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Mr Hamhead wrote: Hello...remember me?
A funny old thing this Cornish Minority status...not sure what it means to those of us over the border from England....except we (or should I say, the Cornish) are now a minority. I am not Cornish born but have grown up down here and encompassed the culture. I do not claim Cornwall to be Celtic...in fact I hate the term...but I do think there is something different down here. As a visitor you might struggle to find that something as most of the people you will come across are outsiders like myself. Down from London or the Midlands to open a tea shoppe or a gastro pub..But delve deeper and you will find a strong sense of place...
It's not all about speaking the old language or flying the St Pirans Flag...it's about belonging to somewhere. I often wonder if other counties (Note...Cornwall is not a county, it is a Duchy) have that same belonging? My family and I are all from Essex...not the TOWIE part but the green fields of north west Essex where they farmed for generations. Is there a culture there still like there is in Cornwall? I can't find it if there is....Look on the internet and you will come across stories from Cornwall, songs, music, dance...I can't find that in Essex.
So don't think that just because you have been to Cornwall and bought a teatowel with a Celtic knot pattern on it that you have a bit of the culture...you haven't. You have a bit of tourist tat derived from Victorian romanticism.....and the same goes for a lot of the Cornish nationalism. It's a romatic idea that we are a different nation of people derived from the Celts....but what about all the other incomers that have arrived in the 2000 years since the Celts? At the end of the day it is not so much where you were born as how much you to to be part of the place. I am proud of my Essex roots but I am also glad to be part of Cornwall.
Hello Mr. H. I follow you on F/B basically for your photos ;)
well I find Cornwall a great source of history, the landscape defines its people and I want to learn more. It is not just about its stones and circles but for that marvellous eerie landscape of ruined engine houses, for its 'eccentrics', Reverend Hawker the vicar of Morenstow, and Daniel Gumb. Finding the gravestone engravings of Gumb at Linkinhorne Church was a bit like finding the grail.... Also I should not actually fling the word 'celtic' around, as it means to me something different. Saints and monks travelling along the coasts from Ireland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany are to me the reason why I use the word, it is that distinction of the difference between the old Celtic church and the roman one. Though I have to say that Gumb carved beautifully in a 'celtic' fashion....
I have actually come to see Cornwall as a 'separate place', its mineral wealth has scarred the ground and rounded its history, so that we have separate charters from the 12th century to protect the rights of the tin miners, giving that freedom which perhaps defines the thinking of today, the independent medieval Stannary Parliament and Courts which marked out the ordinary rombustious tinner folk from the ruling classes. Myth and folktales go hand in hand in the stories of Cornwall... and reading round the books is interesting.
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