This is Cornwall now. Not the cream tea, surf and sunshine Cornwall but the harsh reality of survival that many people in Cornwall are enduring. The towns of Camborne, Pool and Redruth are unrecognisable to the tourists that come here. No-one would think that these places are actually in Cornwall, without the ubiquitous backdrop of a blue sea, but they are and they are some of the poorest areas, not only in Britain but in Europe.
(photograph purloined from http://www.cornwallforever.co.uk)
The C.P.R. Tryptych (2)
“Well Cornish lads are fishermen and Cornish lads are miners too
But when the fish and tin are gone what are Cornish boys to do?”
(Graffiti written after closure of South Crofty mine, Pool, from the song Cornish Lads, Roger Bryant 1994)
C.P.R.
Camborne, Pool and Redruth
C.P.R.
Cornwall Portrayed Realistically
Long gutted of its finest minds
Its life-force forced away
The wheals now at a standstill
Winding gear wound down
Observe the tired old buildings
Flickering between the ages
Once home to grand design
Power-dressed granite in miniature
Long-discarded non-conformist chapels
Once-removed but not too showy
(Like footballers were in the seventies)
Now home to discounted mattresses
And cross-trainers not cross-adherents
Glimmer towns, rusted, shuttered up
Shorting out and desperate for money
(The WD40 that comes with investment)
Window ledges, dusty with inactivity
Dingy nets and Sports Direct shrouds
Hide the squalor and abandoned pride;
Where Hope wears a grubby hi-vis vest.
What are Cornish boys and girls to do?
What is left for their children;
And their children’s children?
This century leaves them bereft
With shit wages and toxic rents
Sporadic and seasonal jobs
But never a glittering career
Not even a matt-finished one
‘Jobs for life’ has a different meaning
When it’s just work that keeps you alive
Where disability is seen as a career move
Grafting hard for that orange bus-pass
The only growth industry is the foodbank
Or go to Maccy Ds in your tracky-bs
Eating food you don’t have to cook
Because cooking requires fuel
And you can’t have them both
Given insubstantial, fly-by-night jobs
Filling gaps in the gig economy
Without pensions, sick pay or any hope
Of moving on, of betterment.
“Just be grateful you have a job”
Servitude, serving the ungrateful rich
And despised for being just who you are.
You might not work the Great Flat Lode
But you’ll make a great flat white.
© graylightfoot