Diary of a St Ivean

A telephone call from the AA.
'This is the AA."
"I don't have a car."
A silence, then:
Oh, does someone in your household have a car?"
"No."
A longer silence. I have an image of the man at the AA end of the phone searching his script for a response. But clearly there isn't one.
Lamely:
"Oh, well. Thank you anyway." Then he rang off.

*

A few days later a telephone call from a pleasant lady from the Daily Telegraph.
"We're ringing you because you're one of our regular readers."
"But I'm not one of your regular readers."
"Oh. That's funny because it says here you're one of our regular readers."
"But I'm afraid I'm not one of your regular readers."
"Have you never been one of our regular readers?'
"No."
"So you've never picked the paper up?"
"Oh, I've picked it up, but I've never been one of your regular readers."
"May I ask you why you're not one of our regular readers?"
"I have a different view of the world."
A chuckle from the other end of the phone. Then a last try:
"We can offer you a 56% discount on the paper..."
"But I'm not tempted."
This time a real laugh from the Daily Telegraph lady, but before I could ask her why on earth the Daily Telegraph was offering discounts to regular readers, she'd gone.

Eviction of migrant workers - Penwith must answer charge of discrimination

There has been no response from Penwith District Council to the questions raised here last week by The St Ivean and in the Cornishman's letter columns about the eviction of Polish migrant workers in Penzance.
Most councils would want to quickly refute any charge of discrimination. And there is no doubt that The St Ivean has raised serious questions about Penwith's policy and method of eviction. The St Ivean will now in the next few days put those questions directly to Penwith. There is a case to answer.

Exploitation of migrant workers

Some of the migrant workers labouring on West Cornwall's daffodil and vegetable farms are not being paid the minimum wage.

That's just one of the findings made by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) following a recent multi-agency investigation which has uncovered the different ways the workers have been exploited by some gangmasters.Operation Westport looked at the working and living conditions of migrant workers in West Cornwall.

A total of nine licensed gangmasters were found to be violating standards imposed by the GLA.

The gangmasters were supplying hundreds of mainly Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian and Bulgarian workers to pick daffodils and vegetables... more>

Diary of a St Ivean

[Monday/Tuesday] On the 8.05 am bus to St Erth to catch the train to Truro and the air is thick with what sounds like the twang of a variety of Australian English from local teenagers on their way to college in Penzance. It's quite remarkable how the use of that questioning (rising) tone, where every sentence is turned into a question, has been adopted across the age group. It's rather like the back-to-front baseball cap phenomenon; and quite how it spread across the globe is a mystery.

Also, there's much use of 'like' and 'Oh, my God!' This latter isn't reserved specially for situations where the speaker has been surprised or shocked by an awful event. Almost every utterance, however unremarkable or banal, is followed by a desperate cry of, 'Oh, my God!'

I once overheard a teenaged youth (he was wearing the baseball cap) talking on his mobile phone to a friend. The bus was arriving in Truro and he wanted to know if he could call on his friend for a cup of tea. When the friend acceded to his request, he responded with, 'Oh, that's brilliant mate. You're a legend.' A legend. And that's just a man who makes you a cup of tea. A legend.

Oh, my God!

Migrant labour conditions checked

Police and local authorities are carrying out visits to farms in Cornwall to check on conditions being offered to migrant workers.
As many as 50,000 people from other European states now live and work in the South West.
A survey of 500 employers in Cornwall revealed a large proportion rely heavily on migrant workers.

Penzance Job Centre said 74% claimed their firms would suffer or shut down completely without migrant labour... more>

EXCLUSIVE: St Ives School to become a Trust school?

News has reached The St Ivean of moves to make St Ives School a Trust school. Letters have apparently been sent to parents but nothing has yet appeared on the school's website. It seems that so far the idea has been discussed only amongst the schools that would form the Trust. There is some opposition.

Of course, this is a proposal the whole of the St Ives community will want to debate. Watch this space and post your views.

Diary of a St Ivean

On the way on Saturday to catch the train to Truro, I count six houses in the Warren with The Phone Book still on doorsteps.

On the train to St Erth a visitor raves to his companion about what he can see from the train window and how he must return in the summer to swim there - pointing to the beach at Lelant where swimming is in fact forbidden. But he is overwhelmed by the beauty of the coastline as are all visitors who travel the line.

In Truro I want a power adapter for my iPod touch so I visit a mobile 'phone shop. As I enter a besuited young lady shop assistant asks if I need help and when I tell her No then asks if I'm browsing. So I relent and tell her what I want and she says Oh, iPhone accessories, but too late because I'm already heading for that display. There I immediately spot the item I'm looking for but the young lady shop assistant says No, that's for plugging into the computer. When I demur, she says let's open the box then, but because the shop doesn't have a pair of scissors she has to break into the package with a small pair of pliers. I see that of course it is the adapter I need but wonder aloud what the cable is for (it's a spare ). The young lady shop assistant doesn't that either. I make the purchase.

On the way to the train station I'm thinking that if there's any commission to be made from the sale, it should go to me who made it possible and not to the young lady shop assistant who almost prevented it.

On the last occasion I visited a mobile 'phone shop, I managed to persuade the shop assistant who was supposed to sell me an iPhone to abandon his plans to buy one for himself.

Donovan for Royal Square?

News of the unveiling of a statue of Tommy Cooper in his home town of Caerphilly prompts The St Ivean to invite speculation about who might deserve such an honour in St Ives. Artists are served by the Tate, but surely there are others who deserve public recognition.

The editor of the Times & Echo once described Donovan as an icon of St Ives. But a statue in Royal Square..?

Although not in the same league as Donovan, Virginia Woolf would probably receive the support of quite a few of her admirers. If not a statue, perhaps a discreet blue plaque in the vicinity of Talland House might be appropriate.

Send your suggestions to The St Ivean. It's surely time we moved on from mausoleum monuments dedicated to Collectors of Customs.

Cornwall holiday homes outnumber local houses

Holiday homes now outnumber those owned by locals along the coast of north Cornwall, the Daily Telegraph can disclose.
In popular resorts such as Rock, Polzeath and Port Isaac, ownership of second homes has soared in recent years. Official figures show in a number of parishes, the proportion of properties owned by outsiders has climbed above 50 per cent... more>

Diary of a St Ivean

[Thursday] This morning my olfactory faculties were once again overwhelmed by the man in the large floppy hat and shorts. He's often about the town or on the bus and he seriously overdoses on a strong shower or bath essence. One day, coming out of the Nat West on Tregenna Hill, I detected his presence well before he rounded the corner near the Catholic Church.

Of late he has taken to demonstrating playing card tricks to bemused passengers on the 17A bus from St Ives to St Just. This morning as we waited at the Malakoff for the 9.05, a pal of his was excitedly unlocking the secrets of a Rubrik Cube.

In Penzance on Morrab Road an elderly man with a wide smile and wild white hair was stopping every passer-by and demanding to know if they had seen 'last night's game' which I took to mean a football match of some importance or no importance. Anyhow, nobody was admitting to have seen the event.

One of the passengers on the bus returning from Penzance was an unsavoury young man who spent the entire journey verbally abusing his overweight girlfriend who sat sullen faced under a hail of the f-word and more expletives. He carried this performance on in a loud voice as he followed her from the bus and down Tregenna Hill. When I turned into the Co-op he was still ranting. Disturbing and anti-social behaviour rare in St Ives.

Poverty Cornwall - or 'tosh' and an invention of the 'Dismal Party'?

As The St Ivean reported on 16 February, yet another study has put Cornwall at the bottom of a wealth table. But the oft repeated view that Cornwall is the poorest of the poor is undermined by a convincing body of data which seems to demonstrate that the county isn't as deprived as the 'Dismal Party' would have us all believe... more>

Migrant Workers Campaign UPDATE

Support The St Ivean's campaign for an independent inquiry into the eviction by Penwith District Council of migrant workers in Penzance.

A version of Tuesday's post appeared in yesterday's Cornishman

Diary of a St Ivean

[Tuesday] A bright cold morning of sun and clear blue skies. Halfway up Tregenna Hill I met Mildred with her grandson. Mildred is the Google of St Ives: feed her a name and she will instantly supply you with more information than you can possibly cope with. I wanted to know from her the address of the builder whose scaffolding has been up at the house next to mine since April 2007. Incredibly, this just for a loft conversion job and no work has been done there for three months. I've decided to write to the builder for 'a firm date' for its removal. If I don't do something, I'm fearful the scaffolding might be awarded a listed building status and become untouchable.

Effortlessly Mildred supplied the information along with some background detail of the builder's ancestry.

In a letter to Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin once complained that the 'door-slamming Olympics' had commenced in the flat below him. This last evening I became aware that someone had arrived next door. But of course it's half-term for the south-east of the country (in Cornwall it was last week).

It was really quite cold with a brisk wind as I took my afternoon walk around the Island this afternoon, but when I got to Porthgwidden I saw two or three people on the beach wearing only shorts. A skinny-dipper, protective hand over his genitals, was, to the amusement of passers-by, pulling his trousers up over his bare white backside.

Before returning home I bought a copy of the Big Issue from the shivering vendor standing on the corner of Market Place.

Only a BNP supporter could condone this policy

The St Ivean has learned that not one but three properties were the target of Penwith District Council's dawn raid on Polish migrants (yesterday's post).

What we should not overlook in this shameful affair is that the men and women being turned into the street at dawn are workers. And as Katrina Islam, Penwith's housing advice co-ordinator, was quick to point out, "People from the new European A8 countries, like Poland, need to have been working for 12 months here and be properly registered before we can consider them [for housing]."

Putting people out into the street at dawn may also have the effect of putting them out of work. It's not at all easy to turn up at your place of work in such circumstances, or if you suddenly find yourself living on the streets. So a migrant's whole existence is undermined. (Incidentally, if Mr Turnbull, Penwith's senior environmental health officer, is really serious about counting migrants on dawn raids, he should consider getting out of bed a little earlier. Given the work most migrants do, they are likely to be off out to work at 7 am).

As the blogger mudhook points out, A Polish Dawn, it's difficult to reconcile being ejected on to the streets after a dawn raid as somehow protecting one's welfare.

Only a dedicated British National Party supporter could condone this policy.

There must be an independent inquiry into Penwith's policy of bullying discrimination

Last week's report on the eviction in Penzance of seven Polish migrant workers after a dawn raid by Penwith District Council officers raises some disturbing questions.

It was reported that the evictions took place 'after dawn raids revealed their rented home to be overcrowded and unsafe'. Seven people were sharing a three bedroom house. Overcrowded? Neither the legal definitions of overcrowding nor that of the Housing Health and Safety Rating Scheme suggests that the property was overcrowded. Did the council give the legally required 24 hours' notice that it intended visiting the property for the purpose of seeing if it should take any action about overcrowding or to measure rooms to establish the permitted number of people allowed to live there? Was the council required to serve a notice of eviction? Did the council make any constructive suggestions to improve the safety of the premises? Why were the migrants given only two hours to vacate the house? Is that reasonable or lawful?

Mr Turnbull, Penwith's senior environmental health officer, admitted that early morning raids 'could seem heavy-handed but claimed it is the only way to find out how many people are living in a property'. Nonsense. The council can serve a notice requiring the occupier or landlord to provide the authority, within 14 days, with details of the persons sleeping in the premises. It is an offence not to comply. And a day of surveillance, or interviews with the landlord, tenants or neighbours would have sufficed to establish the facts. In these circumstances, a dawn raid is both heavy handed and disproportionate. Mr Turnhill should understand that he is dealing with citizens with rights. They are not criminals.

In an attempted defence of all this, Katrina Islam, Penwith's housing advice co-ordinator, reassured us that B&B accommodation was provided for one family and advisers were 'on-hand' to help with others. For how long was the B&B provided? Was it, as in a similar case last year also involving the abrupt eviction of migrant workers from premises in Penzance, just for a few days before the family was ordered to leave?

But we can measure the usefulness of the advice given by Katrina Islam's team by the outcome: seven people who were 'overcrowding' a three bedroom house are now sharing a hotel room or are street homeless. Did the on-hand advisers offer anything beyond: "Sorry, we can't help"?

If the tenants had been English, would the council have acted in this way? Certainly not.

If the council had a statutory duty to re-house them, would they still have been evicted? Probably not. As Katrina Islam helpfully points out, the council does not have such a duty. If it did, there can be little doubt that the policy towards the migrant workers might have been one of turning a blind eye rather than dawn raid eviction.

A witness of the raid said that the manner of the evictions made him feel embarrassed to be English. Quite so, or, nearer to home, embarrassed, angry and ashamed to be associated with this district council and its methods.

The St Ivean calls for an independent inquiry into this shameful affair.

Mr Turnbull, breathtakingly, attempts to suggest to us that he and his team were doing the seven men and women he put out onto the street at dawn on a February morning a favour by saving them from unscrupulous landlords. On the contrary, rather than a constructive policy of compassionate support for some of our fellow workers in need, what we seem to have here in Penwith is an aggressive policy of bullying discrimination.

Ask Ephraim

As seasoned followers of The St Ivean know, Ephraim appeared frequently on earlier blogs, dispensing opinion, knowledge, advice, folklore and myth for the price of a pint or two. So this fount of all wisdom has been invited back to answer any questions you care to put to him. His mailbox will soon be full - so get your questions in soon.

From: Name and Address Supplied,
St Ives, Cornwall

Dear Ephraim

Do you agree with the proposal to build a park- and - ride at St Erth?

As I don't live at St Erth, I think it's an excellent idea.

Thank you for contacting The St Ivean.

Need a house to burgle? Now it's Phone Book

Burglars looking for a house to enter will be delighted to be given another bit of useful intelligence from The Phone Book which has just been deposited on doorsteps in the town - in some cases joining Yellow Pages still on some doorsteps after three weeks.

Diary of a St Ivean

I once saw a Private Eye cartoon in which a barber's shop has on its wall a menu of subjects - politics, sex, TV, sport, philosophy - for the customer to choose what he wished to talk about while his hair was being cut.

I think I have found in Penzance a hairdresser where you can get a decent haircut without this obligation to engage in tedious conversation with the person cutting your hair.

The reason for this happy arrangement is that this 'salon' is staffed by young women who quickly work out from your age, dress, and general demeanour that you're probably uninterested in Hip-Hop, binge drinking or casual fornication. Initially, you may have to answer technical questions about what grade of cut you want, whether you want the back squared or something else, and if you usually have a clipper cut. As I don't know what any of this means I answer No and hope for the best, keeping my fingers crossed under the shroud.

After that you should be left in peace until the job is done.

I used to visit a 'gentlemen's hairdresser' ( a misnomer if judged by the row of unkempt reprobates lined up on the seat waiting their turn) in Truro. And there the barber and I always had exactly, exactly the same conversation. I almost suggested we made a recording of it so that I could sit in silence at future appointments.

Leonard would ask me if it was busy in St Ives and I would respond with a brief report of the visitor situation there; then I would remark on the busyness or otherwise of Truro. Then we would limp on to the subject of holidays.

Leonard had a partner who hailed from Birmingham. If I happened to get him cutting my hair, I would have to listen to him telling me how wonderful Cornwall was and how he would never return to the Midlands. Never.

But I arrived there one day to find a notice in the window announcing a job vacancy and offering the successful applicant "up to" £500 a week. Just before Christmas the partner had gone to a wedding in Birmingham and while there had found a job in Worcester. ''He's emigrated", was Leonard's gruff reply whenever anyone asked where the partner was. "He's emigrated - to Worcester". He was very bitter at this betrayal.

I used to have my hair cut by a man called Joe. He had a very shiny bald head and he wore a white overall like a man in the control room of a nuclear power station. He had a real peg-leg made of roughly turned wood and secured to his truncated limb with black leather straps. Joe could cut you hair while holding a conversation with a man in the next room or persons beyond the plate glass window on the pavement outside.

The last time I visited Truro and passed Leonard's the vacancy notice was still there in the window.

The St Ives Bay Line Shop needs a new sign

The St Ives Bay Line is rightly celebrated and in recent years has been well served by the group of local people set up to promote it. But can something be done about the nasty wooden sign on St Erth Station announcing The St Ives Bay Line Shop which has been screwed onto the outside of the rather fine granite building which houses the shop?

The St Ivean will be contacting the group to ask them to replace the sign with something more appropriate.

The Isles of Scilly, where Britain's poorest people live

It is an area of outstanding natural beauty, enjoys Britain's most clement weather and attracts more than 120,000 visitors to its unspoilt shores each year. Ever since the former prime minister Harold Wilson descended on the Isles of Scilly in his shorts and sandals, the sub-tropical islands off Cornwall have been seen as one of England's most desirable tourist spots.

Yet behind the picture-postcard image lies a very different reality. According to a report this week, this is the poorest place in Britain. A study of differing wealth levels across the EU, carried out by Eurostat – the statistical arm of the European Commission – put Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly at the bottom of the table and on a par with former eastern bloc countries such as Slovakia and Slovenia. Taking 100 as the benchmark for wealth, the Scillies and Cornwall scored 77.4 – far below most of the EU.

The figures for the islands were not separated from Cornwall but the Isles of Scilly Economic Development Council believes that, if taken alone, the average wealth of those living in the archipelago would be even lower than that of their Cornish neighbours, making the islands' 2,153 inhabitants the worst-off in Britain...more>

St Ives, Cornwall, fantasy...

What would be your fantasy other job?

Bowling green attendant in St Ives, Cornwall. Good book, radio, beer in a cool box, English summer, slow trade...more

Edna...again

Readers of today's Times & Echo correspondence column will be dismayed to find yet another letter from Edna Welthorpe (Mrs).
The sole reason for drawing attention to it here, is to point out that next to Edna's letter is one from a Mr Paul Vibert of St Ives which is, in both style and vocabulary range, remarkably similar. Odd. The St Ivean wonders if the two are by any chance related.

Controversial plan for studios wins approval

Controversial plans to renovate a unique and historic beachfront work space for artists and fisherman in St Ives were approved by district councillors...more>

Migrant workers were 'treated like criminals'

Polish migrant workers evicted after dawn raids revealed their rented home to be overcrowded and unsafe, and claim they were "treated like criminals"...more>

Alan Harvey Awards are too restrictive

Penwith District Council is asking members of the public for nominations for the Alan Harvey Citizen of the Year Awards made to residents in the district who have provided a special service to the community on a voluntary basis.

There are five awards for each of Penwith's towns: St Ives, Hayle, Marazion, Penzance and St Just and their surrounding parishes. Nominations can be made by members of the public or organisations throughout the district.

But why restrict the awards just to voluntary work? There's nothing especially noble about such work - the UK now has millions of citizens doing unpaid work. If the Alan Harvey Awards were open to anyone - paid or unpaid - whose service to the community deserved public recognition, many 'unsung' heroes currently barred might be applauded. The St Ivean could today name several residents making a real contribution year after year who can't be nominated.

The Alan Harvey Awards is an excellent idea with rules that at present are too restrictive to reflect the breadth of good work in the community. They should be changed.

The closing date for the receipt of completed nomination forms is Thursday, March 20, 2008. For a nomination form contact Corporate Services, Penwith District Council, St Clare, Penzance TR18 3QW, or by emailing elliot.ridington@penwith.co.uk or telephone 01736 336777

Gangmasters face losing licences as crackdown reveals exploitation

Nine gangmasters who employ hundreds of migrant workers face having their licences revoked after the largest crackdown of its kind found labourers were being underpaid and forced to live in substandard accommodation, it emerged yesterday.

Officials discovered that labourers employed to pick daffodils and vegetables in Cornwall were being paid below the minimum wage, living in dirty and cramped conditions, and being forced to pay over the odds to be driven to the fields in dangerous vehicles...more>

'Operation shuts death traps'

Diary of a St Ivean

A beautiful February sunny morning with blue skies. By ten o' clock I have walked around the Island, called at Ferrell's (the 'frozen rabbits for sale' notice is no longer pinned to the door) for bread , hung out a line of washing and cleaned seagull shit from the windows. It's that time of the year when wind, defecating seagulls in flight and my windows and washing conjoin.

According to Johnny T, the owner of the restaurant where Johnny, Stornoway Bill and I once worked is now a millionaire on account of all the property he now owns in St Ives. All from selling crab sandwiches. I mentioned this on Saturday in my email to Stornoway Bill who replied that he always knew that our ex- employer was destined for great things, "on account of the masterful way in which he sacked me".

After leaving Johnny T on Saturday, I was walking up Ayr Lane with a bag of shopping when I met Alice and her daughter Lucy. Although Alice lives just behind me, I haven't seen her for nine years. She said that in fact she's living in Honduras and is back in St Ives to sell her house then returning to Honduras. Her daughter lives in Mozambique.

When I email Stornoway Bill and tell him about my encounter with Alice and how it's given me itchy feet, he digs deep for a nugget of Old Hebridian wisdom producing," yep I guess the best thing to do is find the best place to scatch the itch".

Yesterday, the itch got me as far as Penzance.

Diary of a St Ivean

On my daily walk around the Island and the town, I come upon Johnny T. He and I worked together years ago in a restaurant in St Ives. Talking about those times, I mention Bill who also worked in the restaurant and who now lives in the Outer Hebrides.

"Those Stornoway folk are a funny crowd." Johnny says, leaning on the wall of the Porthgwidden car park. "I used to meet fishermen from there when I was working on the fishing boats. They used to have with them those large tins used to store Smiths Crisps. The tins were full of money - all their earnings and life savings, I guess."

Johnny says that when he gently pointed out to the Stornoway fisherfolk that in the event of a disaster at sea their cash would lie on the bottom of the Ocean and their families would be abruptly impoverished, he got as a reply the Gaelic equivalent of "Well, that's just tough tits."

On reaching home I email this story to Stornoway Bill asking him if it rings true. He replies instantly in the affirmative with a highly colourful stream of invective directed against the grasping and vicious Protestant character of his fellow islanders who would not even, according to Stornoway Bill, trust their "nearest and dearest".

Ask Ephraim

As seasoned followers of The St Ivean know, Ephraim appeared frequently on earlier blogs, dispensing opinion, knowledge, advice, folklore and myth for the price of a pint or two. So this fount of all wisdom has been invited back to answer any questions you care to put to him. His mailbox will soon be full - so get your questions in soon.

From: Edna Wybert (Mrs.)
St Ives, Cornwall

What's St Ives Town Council for?

Oh, Edna, that's a stinker! If I'd known the questions were going to be so hard I would have thought twice about agreeing to write these posts.

Now, if you had been asking about St Ives in Cambridgeshire, you could go to that Town Council's excellent website for an answer. Years ago, The St Ivean suggested our St Ives should have a site but the idea was turned down. Perhaps The St Ivean should try again. But I'll attempt an answer to your challenging query.

Not long ago the Council did have a reputation. For instance, it won The St Ivean's Moaner of the Year Award 2003. Of course, some of the councillors who made a major contribution to that success - Cllr Beck in particular - have moved on... but these days Cllr Isaacs does his best.

As eminent local resident Stargazey commented at the time:

... I don't think we should be surprised that our council is totally ineffective. It is, after all, just a committee of people of very limited intelligence (and seemingly no common sense or concern for preserving the quintessential character of the town) who have sought public office with the express intention of furthering their own business interests ("I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine").

It's possible that times are changing, especially since a large number of Greens won seats on the Council. But the short answer to your question, Edna, is that I have no idea what St Ives Town Council is for. However, from today I shall be monitoring the Council's performance in an attempt to find an answer and reporting back to The St Ivean.

I hope this helps. Perhaps, though, there isn't an answer at all. As Herr Wittgenstein once famously remarked: Woven man nicht sprechen kann, daruber muss man schweigen.[Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.]

Thank you for contacting The St Ivean.

'Cornouaille' takes on the French establishment

Bretons have always been a resilient and proud people, somewhat isolated from Paris and the main activity of the country, in the same way as Cornwall is in the UK. Indeed, Mr Kerviel’s home region is known as Cornouaille, the French for Cornwall. Both are similarly picturesque and coastal. ...more>

First Group endangers passengers

Users of the Malakoff bus station in St Ives cannot fail to be aware of the dangers of straying beyond the barriers behind which passengers are expected to stand while waiting for a bus. The St Ivean has seen people quite rightly admonished by First Group staff for ignoring the warning signs.So it is hardly clever of the bus company to allow some of its drivers to force passengers to walk from buses across the bus station instead of dropping them where it is safe.

But that is what sometimes happens if a bus arrives a few minutes early giving the driver a few minutes break. He or she parks the bus in the far corner of the station instead of reversing to the barrier. Passengers then have to walk across the bus area to the safety of the queue area and the pavement.

Nobody would want to deprive First Group's drivers of their break or time for a cigarette, but should it, The St Ivean asks, be at the expense of the safety of their passengers?

Edna Welthorpe (Mrs.)...(yawn)...again

As anyone with just a little literary knowledge knows, 'Edna Welthorpe (Mrs.)' is a spoof character created by playwright Joe Orton. Orton created Edna Welthorpe, an elderly 'outraged of' whom he would later revive to stir controversy over his plays. Orton coined the term as an allusion to Terence Rattigan's "Aunt Edna", Rattigan's archetypal playgoer.

Given that Orton has been dead for many years, it might seem surprising that his Edna should make an appearance in the correspondence columns of this week's St Ives Times & Echo as the author of a letter in support of yellow lines. Or, unsurprising, since Edna made an appearance in the same paper many years ago in an enterprise that rather spectacularly backfired on the writer then hiding behind Edna's skirts.

Possibly that writer is not this week's Edna and is outraged at the very suggestion he might be. If he is not Edna, then of course The St Ivean will prominently correct that outrageous suggestion.

More serious is the worry that the editor of the Times & Echo knows nothing of Edna's provenance and is once again the victim of a deception.

Even more worrying is the possibility that the editor does know and is complicit. Because adjacent to the 'Edna' letter is a stern warning to letter writers to the paper
that the author's full name and address should be included when letters are submitted for publication. Or, in this case, is the editor happy for his readers to be made fools of?

None of this would perhaps matter if the Edna letter redeemed its duplicity by being amusing. But it isn't even remotely funny. And it is that, surely, which makes this inept plagiarism an outrageous insult to the memory and to the art of Joe Orton.

Knock -a- door and run

If you're not at home when the postman calls with a letter that has to be signed for or a parcel too large for your letter box, just telephone the St Ives sorting office at Penbeagle and usually delivery will be arranged for the next day or at a time you choose.

Well, that used to be the case until Royal Mail decided that this arrangement was far too simple.

Now when you ring the number on the calling card left by the postman, you can expect to be greeted with information unconnected with the reason for your call and a recorded voice telling you that Royal Mail is doing its best to meet your postal needs. Etc. Only then will your undelivered mail problem be addressed - information from the calling card will be demanded and you'll be told you'll have to wait a couple of days for your post. Oh, and how you might consider doing all this online.

You'll probably decide it's quicker to climb the Stennack to Penbeagle Industrial Estate - unless you are elderly or infirm. When you may have a problem.

Last week a parcel was delivered here from another part of the UK which had been posted Second Class Delivery. It took ten days - rather longer than a parcel recently posted to The St Ivean from Shanghai.

This week in February 2004

THE WEEK:1st February 2004

DONOVAN , an icon of St Ives in the beatnik sixties, still believes in the beatnik manifesto. His new release, Beatnik Cafe, can be obtained from www.donovan.ie ST IVES FISHERMEN have said that they will not be "forced out" of their net lofts at Porthmeor Studios following a short lived meeting with the trustees that own the building. QINETIQ has announced it will support another attempt to fly a manned balloon to the edge of space - but is now looking at alternative launch sites. RAILFUTURE, an independent rail watchdog, said that figures show that the St Ives branch line is the busiest branch line in Cornwall with a large part of its custom from the Lelant Park & Ride. ST IVES TOWN COUNCIL said it would support the new Leach Pottery steering committee and its objective of raising £1 million. MEBYON KERNOW claimed that the establishment of a Cornish Assembly could prevent GM crops being planted in Cornwall. ST IVES MAYOR, Cllr. Harry Isaacs, declared a cessation of hostilities with Penwith District Council.

Blue-eyed Cornish and English are brothers

Practically everyone in England and Cornwall who has blue eyes is biologically recently related whether they call themselves Anglo-Saxon or Celt or English or Cornish or British or......more>