Beresford Hotel Protest

It’s not often that I find myself agreeing with our esteemed council leader Linda Taylor but her calling out of the planned protests at the Beresford Hotel is something that I find I can agree with though with the slight reservation that it is her party that has done so much to stoke the fires of anti asylum and immigration views as a diversionary tactic from the governments other failings.

I do not intend to say much about the planned protest as the organisers of this protest thrive on the oxygen of publicity be it positive or negative viewing all publicity is good publicity.

But there is one question that I am interested in : How many of the people organising this protest and trying to fan the flames of division are Cornish?

And if they are, maybe they should remember their own history.

Between the 1850’s to the early 1900’s somewhere between 250,000 to 300,000 Cornish people left the Duchy with the collapse of mining and the lack of work to find employment and a better life and to send money back to Kernow to support families who without that financial support faced the brutality and cruelty of the workhouse.

Many of these people who left were young Cornish men, some barely in their teens who emigrated abroad, the famous cousin Jacks or to work in England and were often met with hostility that they were taking employment from the local population.

Even today with the mass house building that is going on in Kernow many Cornish families are being forced to leave the Duchy because they cannot afford a home in Kernow.

Yet people wish to protest about a handful of asylum seekers housed in a hotel who are waiting to hear whether their claim will be accepted.

Social media reports stories of women feeling unsafe and gangs of asylum seekers hanging around the streets,but this is no new phenomenon. Look at the media coverage in the UK in the 1950’s and 60’s the same hysteria was being whipped up during the waves of immigration from Ireland,India and the West Indies .

Like our Celtic cousins our history is one of sadness of the export of people and the heartbreak and longing for home and family of those who had no other choice and we in Kernow with our history should be more understanding what forces young men to risk everything for a better life for themselves and their families.

Why the BBC view Kernow as a county

Today I received a reply to a couple of questions I asked of the BBC which are:

1 Given that the Cornish have had official recognition for the last eight years as a national minority officially recognising our history,culture,identity and language, why does the BBC on both television and radio refer to Cornwall using the words county or southwest England when to some Cornish people references to county or England are offensive. Can the BBC not use Duchy or just use Cornwall and not use the word county?

2 BBC Radio 4 recently broadcast the excellent Tongue and Talk:The Dialect Poets about Cornwall. This programme discussed Cornish identity and culture from a Cornish point of view but what else is the BBC doing to promote Cornish language and identity?

The answer from the BBC was as expected distinctly underwhelming .

Thank you for contacting the BBC.

Whilst we appreciate your concerns, as you have not provided specific editorial examples to illustrate this I can only answer generally to the point you have raised.

We appreciate the description of Cornwall is a matter many are passionate about, but would state that The Duchy of Cornwall is a private estate owning 7,552 hectares of land in Cornwall. Cornwall is an administrative county of England, with Cornwall Council describing itself as the unitary authority for the county of Cornwall in the United Kingdom. Cornwall’s Chamber of Commerce also recognise Cornwall as a county:

We reported at the time when Cornish people were granted minority status under European rules for the protection of national minorities, which means that Cornish people will be afforded the same protections as the Welsh, Scottish and the Irish; with government departments and public bodies required to take Cornwall’s views into account when making decisions:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-27132035

Nevertheless, we recognise your perspective about this.

Rest assured that all complaints are sent to senior management and we’ve included your points in our overnight report, which is among the most widely read sources of feedback in the company and ensures that your concerns have been seen by the right people quickly.

Thanks again for getting in touch.

Kind regards,

Lucy Currie

BBC Complaints Team

So in the finest traditions of the BBC a cut and paste reply with a general undertone of go away you silly person you can call yourself what you like in Cornwall but to the rest of the country you are a county and a part of England and nothing will change that.

Is that really acceptable after eight years of in theory recognition of our identity?

I will be writing back to the BBC but this time in Kernewek so let’s see how long it takes them to translate it and send another cut and paste response telling me we are just a county of England.

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.

On History, Legends and Second Homes.

The Cornish are a modern people, we accept change sometimes grudgingly, and in the brightness of a summers day are rational twenty first century people, but on a dark night on a county lane or the coast, away from the modern world it’s not the dark that makes some of us uneasy, it’s then the memories of tales from childhood told to us of Buccas and Spriggans and people being Piskie-led, of the ghost of Tregeagle or the Daisy Dog or the Devil’s many visits to Kernow that come unbidden and though we tell ourselves they are stories and it is just the dark and the night, the land around suddenly seems ancient, brooding and watchful.

It’s not surprising that we remember these tales,the Celts have a history of telling stories that get passed down and become richly embroidered as they pass through each generation and in common with other Celtic lands, the tales weaved in Kernow have created a land full of saints, heroes and sinners, a land of giants and mystery

We can be certain as long as there are Cornish people in the Duchy these tales will continue to be part of the tapestry of Kernow.

The ancient stories are not forgotten but what of the more recent ones?

Every village in Kernow has many tales to tell,memories of the last hundred years or more passed down through families as anecdotes once shared and remembered in the community, stories of carnivals and fetes, of acts of kindness or bravery, quarrels and disputes, the name of a field or how a lane or a cottage got its name,of good and bad weather and people long gone but still remembered.

Until fairly recently generations of Cornish families would have continued to live in their village or close surrounding area and these stories would have been passed down but now with so many villages becoming primarily second homes and the locals pushed further away, who will remember them?

The loss of these stories, however small or insignificant they seem, removes from both the villages and Kernow part of its cultural history and once these stories are lost they cannot be replaced.

This is something that is often overlooked in the discussions about second homes.

And there is one more question: what will the new custodians of these villages who come from London and the home counties add to the history of the village.?

Most have no connection to the area or Kernow, they can buy the property but cannot purchase a link to the history of the property so culturally the cottages they buy have as much meaning to them as a new build Barratt home in Milton Keynes.

And what stories will they create and pass on to future generations?

It seems unlikely that in Kernow’s pantheon of myths and legends the day the Waitrose van was delayed and the late delivery of côte de boeuf nearly wrecked the dinner party to celebrate Amanda getting a commission from the Telegraph to write an article on the trials and tribulations of purchasing a second home in Cornwall and Jonathan being made a partner in Lyre and Lyre one of London’s top legal firms, will rank with the tales of King Arthur and Tristan and Iseult.

St Piran emoji.

I have had a few people email me to helpfully point out that the Unicode Consortium, the organisation who regulate and code emojis do not accept petitions. I am grateful for them for taking the time to point this out, I have read the Unicode Consortium guidelines and do understand this. I have also been asked by some businesses if I could show them a plan for the petition and what the emoji would mean

A St Piran emoji can be used in text and social media across a wide number of platforms including: Apple,Google,Android,FaceBook, Windows,GMail and What’sApp.

The petition is part of a report to be submitted to the Unicode Consortium who are based in California to show the support in Kernow for a St Piran emoji. The petition which will be launched shortly, already has the support of Kernows MPs, Cornwall Council, Visit Cornwall, Cornwall RFU and the Cornish Pirates and I am in conversation with other clubs and well known Cornish brands to get their support.

The petition is important as there is a need to show to the consortium that the proposed St Piran emoji will have popular support.The number of signatures and the organisations backing the petition will form part of the basis of why Kernow should have an emoji.

The overall number of signatures from the petition will be included in a report that explains Kernow’s history, it’s constitutional status and the history and importance of the St Piran flag in Kernow and the role it plays in Cornish life,culture and commerce. The report will be presented at the next round of submissions to the Unicode Consortium which start on the 15th April.

The submission to the Unicode Consortium has to satisfy a number of criteria including.

1.Can it fit into the existing coding? I have been told by a friend who knows a lot more about coding than I do that this should be quite straightforward.

2. The emoji cannot be a county or regional flag. This will be dealt with in the submission about Kernow’s history and status.

3. Will it have much usage? The number of signatures on the petition will show how much support and use the emoji could expect.

4.Does the emoji have different uses?

To answer this question we intended to show that a Cornish emoji will have a number of uses.

It can be used by people in a general day to day use. It can be used in sport for example by fans of Cornish rugby teams to show their support for their team. In commerce for the many businesses in Kernow who use their Cornish identity as part of their branding. Finally for the huge number of visitors the Duchy receives every year who could use it on their social media to tag their visit to the Duchy.

We will also be looking into the feasibility of producing a second submission in Cornish to highlight Kernow’s uniqueness and distinctive culture.

It’s quite fortunate that the next round of submissions start in April, the application process to the consortium is quite long and in places technical and if the submission is rejected it can be two years before we are allowed to resubmit it so this gives us time to consult with people who can help with the process and put together the strongest case we can for Cornish inclusion.

Cornish Emoji.

The G7 has been infuriating. Not just the traffic or the security restrictions which are bad, but not as bad in my view as the media coverage.

When was the last time Kernow had so much discussion in the media apart from holiday and property programmes? This should be a time for the Duchy to show itself as a small but proud nation.

But every news programme talks about this county of South West England, they talk to people living in Kernow about the G7 and people respond with England and county . It’s like 2014 never happened.

So how can we get the message not just to people on the other side of the Tamar but also to people in Kernow that we are a recognised small nation with a protected identity and culture not just a county of England?

When I was first asked if I could help with a campaign to get a Cornish emoji I was a bit stumped,it was not something I had thought about before, I spent the next week reading everything I could on emojis and at the end of the week I was left feeling that even though I could bore anyone I met in the Duchy within a couple of minutes on the subject I still did not quite know how to proceed. Then during the weeks leading up to the G7, the media and its complete lack of understanding of our culture and their reliance on tweets it sort of made sense.

It will be a lot harder for organisations such as the BBC and Sky and Google and Facebook to claim we are part of South West England when our flag is recognised by the Unicode Consortium, the governing body that releases new emojis for worldwide adoption, who only recognise national flags not state or regional.

The argument for a Cornish emoji for someone coming to the subject seems to go: the Welsh and Scots have one, the Cornish are a national minority so we should have one, which is a completely fair argument to make but is that enough of an argument to make to the Unicode Consortium?

The case has to be made that the a St Piran emoji is not just an emoji for Cornwall, it’s for the Cornish communities around the world , it’s branding for every business in the Duchy who use their Cornish identity as a marketing tool, a badge for every visitor with memories or a longing to visit the Duchy again and for the people in the Duchy it symbolises our home, our identity and our nation.

In a couple of weeks KC will start a petition asking for a St Piran emoji. This campaign already has the promise of full support from all of our Cornish MPs and some members of Cornwall Council, who I would like to thank. Over the next couple of weeks we will be contacting Cornish businesses and those in the arts sector who have offered to support the campaign.

I would ask once the petition is launched if people would sign and share the petition so it can be sent to the Unicode Consortium to show that Kernow is entitled and there is real need and support in the Duchy for an emoji.

A not quite right reply from Steve Double…

I wrote to all of our Cornish MPs five weeks ago to ask whether it was right that Visit England made no references on its site to Cornish language and culture.

Steve Double has just sent a reply, and while I am grateful for his reply, I totally disagree with his answer.

Thank you for your email and I do appreciate you taking the time to get in touch.

I have now had an opportunity to check the Visit Britain website, and specifically the subsections of the devolved nations to see if they are treated any differently to Cornwall’s.

Having done so I cannot see any particular references to the culture and heritage of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on these pages. The only difference I can see is that they have their own pages, which are immediately navigable and evident from the front page of the website, whereas Cornwall, which is not a devolved nation, does not, and is instead included as part of the England offer.

Therefore I cannot push for Cornwall and the Cornish people to get different treatment to other places which also have minority status, particularly on a website whose primary goal is purely to attract visitors.

That being said I will continue to do all I can to ensure the protected ethnic minority status of Cornish people is recognised and acted upon by the UK Government and others.

Thanks once again for getting in touch.

Kind regards,

Steve

I disagree with Mr Double on two points.

1 The site Steve Double was looking at is Visit Britain not Visit England. Visit Britain has separate sections for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, it would be safe to assume that most people would recognise that they are separate to England and have their own history and culture, they also list cultural events. To be fair Visit Britain does mention Cornish culture by stating,

Did you know? Truro is the only city in Cornwall. It hosts a great line-up of events year-round – don’t miss the St Pirans Day parade on March 5, which celebrates Cornish culture.

Which is not quite correct as St Piran’s day is just a bit more than a celebration of Cornish culture and omits that the celebrations are across the Duchy.

2 Steve Double states Therefore I cannot push for Cornwall and the Cornish people to get different treatment to other places which also have minority status, particularly on a website whose primary goal is purely to attract visitors.

Given that the other parts of the UK that have minority status are given their own sections then the Cornish are being treated differently, minority status is supposed to give the Cornish equality with the Scots, Welsh and Irish. The claim that he cannot push for the Cornish to get different treatment on a website whose primary goal is purely to attract visitors is palpable nonsense. What reason is there that visitors to the Duchy should not be told that Kernow has its own language and culture? And if it is anyone’s duty to point this out then it would seem most likely that it should be carried out by a tourist information site. Has Mr Double actually read the framework convention particularly Article 4 of the framework convention states

The Parties undertake to adopt, where necessary, adequate measures in order to promote, in all areas of economic, social, political and cultural life, full and effective equality between persons belonging to a national minority and those belonging to the majority. In this respect, they shall take due account of the specific conditions of the persons belonging to national minorities.

Or what about Article 5 ?

The Parties undertake to promote the conditions necessary for persons belonging to national minorities to maintain and develop their culture, and to preserve the essential elements of their identity, namely their religion,language, traditions and cultural heritage.

It could be argued that Visit England’s policy of ignoring Cornish language and culture to promote Cornwall as just a part of England is a form of assimilation. Article 5 of of the framework convention for the protection of national minorities states.

Without prejudice to measures taken in pursuance of their general integration policy,the Parties shall refrain from policies or practices aimed at assimilation of persons belonging to national minorities against their will and shall protect these persons from any action aimed at such assimilation.

At least we can sleep more soundly knowing that Steve Double is doing all he can to ensure the protected ethnic minority status of Cornish people is recognised and acted upon by the UK Government and others.

And maybe one day he might even put it into practice.

That Blue feeling.

Does the future for Cornish identity and culture look positive or will those of us who care about such things be left feeling a bit blue about it all? It’s early days but it looks like the new Cornish Conservative council is not giving too much thought to this at present.

The Tories document the Conservative Plan for Cornwall is slim in both size and detail. It’s the usual political manifesto grand in scale of promise but not much on facts, promises to spend taxpayers money wisely, plans to build homes for locals, protecting the environment or building on the legacy of the G7,all very laudable…. But…

No mention of the huge financial loss that has affected the council due to covid and how they are going to make up the shortfall,is it going to be cuts or council tax rises or are both on the cards?

Also no mention of the Rt Hon Robert Jenrick MP Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government who is piloting through the commons a radical overhaul of the planning system, dubbed the developers charter that will kill off the last remaining safeguards in the planning system, and make it easier for developers to push through unwanted developments and far harder to build affordable homes for locals and also damage the natural environment, can we expect our Conservative Cornish councillors to start their dynamic tenure by picking an argument with their leadership at Westminster?

And of course the less said of the G7 and the Carbis Bay Hotel fiasco the better.

To be fair what else could you expect the Cornish Conservatives to do in their manifesto than breakout a can of gloss and give their erstwhile coalition colleagues the Lib Dems a good kicking.

Away from such political chicanery what makes the Conservative manifesto really standout is what is missing.

The manifesto talks of Cornwall and county hall, the Cornish Conservatives website mentions the county of Cornwall but it does not contain words such as Kernow, Duchy, Kernewek or Lys Kernow neither does it make any mention of Cornish culture.

This maybe just a small thing to some, it is after all just a pamphlet. The Tories may be all powerful at present but if the lack of Cornish culture in their manifesto is a hint to the future then they must realise that in Kernow they are elected on a small turnout and they cannot push Cornish identity back in the box however much they want to.

It’s understandable with Scotland demanding another independence referendum and Wales watching very closely that the Tories are very wary of the Cornish demanding more recognition and more political powers to be devolved to Kernow.

It is a possibility that all is not lost, there is a charming photo of Conservative group leader Linda Taylor Councillor for St Ives East, Lelant & Carbis Bay and now leader of the council in the Cornish Conservative manifesto wearing a Cornish tartan scarf. Maybe this is a message to the Cornish that the Cornwall Conservatives are radical, that they will stand up to Westminster and that the Cornish have their identity and this council will always defend this… Or maybe not.

What is certain is that our esteemed council leader will have to do a lot more than just wear a scarf to burnish her Cornish credentials.

Rough Times For Kernow

The election results in the Duchy have been quite interesting, with a few seasoned councillors losing their seats and the Conservatives taking power, rough times are possibly ahead for Kernow.

Rough times in the shape of the Conservative parties plan to reform the planning rules, dubbed the developers charter. Kernow is one of the most popular places to live in the UK, with demand for housing from people relocating from other parts of the UK, developers will have a free rein under these proposals in the Duchy, developers will be able to claim any housing development no matter how unaffordable or ridiculously expensive is meeting a need.

Then there is Cornish identity, Kernow is now a Conservative stronghold, will they need to make any concessions or encourage the growth of Cornish identity? Sure they will make the right noises on St Piran’s day but beyond that it would seem highly unlikely…till at least we are a lot closer to the next election.

The next few years could make the previous five years seem like a golden time.

It cannot be dismissed that many people in the Duchy have taken time to vote and seen something they like in the Conservatives and they should be congratulated like the others who voted for at least taking the time to vote.

The fact is this council is elected on only a small number of people voting, in many cases the turnout was around forty percent, hardly an endorsement of local politics.

There is lot of discussion about why the majority of people in the Duchy are apathetic to voting and how can an engagement with local politics be made more relevant to them?

Maybe instead of offering just an abstract political argument it’s time to take a more tangible approach?

Maybe it’s time for an open debate on a way to create a movement encompassing the arts, language and the people and groups who campaign for more recognition for the Duchy to show people in Kernow this is what being Cornish is and your voice has to be heard

Is it the fault of the Cornish?

Who is to blame for the lack of recognition when it comes to Cornwall’s status as a Duchy and one of the Celtic nations that make up the UK?

Is it Westminster and the dastardly central government taking a lackadaisical approach to Cornish status? Or the media who refer to Cornwall as a part of England and use county where ever possible? Or is it Cornwall Council who make much of Cornish identity but never seem to push far enough? Or is the most likely culprit the people of Cornwall?

This may sound an unfair thing to say about a populace but why have we not moved forward?

Let’s be honest very few people outside of Cornwall know or care about Cornwall’s status we are just a place to go for a holiday or somewhere nice to move to.

Visit Cornwall for the benefit of our visitors could use the tag line ‘The Duchy that celebrates itself’.

There is very good work done on social media by groups and individuals promoting different aspects of Cornish history and culture but these are seen by their detractors as bubbles, talking to people who already support their ideals when government and media take notice not of small groups but of the collective voice and at the moment this is sorely lacking in Cornwall.

The elections this week are important, local elections are seen as lacking the glamour of a general election but local elections can send a message to Westminster and the rest of the UK that how ever hard our six MPs work a general election cannot do, the message that Cornwall demands its recognition.

If the rest of the UK are to hear us then we need representation at grassroots, it cannot come from the individual politician but from a party with a strong mandate and this will not be easy. The recent unprecedented movement of people relocating to Cornwall from other parts of the UK, who may feel that a stronger Cornish identity will leave them as outsiders will need to be won over.

Which party could do this? The candidates of the Westminster parties might wrap themselves in the St Piran’s flag and their talk of a proud Cornish identity may be true but where will their first allegiance lie, with Cornwall or their party’s national strategy?

Taking all of the above into account then Mebyon Kernow should be the default choice but the question has to be asked why has the party has not had the major break through?

It is strange that Mebyon Kernow does not have more councillors, the party has a long history, has good candidates standing at this election and interesting and original policies so maybe this will be their year.

The next week will tell us not just about the future of MK but the future of Cornwall.