A Reformed Messenger? 

 The resignation of St Ives Town Council’s Mr Kenneth Messenger as a Conservative councillor on February 15 is a blow to the council. 

The next step for Mr Messenger is surely clear: to join Reform UK and, indeed, contemplate standing as that party’s parliamentary candidate for the St Ives Constituency at the upcoming general election.

The populist party founded by Nigel Farage is the perfect home for disgruntled Conservatives like Mr Messenger. 

It’s Linda again

 • CORNWALL council leader Linda Taylor and chief executive Kate Kennally have won cross-party condemnation for a failed attempt to impose an elected mayor on the unitary authority. There was widespread opposition to their attempts to bulldoze through a devolution deal that hinged on the creation of a mayor.

The pair are now accused of a cover-up for withholding all but 17 pages of documents out of 1,700 initially identified in a freedom of information request from county councillors hoping to shed light on the fiasco. Had the plan gone ahead, objectors maintain that the new mayor would have had almost unparalleled power. A two-thirds majority of councillors would have been required to overrule mayoral decisions and, with no district councils to stand in their way any more, democracy in the Duchy would effectively have been ended.

Although I welcome Jane Griffiths’ attempt, if rather excitable, to help me discover the identity of the Cornish Edna Welthorpe (T&E, last week), her claim to know that identity and of a book of Edna’s letters is a puzzle.

First, the Edna letters to this paper are so few they would barely fill the pages of a book of postage stamps. Second, they are so lacking in wit and so devoid of style (apologies, Editor), no publisher would touch them.

Another Edna Welthorpe?  Or fake (literary) news?

More importantly, I can tentatively reveal that our own Edna appears to be a Peter Jay Carlsen- Pinnell. More information (with the Editor’s permission and forbearance), next time.

I do hope the legendary Mr Guppy has arranged for St Ives Parish Church to sound at least one Bong! at 11pm on January 31 to mark Brexit and all the goodies we’re about to receive outside the EU. The £350m a week for the NHS, the wonderful global trade deals far superior to EU deals. Oh, and on Mr Guppy’s sunlit uplands we’ll no longer have to eat straight bananas. Nice!

I’ll be marking January 31 with a few bottles of excellent German, Spanish and Italian wines and some fine French and Dutch cheeses. 

Bong!

Pauline V Conrad (Mrs).

St Just 

17 January 

Readers of the St Ives Times & Echo have in recent weeks been treated to letters to the paper's correspondence pages from a Mrs Pauline V Conrad. This lady claims to have evidence that letters to the paper sent over several years and signed Edna Welthorpe - the alter ego of the playwright Joe Orton - are from a St Ives resident.

The most recent letter from Edna Welthorpe to the T&E  dated 1-12-2019 and headed "It's a bit puzzling', says:

I'm really grateful to all these people in your letters column - that nice Mr Bland from Penzance,  a Conservative gentlemen, various retired doctors, telling me who to vote for - though it's a bit puzzling when Mrs Swinson says my Common Market vote didn't matter.

Never mind, it'll all be over in a week's time and they can have a happy Christmas and keep their abuse to themselves. Yours truly, EDNA WELTHORPE (Mrs)

 Mrs Conrad appears to have made it her mission to discover the identity of this person.

The St Ivean has an interest in this because several years ago the blog pointed a finger at the person we believed to be the culprit, an allegation that was never challenged.

For the moment we will allow Mrs Conrad to pursue her investigations without interference. Her letters so far - witty, informed,  humorous and a huge improvement on the letters from the the St Ives Welthorpe - are printed below and we will add any further as they appear in the paper.

The right track?

Last week you published a slight letter signed ‘Edna Welthorpe (Mrs)’.

This was a pseudonym used by the deceased playwright Joe Orton. 

But I’m wondering if in fact there’s another person of the same name living in St Ives? 

Is it possible?

So far my research has led me to the Park Avenue area of St Ives and the possibility that Mrs Welthorpe is  - a man!  

Am I on the right track?

I’ll keep readers informed of my progress in solving this intriguing mystery.

Paul Conrad 

Penzance 

06-12-2019

Joe Orton dead? Well not in spirit at least...Ed

Tears of joy 

I recently revealed that the writer of a letter to these pages signed ‘Edna Welthorpe (Mrs)’ appeared to be using the alter ego of playwright Joe Orton; but I also said that there might well be a real person of that name in St Ives. 

Stranger things have happened this side of the Tamar! 

My research has so far uncovered some interesting pointers to that possibility which - with the Editor’s permission - I will share with you next month. Meanwhile, please disregard anyone in these pages claiming to be ‘Edna’.  Fake news!

But I must digress a little to take this opportunity to congratulate Derek Thomas on being re-elected as our Conservative MP. What a talent!  I witnessed people in the streets shedding tears - presumably  of joy?  - when the result was announced.

If Derek doesn’t one day take over from the wonderful Mr Johnson, I’ll be flabbergasted. Again, what a talent! 

But would Derek have pulled it off without the formidable weight behind him in these same pages of the equally multi-talented Mr ‘Kenny’? 

I very much doubt it!

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all  - including ‘Edna’ (whoever she/he might be). 

Pauline V Conrad (Mrs).

Penzance

14-12-2019



Moderately entertaining

Readers will be delighted to learn that I have made progress in my mission to reveal the identity of the person writing over several years to this paper using the alter ego of the playwright Joe Orton: Edna Welthorpe (Mrs). 

I’ve discovered that the person has a history, in the best St Ives tradition, of artistic ambition, but due to a profound lack of artistic talent, failed miserably as a painter. 

Ooooh! isn’t that nice Conservative Mr Kenny quite a card!  Always keen to embrace trivia, last week he was going on again about a missing ‘e’ - but it’s true! - from a name. Breathtaking in its sheer pointlessness but moderately entertaining.

I’ve long been baffled why Mr K is a Conservative - aside from forelock-tugging - until I realised he’s a member of what Mr Marx (Karl, not Groucho) categorised as the class lumpenproletariat (Google it). 

‘Don’t shoot the messenger’ goes the aphorism, but I do think in Mr K’s case it would be but a great kindness to him - and certainly to the rest of us!

Next time I put pen to paper, I hope, with the Editor’s permission, to reveal the person behind our Edna! Watch this space and ignore any other claims to knowledge of her/his identity.  Fake fake news!

Pauline V Conrad (Mrs).

Penzance

4-1-2020

The St Ivean  - founded in 2003 - is about to reappear. Watch this space!

Three art initiatives that put Tate St Ives to shame

John Kampfner, who is the chief executive of the Creative Industries Federation, writes in last week's Financial Times Weekend (2/3 September), that director of Hull's year as City of Culture Martin Green's 'proudest stat is that, according to audience surveys, in 2017 alone nine out of 10 residents of the city have experienced art of some sort'.

 Mr Kempfner also says that Margate's Turner Contemporary gallery (which he chaired and help found) 'has transformed the town'. The same can be said of Folkestone's contemporary art triennial.

 Can Tate St Ives claim to come anyway near these three wonderful examples of art enhancing locality. I think not.

Empty homes in Penwith

Penwith has 462 empty homes, according to statistics (2007) from the Empty Homes Agency. Properties owned by private landlords account for 409 and the rest are owned by housing associations. 239 have been empty for more than six months.

The agency says that Cornwall has a total of 6280 empty homes. ...more>

BNP near me?

BNP near me?

Hitler's BNP membership leaked

BNP Members: the far right map of Britain

BNP Members: interactive map

BNP in Cornwall

According to the BNP's membership list, the party has 41 members in Cornwall - in North Cornwall and in Truro, Camborne/Redruth, Hayle, Penzance, Marazion and Falmouth...

Police officers among BNP members listed on web

Searchlight

Dogs on beaches 8

Out of season the beaches in St Ives are becoming canine latrines. But why should dog owners bother finding a more suitable place when there's the whole of Porthmeor available? Perhaps Penwith should erect notices reserving the use of the beaches for dogs and their owners, allowing the rest of us access only at certain times of day.

Island path needs attention

The footpath at the back of the Island needs urgent attention. After rain, several sections flood and become impassable because of rainwater or mud. So people climb onto the sides - quite risky on the seaward side -wearing them down and thus extending the area of mud. The other day I saw an elderly woman standing on the flooded path ankle deep in water and looking lost.

'Beautiful' town hailed in New York newspaper

TIMES are unquestionably hard and almost every day, the financial markets bring us further gloomy news.

So it's good to hear that our transatlantic cousins rate the far west of Cornwall and St Ives in particular as the 'UK's last great bargain'.

Writing in the New York Post, Alex Robertson Textor says American visitors to London 'have collected many a horror story'.

"It is perversely therapeutic to catalogue the outrageous prices for things: $50 for breakfast, $250 for a grubby shoebox of a hotel room and $8 for a single ride on the Tube," he writes.

But Cornwall is a 'must-visit' which remains relatively affordable for Americans and St Ives is in 'the first tier of beautiful Cornish seaside towns, an art colony turned beach town whose narrow streets throng with tourists'... more>

The Big Question: Is there really a Cornish culture, and does it deserve promotion?

Why are we asking this now?

Because Cornwall, the home of surfing, pasties and Rick Stein, has been awarded £350,000 of European Union money to help finance its bid to put itself on the cultural map. Britain's most southerly county has campaigned for almost five years for a Europe-wide scheme to celebrate culture in the continent's often neglected rural areas.

"Rural regions account for about 80 per cent of Europe's landmass and 25 per cent of its population," says Miranda Bird, director of European Regions of Culture Campaign Organisation (EROCCO), which hopes Cornwall will become one of the first Regions of Culture, "yet when you talk to people outside Cornwall, they only think of beaches, pasties and ice cream."

What is the case for regarding Cornwall as a region of culture? ...more>

All fired-up in St Ives

'It has been a sign-writing workshop, a knitting factory, all sorts of things. And now it’s going to be a working pottery once more.” Jack Doherty leans over the wet, mushroom-pale pot he has been working on, holding a razor blade in one clay-covered hand, and with a deft movement makes an incision, like the barb on a strand of wire. The mild-mannered pot suddenly looks disquietingly edgy.
Doherty is the lead potter at the newly-restored Leach Pottery in St Ives, set on a sliver of land between the rushing Stennack River and the road down into town. It was set up in 1920 by Bernard Leach, one of the great potters of the 20th century, with the Japanese potter Shoji Hamada (who stayed for three years). Their ideas came as a shock to a Britain used to porcelain from Stoke-on-Trent: Leach pottery was sturdy and sensuous, using powerful, sombre glazes. The new museum shows a dark dish with a mysterious figure walking towards peaks of dripping glaze; a blue-and-grey quartered bottle decorated with red characters; a simple bowl with a single line around the inner rim... more>

How Mark Rothko became an Anglophile

Even as he won over his fellow New Yorkers, Mark Rothko remained the angry outsider. Yet he fell for the people and town of St Ives – and the feeling was mutual. As a new Tate show opens, our critic profiles a tormented genius... more>

Hawk solution for seagull problem

Hawks could be brought in to scare gulls away from the harbour area of a Cornish resort.
Holidaymakers have complained to officials about being dive-bombed by gulls trying to grab food.
Now, St Ives Town Council is considering bringing back hawks after the idea had some success during a trial in April last year... more>

165 children employed illegally

DOZENS of children have been employed illegally in Cornwall and Devon, according to a campaign to crack down on illegal child employment.

Inquiries by juvenile employment officers and education welfare officers found 20 children being employed illegally in Cornwall and 145 in Devon.

The discoveries were made after two officers made 120 visits to employers in Cornwall during July and August and 26 officers made 625 visits to employers in Devon... more>

Roger Hilton at Kettle's Yard

"Who is this Roger Hilton?" asked NY Arts magazine in 1953. Today you could be forgiven for asking the same question. If Roger Hilton (1911-1975) had been born on the other side of the Atlantic and been active there during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism, he would enjoy the same renown as Pollock, De Kooning, Rothko and co. But in post-war Britain, when US artists were influencing most of his peers, the non-conformist Hilton looked no further than the European tradition.

This he was able to convert into what he termed "a new sort of figuration; one which is more true". Lesser known than other members of the St Ives clan, including Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Patrick Heron, Hilton is the unsung hero of the abstract art to emerge from Cornwall in the 1950s and 1960s...more>

Dig deep: Cornwall mines its past for the future

...The starting-off point also provides a slice of art history. Botallack was the home of British abstract artist Roger Hilton until his death in 1975. His wife, Rose, herself a fine painter whose first solo retrospective showed recently at Tate St Ives, still lives in the couple's granite cottage. Luminaries of the St Ives art scene would congregate at the Hilton house.

It is easy to see what attracted so many artists to Botallack. The engine houses of its mines – "wrought under the sea beyond the memory of any person now living," as once described by the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall – cling precariously to cliffs against which the Atlantic surges with relentless power... more>