason for population growth since 1951 can only be speculated, but statistics would point to a large number of retirees settling in Kernow from other parts of the UK. 

Second homes and holiday lets.

The 2011 census showed that Kernow was the local authority where the greatest number of people recorded a second address. 22,997 people, usually residents of either England or Wales, had a second address in Kernow, used for 30 days or more each year.

Kernow’s superfast broadband, the pandemic, and working from home have made it an attractive place to relocate for people from a professional background in London and the Southeast. The most up-to-date data from the census shows that between 2001 and 2021, Kernow’s population has risen by 60,000, with Cornwall Council planning for a population of over 600,000 by 2028. 

Demand for the right sort of housing.

The growth of population in Kernow over the last twenty years has put a considerable strain on the available housing stock.

It could be said that there is a hierarchy for housing within Kernow, which has created a ripple that has altered the very fabric of life within the Duchy. The hierarchy can be broken into three distinct social groups:

1. The Affluent: At the top are the affluent; these are people who already have a fair degree of wealth or are employed in industries paying far above the average wage and who can afford to purchase a home in Kernow. This may be a family home for occasional use, a holiday rental, or an investment.

2. The Relocators: In the middle are relocators who often already own a home in another part of the UK and have decided to sell and relocate to Kernow. They may be retirees or families looking for a better quality of life.

3. The local population: At the bottom are the local population, those either born or have lived most of their lives in the Duchy, who, due to lower local wages, are unable to rent or purchase in their town or village due to competition from the above groups.

The impact of the first two groups on villages and, to a degree, towns in the duchy affects the third group:

1: A rise in house prices, particularly in more scenic areas, due to demand from the first two groups; this rise is mirrored by private rents, which are unaffordable to those on a local wage.

2: The social networks that have been built over many years or generations and underpin village life or, to a degree, town life become fractured or broken, leaving many of the original inhabitants feeling isolated with the arrival of new inhabitants.

The cost of living rises as services change to reflect the needs and incomes of the new residents.

Demand for the right sort of housing from the first two groups alters Kernow’s landscape as developers seeking to capitalise on the perceived wealth of the first two groups seek permission for developments in areas that would once have been deemed unsuitable, such as rural greenfields and coastal sites.

House prices and the changing face of Kernow.

As I travelled around Kernow, I was curious to see how much property prices have risen in comparison to the population figures of 2021.

I have used data for one village to show an example of changing house prices, but this village can be used as a model to show what is happening across Kernow. Property prices have risen since the mid-1990s by 200 to 500 percent or more.

I am using the year 1997 as a benchmark due to land registry sold property prices data starting in 1995.

Kernow’s population at the start of the 1990s was recorded at 468,425.

There is a village about five miles from Newquay; to get there, you have to drive for some miles along narrow, winding lanes. It is the sort of village for which estate agents would use words such as charming, picturesque, and much sought-after.

If you had taken a stroll around the village in the mid-1990s, you would have found yourself in a traditional Cornish village with a mainly static population, a Norman church at its centre with 19th-century cottages built around it, and more modern properties extending outwards. It had two grocery shops, a pub and a post office, a primary school, and a garage. Had you become so enamoured with the village that you wished to live there, a 3-bedroom terraced 19th-century cottage in the heart of the village would have cost around £40,000.

Today the village has changed a little; there have been a number of new houses built, a garage, and a post office. have gone, as has one of the shops; the village has a number of holiday lets and second homes; the same 19th-century property would cost between £270,000 and £300,000, a jump in 24 years in the region of 520%. 

Renting a holiday cottage and sleeping four in the village for one week this year, from July 31 to August 7, would cost around £1400.

This village is not abnormal; it is now the norm for so many inland places across the Duchy and, in many cases, unaffordable for many on a local wage.

One of the drivers behind this rise is the high cost of properties in coastal towns and villages, with those with a sea view commanding premium prices. Prospective buyers looking to relocate or purchase a second home are having to move further inland to find a property within their budget.

You do not need to travel around Kernow to start to understand the scale of developments across the Duchy; just pick a night with a low cloud cover, stand on Highgate Hill or Carland Cross, and look across to Newquay. Twenty-odd years ago, you would have seen pools of light that showed Newquay or the surrounding villages in the darkness on the far horizon. Now, the same area is lit up with street lights and new houses spreading out in all directions, lighting up the night sky for miles with a pallid glow, a beacon of success for the developers and their new constructions.

I was aware of some of the plans for new developments through Cornwall Live or local news, but it was only when I travelled around the Duchy to look at what was happening that I started to understand the scale of house building.

There is a desperate need for affordable housing for Cornish people, and if green field sites have to be built on to provide it, then that is understandable, but everywhere I travelled, I saw new housing or planning permission for an exciting new development with prices unaffordable on a Cornish wage. The developers by law have to provide a small percentage of affordable homes when the development is bigger than ten properties, which forces Cornish people with connections to the area into a lottery to get a home on their own land, while people with no connections to Kernow can buy straight into the Cornish fantasy. 

To get a better understanding of the housing market, I thought it prudent to speak to someone with a professional interest in the housing sector. I spoke with an estate agent who I will call Rob; he has worked in the industry for many years.

I asked Rob what he felt drove the lack of affordable housing, and did he feel any doubts about his job knowing that many Cornish people are being pushed out of the Duchy to find affordable housing?

Rob’s face showed a pained expression before speaking, which made me feel a bit guilty about asking him the question.

“We are not the bad guys in this.” He said, “It’s not the first time I have been asked this, but people forget we’re just the middlemen. Someone wants to buy; someone wants to sell. My job is to facilitate this, and of course you feel bad when someone comes in and you have to say that we have nothing in their budget. It’s not a pleasant feeling, but it’s my job, and I have rent and bills to pay and a family to support. What people in Cornwall forget is that this is not just a problem here; it affects many rural communities across England.”

I could understand this but pointed out that Kernow is not in England; it is a small nation, and the Cornish were recognised as minority people in 2014. If the Cornish are pushed out of the duchy, what does it leave? Just a name and cultural wasteland. Kernow might have minority recognition, but we are really just London, Surrey, or Birmingham by sea.

“And what do you expect me to do?” said Rob, looking exasperated. “I cannot say to someone who wants to spend a couple of hundred thousand on a home that this is a really lovely house in a beautiful location. I hope you will be really happy here, and by the way, you do know that a Cornish person cannot afford to live here because you and many others like you are pushing up the housing prices.” “As I have said, I have full sympathy with the plight of local people, but Cornwall has been spared for many years. What has been going on in the rest of the UK? For a long time, Cornwall was regarded as remote, great to go on holiday for a week or two, but you would not want to live there as it is too far from anywhere else, and the winters would be isolated, and the lack of jobs would leave Cornwall left to its own devices. But with working from home and fast internet, Amazon deliveries, and internet shopping, this has changed the game.

I asked Rob if he felt that this was a statistical blip and that things might settle down.

“That’s a difficult question to answer. There is always a lot of interest in second homes; people see it as a weekend retreat and summer letting potential; and then there are people who want a change of life and relocate, and this has really picked up during the pandemic. Years ago, it was mostly retirees looking for a bungalow. Now, the demand is for three- and four-bedroom properties, particularly on the coast. Those sorts of properties sell within days of coming on the market. That’s driven by families wanting to escape the city for the country side.I was talking to someone last week; they are looking at properties down here, and the chap was saying to me he had to work from the office two days a week so he would commute up to London and stay in a hotel for those two days,” he shrugged his shoulder in “bewilderment. “Whether it will continue, at the moment the recent G7 has sent things into overdrive. We are not just getting calls from other parts of the UK but from worldwide. Some in the industry think Cornwall is recession-proof; this is not a theory I agree with. If the economy takes a dip or interest rates go up, that could change the market. But on the flip side, if the economy is bad, people may take a holiday in the UK rather than abroad, so there is more demand for holiday lets.”

“So the outlook for Cornish people on a Cornish wage is not good.”

Rob nodded his head. “Sadly, no, it’s not a good outlook. From our point of view, locals are pretty much priced out on the private market. It’s going to be something the council is going to have to address, but how do they deal with it? They are in competition for land to build on, and often they will enter into an agreement with a developer, which means that most of the houses built are at market value. Cornwall is awash with developments everywhere I go; is this the future?”

“It”s market forces and supply and demand, and it is the foreseeable future. There are only so many rustic cottages, and not everyone wants that kind of property. Some just want a modern home in an area where they are close to the countryside and beaches. Many of these developments have extensive marketing in the major cities.“

“So not aimed at locals.”

“Unfortunately, locals cannot afford them.”

Do you think people who are buying a second home or relocating know that Kernow has its own language and cultural identity?

“I don’t think that many people know that when they come to look at properties, some have been here for holidays, others are looking at it from a purely business proposition, and some have never been here. I have been asked what the black and white flag is about or why they have foreign language on street signs or buses, and they are surprised when you tell them it’s the flag of Cornwall or the Cornish language, but then I have had calls where I am asked if Cornwall has Nandos or Pizza Hut, is the drinking water safe, or do we have a constant supply of electric? Make of it what you will.”

I had one last question for Rob: “Do you get clients who find it is not quite what they expected and decide to relocate to go back to where they left?”

“That happens. I think some people come here with a romantic expectation of the lifestyle from books or TV, expecting village life and cheerful locals, and then find it quite different from what they expected.”.

The real and the new Cornish.

I spent the days after my conversation with Rob musing on what he had told me, and it left me with a melancholic feeling about the future. When in 2014 minority status was announced, I felt like many others that at last we had recognition of a cultural identity and that would protect the Duchy. Of course we cannot live in the past, but at least there should now be an understanding by the council and government that what makes the Duchy so unique is not just the landscape but the generations of Cornish people who have created its history and culture, and if that culture is to survive, then more would have to be done to protect communities. Sadly, this does not seem to have materialised, and if anything has gotten worse and if anything serves to show the destruction of Cornish communities, it is on the coastline.

July 21 and staycation is the new buzzwords, and Kernow is experiencing a surge in visitors. I spent the spare time I had often early in the morning visiting coastal areas. As I wandered around, I would Google a street name to see if the properties appeared on Airbnb or holiday letting sites, and more often than not, many of the properties appeared. The cottages that once housed families who made their living from the sea were painted in bright pastel colours and had names like Cove, Seaview, Smugglers Cottage, or Cornish-sounding names such as Tremenar or Trebar. They looked well maintained but soulless and embarrassed that they no longer served a purpose apart from earning money instead of being a family home and all the life that went on within. In shops that once served the community with groceries and the day to day needs of life now serving a different community with designer clothing and crafts, and trendy bars and restaurants with expensive menus to match, don’t get me wrong these towns and villages look attractive with their bright colours and bunting and lights on the streets and tourists milling around indulging in a fantasy about what it would be like to live there,but it is just a fantasy, if you take any of these places as just a generic coastal community then they exist but if you see them as Cornish then I would argue that exists only in in name and geography,I would wager that there are probably only at most a very small percentage of people living in the oldest parts of the towns and villages who can remember life as it was thirty or forty years ago and with them the history and traditions but if the majority of the population is made of people who have either recently reallocated or live in it for couple of weeks a year then is it really a Cornish village?  

This came back a few weeks later, when I had one of the most memorable conversations I had while travelling around the Duchy. 

I had gone to Hayle to look at the North Quay development, which, depending on where you stand, is either an exciting modern development revitalising a struggling area by creating high-quality contemporary homes on the Cornish coast or, to others, just another luxury housing ghetto.

The day I went, I could not see a great deal, but looking at the North Quay website while I was there, you could see the size of the development, with not just houses but shops, a cinema, and a conference centre.

The developers stress that they want this to become part of the community in Hayle and a place for everyone to spend time in, but with the cheapest two-bedroom apartment starting at over half a million, it is hard not to see that this, when finished, will turn another part of the Cornish coast into an exclusive area.

There are plans to build affordable housing as part of the development, but these will be set back away from the main development, creating a social barrier. If the developers are so insistent on creating a community, then why not mix affordable housing with the main development?

The developers are very proud that they are bringing employment to the area for local people, but apart from the workers building the site, what sort of long-term employment?

It brought to mind the Carlyon Bay saga. Some twenty years ago, when that luxury development was first planned, the developers claimed how much employment the local area would bring when they were pressed about what sort of employment they said—cleaners, gardeners, maintenance workers—and I remember thinking then that the Cornish had become a kind of second-class citizen unable to afford to live there but expected probably a minimum wage to look after the wealthy. Will it be the same at North Quay?

I stood contemplating the area around me and did what I always do in these situations and lit my pipe—a bad habit in these health-conscious times but can sometimes be useful.

“A pipe smoker; it’s rare to see that today.”

I turned to see an elderly man coming towards me; he could have been in his late seventies or early eighties. I smiled and nodded, and he said

“Father was a pipe smoker, but mother could not abide it would not let him smoke indoors. If he did, there was hell up, so he built a porch on the front of our cottage, put a seat there, and used to smoke his pipe there, rain or shine. I think that was the place he was most happy.”

We talked about pipe tobacco, the weather, and the development, and I explained that I was travelling around the Duchy to get an idea of what was happening in Kernow, and did he have a few minutes to chat?

I started by asking him if he thought life in Cornwall was better in the past or today.

He stared at the sky for a moment. “What do you mean by the past?”

“Well, I suppose thirty or forty years ago.”

“Or fifty, sixty, or seventy years ago, I was there, and I can tell you there was no golden-age boy.”

“You think life in Cornwall is better today?”

“I didn’t say that. Life was never easy in Cornwall, and to be Cornish ’is to be strong because we’ve always had to work to survive. Wages have never been great, and the work is hard. When I was a young man with a family to support, it was sometimes very tough going and was down to my wife, who was a great maid, and her planning, who got us through. But you could raise a family in Cornwall and put a roof over their heads. Can a young family do that today?”

I shook my head. “It’s difficult.”

“It’s impossible from what I hear, but to answer your question, up until the early 90s, life was better in Cornwall, once it was.” He struggled to find the right word. “Life had a routine, if you understand what I’m saying—a structure. We had our own way of doing things, I know. I know we need some health and safety, but now everything is a rule. Once it was common sense and we sorted things ourselves,” he shook his head. “Now we get councillors who get elected and wait for the order to come from London to tell us how to live; then life was slower, there was not so much traffic and people, and there was much more of a community; then you knew everyone in your village, and you would go to bonfire night or a sports day or whatever; all the villages had their own customs; you would know the people there. 

“This is what I’m trying to figure out: what happened to the Cornwall I knew as a boy, and if it still exists.”

“Well, if you don’t mind me saying, ‘tis a bit of a fool’s errand,”

I sighed “You think so?”

“Those days are gone and everything with them; it’s something I think about and miss, and if they could come back, I would be there in a heartbeat, but it’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?”

He shrugged “A malaise… an apathy has set in with the Cornish, and they have given up; they have no faith in politicians; they never do anything. How many of us real Cornish are left? A few thousand maybe, and they saw the politicians working with the developers, building homes for incomers and villas of second homes for the rich. The Cornish have given up the fight; it’s not our land anymore, and we are not needed. In my village, I don’t know anyone. Sometimes… Sometimes I feel like I’m a stranger here now.” 

“Then what happens to the Cornish people?”

He looked wistful for a moment. “The Cornish will do what they have done for centuries, boy. They’ll leave their homeland and go and find work and a home where they can, and these people who move here from upcountry will replace them, and they will eventually start to think of themselves as Cornish. They won’t ever be proper Cornish, but they’ll moan about the emmits, the traffic in summer, the new houses being built—that’s the new Cornish. They won’t have the same family links to the land and sea and history that we have, but they’ll create their own, and that’s the way it’s happening.”

“And what will happen to the real Cornish?”

“There will always be some of the real Cornish living here, but not many. Every Cornish person who has moved away for centuries will never forget they are Cornish; they cannot take that away. My son, who lives in London, got a good job and home, but he’s still a proud Cornishman.”

“Did you hear that a few years ago the Cornish were recognised as a national minority? Surely that should mean something—the Cornish should have some protection in their own homeland.”

“No, what’s that?

“The government recognised that the Cornish were a national minority in 2014, along with the Scots, Welsh, and Irish, and would do more to protect that identity.”

“A good idea, but it’s all a bit late. Had they done it thirty years ago, it might have done something. You know about it; do you think it’s changed anything?”

“Honestly, I don’t think it has; the government and media still just treat us like some English country.”

He nodded sympathetically, and I thanked him for his time. As I walked away, he turned back to me and said,

“Don’t be too downhearted; those days may be gone, but at least you remember them; there’s many in Cornwall who have no idea what it was once like.”

I nodded and thanked him again, then walked back to the car, wondering if the best days were behind us.

I spent what spare time I had over the next couple of weeks travelling around, but after the conversation in Hayle, I felt listless about the whole thing. Clay Country still felt Cornish, but even there, people told me that the community was changing with more houses being built, house prices and rents rising, and local people unable to afford to live there. Something I had thought would be enjoyable had become a very different experience. Even at night, lying in bed, I would go over the conversations I had with people and wonder what the future held for Kernow.

I needed to clear my head and take some time out, so early one morning I drove over to Portloe to see the sea.

Portloe, on the Roseland Peninsula, was once a traditional fishing village and is now more holiday lets and second homes, but that morning I was not going to let that bother me. Though the day promised to be warn,that morning a mist had enveloped the village, and I was the only person around at that time. I walked down the lane to the slipway and stood looking at the sea. I was lost in my thoughts and so did not realise that someone was standing near me, a lady in what could be described as an expensive country casual. I nodded and said good morning, and we swapped the usual pleasantries.

I asked her if she was on holiday.

She smiled. “Not exactly. What makes you think I might be on holiday?”

I did not want to say the way she was dressed, so I muttered something about Portloe being a holiday village.

“Then I could ask you the same.”

“I am definitely not on holiday.”

She nodded and said, “We have a little holiday place a few miles away, but I do like coming down here.”

“Renting or…”

“We own it,” she said, giving me a challenging smile. “Problem?”

“No, actually, it could be quite helpful.”

I explained what I had been doing and asked if she would like to give me her views. After promising I would not reveal any personal information, she agreed.

“First, I have to ask what made you want to buy a second home.”

“It was three years ago, one evening, when my husband and I were watching Wycliffe.”

“ Wycliffe? All those murders and crimes are hardly an endorsement of life in Cornwall.”

“Does Morse put people off visiting Oxford?”

I nodded in agreement.

“Actually, I was watching the background scenery and said to my husband, Let’s go to Cornwall this weekend. He was surprised but agreed, so we went for a weekend.”

“Had you been to Cornwall before?”

“I had come down with some friends from university to Newquay for a weekend years ago, but it was all a bit of a blur.”

“That seemed common when people went to Newquay a few years ago. There must be something in the water.”

She laughed and said, “Yes, Tequila. My husband had never been here, and we had always holidayed abroad. When we got here that weekend,. Well, we both fell in love with Cornwall. When we had a spare weekend after that, we came down. It was my husband who suggested we should just buy a place and then come whenever we wanted to.”

“But what was wrong with staying in hotels or renting a holiday cottage?”

“Because it’s your own home, if you are staying in a hotel, you’ve got to book and check out at a certain time, and now that we own a bit of Cornwall, we are a part of it. Both my husband and I have stressful jobs. We live and work in London. Have you been to London?”

“The last time I visited London must have been thirty years ago. I don’t think I would ever want to visit it again; in fact, I don’t think I have spent more than two nights outside the Duchy in that time.”

“We live in a nice part of London, but London always has background noise, day or night. If you thought that London was bad thirty years ago, it’s a lot busier and noisier than it was then. But when we come to Cornwall, it’s like I see that ring of trees and then the sign welcoming you to Cornwall, and all the stress and problems disappear, and I feel like I’m home. Having our own cottage means we have a life here and commitment.”

“What is it you like most about the Duchy?”

“There are so many things: the scenery and the coast; the people are friendly; it’s a different way of life in London. From the first time we came, it felt like we had left one country and come somewhere else. The local news in London is always about murder or violent crime; here it’s about local shows or roadworks; it’s a very different world.”

“Owning a home here, do you think you would ever think of yourself as Cornish?”

“No, but sometimes I wish I was.“

“Do you ever think about the lack of housing for local people?”

“Actually, I do. We were fortunate enough to be able to afford to buy a property, and of course you think about the people who cannot afford to get a home, but had we not brought our cottage, do you think someone else would not have brought it?“

“But it’s the cumulative effect on the housing stock that pushes Cornish people to the bottom of the ladder.”

“In truth, it’s very unfair for local people, but it’s simple economics of supply and demand and financial factors; it’s the same situation in London.”

“It’s not really; London is England, and Cornwall is Kernow. Remove the Cornish from here, and what are you left with? Do you know any Cornish people?”

She looked troubled for a moment. ”Not really; the people we know in our village are similar to us. Can I ask you a question?”

I nodded

“What do you think of second-home owners?”

“I think, and no offence to you, a home should be for life, not just weekends. Look at these cottages.”

I pointed to the whitewashed cottages overlooking the sea. “How much do you think they would sell for? Half a million or more?”

She nodded

“I was talking to a man recently who felt health and safety had changed life in Cornwall; he thought life was once more routine, and to be honest, I didn’t quite get what he was saying, but I think I’ve just realised what he was meant. Once within my lifetime, there would have been Cornish people who lived in these cottages who made their living here, whose families went back generations; if something like a repair needed doing in the village, they would have done it themselves; they would have organised village events and earn their living from the sea; the people who live here today get the council or some else to repair it; what sort of community events will they do or jobs do they work in? It would be very different for the people who once lived here; it’s the loss of communities and ways of life that can never come back. It’s sad, but that’s the way it is. The people who live here now see the sea as something pretty to look at.

She looked troubled. “I had never thought of it like that.”

“Well, if you were not living here, then you wouldn’t know that it existed. As I say, I am not talking about you; I’m speaking generally. By the way, have you heard of Cornish minority status?”

“No, what’s that?”

“It’s an idea that the government would recognise the Cornish under the protection of national minorities and put into law the protection of the Cornish language, identity, and culture.”

She thought about it for a moment. ”I can see why the Cornish people would want that, but I think it might be divisive.”

“Divisive why?”

“What about people who are not Cornish? Would they feel welcome or accepted here?”

I smiled. “Well, I would not worry; it will probably never happen. Thanks for your time.”

Journey’s End

The most difficult part of writing the above was what to include. I picked three conversations, but I could have picked from any of the many conversations I had across Kernow, such as the electrician who had just turned down a job, as in his words,

“Bleddy Londoners, they just moved down here and want huge electric gates fitted on their house. I said to them, If you think we’re all out to rob you, why move here?”

Or the couple from Birmingham who had retired here but had always thought of Kernow as their real home after holidaying here for over fifty years,or the Cornish garage owner who had helped his son buy a flat that had risen by £100,000 in two years but could not sell as he would only be able to afford to buy a similar size property due to the demand in property from people”‘up country” or the teenage girl from an old Cornish family who knew that as much as she loved Kernow she would have to leave as she could not afford to stay here ,or the man who owned a number of holiday lets and had started buying properties in Kernow in the late eighties when the price of a cottage would not buy a small flat in London. I could have used any of these or more. I could have included many of the new housing developments I had visited, the green field sites that have been granted planning permission, or the cost of a plot of land with enough space to build a single house overlooking the sea, but it does not make for happy reading.

One thing that came as a surprise to the majority of the people I spoke to is that the Cornish have recognition as a national minority. It could be argued that it has been some eight years since the announcement, but what does that say about Kernow—that one of the most important announcements about the protection of Cornish culture and identity in recent years is unknown to so many people within the Duchy? 

The older Cornish people I spoke to who could remember at least the nineteen eighties or earlier felt that it was all too late and Cornish culture was either disappearing fast or gone. Younger Cornish people felt that it was a welcome move forward, but what would it achieve? That was a question I could not answer. Many of the people I spoke to who had either relocated or owned a second home were more reserved about minority status, seeing it as something that could cause a divide within the community.

When I asked people who identified as Cornish about what has caused the loss of Cornish identity, one of the first groups people blamed was Cornwall Council. Rightly or wrongly, there is a perceived image that many councillors are working for themselves or their party and have little real interest in the communities they represent, and that the council is more interested in wealthy developers than Cornish people. When I asked, Do you vote in local elections? Only a small number claimed to vote; the larger percentage perceived voting as a waste of time as ”they are all the same.”. 

More predictably, people who had relocated here and some younger Cornish people felt the balance of development was meeting a need for homes and job creation, though with some concerns about how far development would go.

I turned down the offer to help George Eustice with his St. Piran emoji and other plans. By the end of my travels, I came to the conclusion that St. Prian emojis and the like represent a Disneyfication of Kernow. We make strides when we put up St. Pirans flags and put signs in Kernewek, and businesses make much of their Cornish identity, but is it all a bit hollow when Cornish communities are vanishing and more rural areas are developed so the council can tick a box and say we are providing so-called affordable homes but the other eighty percent are open market? 

Maybe the people I spoke to are right. If we had a council that served the local people, then better plans might bear fruit. 

I set out on this journey to see if the Kernow of my childhood still existed, and by and large it doesn’t anymore, which was not entirely surprising, but I try not to be too downhearted, and I remember what a man said to me once: at least I saw the last days of the old Kernow before the urban sprawl and overdevelopment, and I think myself lucky for that.