Our friends at KernowCalling took some flag action at St Just Feast at the weekend.
I hate to look out on Christmas day for example and see that flag flying.
Of course, the usual troll types are responding and talking with great authority on subjects they know nothing about, as is their wont.
Anyway, ober da chaps!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=543636585649739&set=a.425124334167632.118612.420246471322085
Some weeks ago, Charles Saxe Coburg-Gotha or ‘Windsor’ as he likes to call himself, aka The Duke of Cornwall, very ‘kindly’ sent a cheque, for an undisclosed amount (£500 according to An Helghyer’s sources) to the people raising money to erect a statue in memory and honour of the countless miners who lost their lives or suffered debilitating illness from their work underground in the St Just and Pendeen districts.
Now, the good people of St Just and Pendeen have, for years, been doing all they can to raise money to have made and erect this fine statue.
It is expected to cost around £40,000 and they, through various auctions, public events etc have raised thousands towards it but are struggling to reach the target.
My point, is this: I find it a bit sick that the Duke of Cornwall couldn’t have coughed up the remainder in order for this statue, which was first mooted in 2000, to be made.
Since the creation of the Dukedom in 1337, the successive Dukes have made a pretty penny out of Kernow over the years, with Charles being the latest leech.
For all the Duchy of Cornwall’s contemporary talk of a ‘Private estate’, anyone with an ounce of historical knowledge knows this to be blatantly not the case. (see here for more info)
In terms of why this is relevant to mining and a miners’ statue is as follows: for a five hundred year period, ‘tribute’ or ‘coinage’ was levied against the tinners of Cornwall by the successive Dukes of Cornwall. This meant vast sums of money worked for, by Cornishmen in blood and sweat, leaving the country and going into the pockets of the gad-about Dukes to lead excessive and lavish life-styles.
It has been worked out, that in today’s money, the revenue from tribute over the five hundred year period it lasted, is around £20 billion.
Even after tribute had ceased, vast sums still poured (and still does) from Cornwall to the Duke.
Edward Albert Saxe Coburg-Gotha (Edward VII) was Duke of Cornwall from 1841 until he became King in 1901. At 19, his wealth from the Duchy stood at, in today’s terms, £60,000,000. Huge amounts of Duchy income were spent on his gambling and the debts there accrued. In 1847, whilst the Cornish men, women and children from whom the spoils were drawn, were dying in the streets from starvation, the Duke was living it up, sailing down the Nile, accompanied by an entourage of boats containing some ten thousand pints of beer, three thousand bottles of champagne and four thousand bottles of claret!
And so to today. Ol’ Charlie can only spare a donation. You’d think that out of some sort of thought for the common man, whom over the centuries has created the wealth and paid for the homes this peculiar man now enjoys, he might see his way to shelling out forty grand (a paltry sum) in order to honour some of the bravest men who ever lived (and who actually knew what a hard day’s work was!).
Alas no. After all, he’s only the head of a Private Estate, isn’t he?
Today this picture came my way:
Broken Holed stone - Carn Kenidjack
Natural ‘England’ an unelected quango, are devastating the moors of West Penwith with their “Higher Level Stewardship” ‘conservation’ grazing regime. This means fencing, cattle grids and horse gates where hitherto there were open spaces and open roads. Once you add the enormous and potentially dangerous longhorn cattle into the mix, our beloved and pricelessly historic landscape, suddenly becomes a no-go area.
NE did a deal with certain farmers, who were then able to graze cattle upon the open and public spaces of the West Penwith moors. £27,000 p.a. covers them to let loose leviathan-like cattle to graze but also to intimidate. It has already been stated the cows could be deadly if with young.
Longhorn rubs on a standing stone
NE say: “Left alone the moors will continue to scrub over, reducing both biodiversity and historic interest features while denying future generations the experience of accessing and enjoying them.”
But the NE cattle on the Penwith moors have so far discouraged walkers and riders (a drop as much as 75%), dislodged three standing stones and churned the country into a morass (along with their four-wheeled counter-parts/owners). So how does that sit with NE’s lofty assertions?
It has been a disaster from the start, with more BS being fed to the Cornish and the only winners being the farmers who graze the cattle.
Overall, having a dictatorial quango named Natural England operating in Cornwall, smacks of all that is imperialistic and abusive, as does the utterly inexusable English Heritage. Neither, for all their talk, have the least respect for Cornish heritage, history or her people.
NE are even ‘crowing’ over a successful chough season – “Natural England is delighted to have been involved with this successful species recovery project over the last ten years. We’ve worked with farmers around many miles of the Cornish coast and used Environmental Stewardship to encourage the right habitat for the choughs to feed and breed and it’s great that this work is yielding such encouraging results.”
How could we have ever managed without you NE?
So the broken men an tol in the picture at the top of the article, may or may not have been caused by NE’s cattle. It’s a long way off the beaten track for someone to go with malicious intent however.
These stones and all others have stood for millenia and but for Victorian fiddlings, have stood so since.
Is it right that cattle should destroy what is precious to so many for the sake of a smug unelected quango and the bank accounts of the few?
You and I can’t even touch Stonehenge, so why is it ok for Cornish heritage, which is as old and important to be so dismissed?
For more info visit: http://www.savepenwithmoors.com/
An Helghyer 