A great day to celebrate being Cornish me 'ansome
Cornish flags flying and waving, a piper playing, crowds gathering to parade the downs across the beach and back again to Crooklets beach and the surf club for tea and chatter. A great way to celebrate St Pirans Day, the patron saint of Cornwall which isn’t actually until Tues the 5th March, but having it at the weekend means it draws a bigger crowd.
This annual walk is organised by Vicko (Peter Vickery) of Bude Surf Life Saving Club. We are the most northerly town in Cornwall, but have one of the most spectacular beautiful routes of all the parades throughout the county.
I wrote about the meaning of the flag in a post two years ago for anyone who is interested, but won’t repeat myself here . Significance of the black and white cross on the cornish flag
Nostalgia and pride in being able to say I’m Cornish, stirs up an interest every year in colloquial words seldom heard nowadays, but also in the revival of the true Cornish Language. My exhibition last year was titled “Mordros”, the Sound of the Sea. I have been wracking my brains to come up with a title for this years exhibition and because I couldn’t better it, thought of calling it “Mordros II” . But you can’t beat a bit of brainstorming and asking around and the one I like the most is “Spyrys a Mor” which translated is “Spirit of the Sea”. This is very apt for my paintings,
There are several local words I remember which I think are just peculiar to Cornwall. One is ‘sowpig’ which is a woodlouse. ‘cheel’ a youngster, ‘ansome lovely, ‘furse’ gorse, ‘scat’ break, ‘proper’ good and of course ‘Dreckly’ cornwall’s equivalent to Manana, do it later.
More old cornish dialect can be see here List of Cornish dialect words”