President Secretary & Treasurer

Val Moore Nick Bartle 53 Philpotts Road 88 Weka Street Mairehau Miramar Christchurch 8052 Wellington 6022 Ph: (03) 386 1313 Ph: (04) 388 1958 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Web Site: https://.sites.google.com/site/nzcornish N e w s l e t t e r

L y t h e r - n o w o d h o w

American space Bledhen Nowyth Da - Happy New Year rocket was It seems a bit late to be talking about the New found off the Year but I can be forgiven - this is the first coast of Bryher newsletter of 2016 in the Isles of Stories coming out of recently have had Scilly. Although a distinctly nautical theme with a quirky mix of not officially present day news, history and the downright odd. confirmed, it appears that it was part of a SpaceX Falcon 9 In our thoughts unmanned spacecraft that was intended to Just as this newsletter is about to go to press deliver supplies to the International Space news of the magnitude 5.7 Valentine’s Day Station but exploded shortly after take-off from earthquake near Christchurch is breaking. Our Cape Canaveral in June. The large chunk of

thoughts go to all members in the area and how it debris took several months to cover the 6,500 6 must have felt for then to have all those kilometres from its source. memories brought back from 2010 and 2011.

201 Old wreck uncovered Strange flotsam With such a long coastline, Cornwall has become A story hit the TVNZ news on 6 January that famous for its wrecks and maritime disasters. thousands of pink plastic bottles were being The remains of one shoreline mishap have washed up on endured for over a century. w e v r e r Cornish beaches. H The French brigantine Jeune Hortense ran The bottles are aground at Long Rock in Mounts Bay in May believed to come 1888. It was carrying a crew of four, a cargo of from a container 450 head of live cattle and the body of a / m i s washed from the man who had died in France. Rough weather deck of a ship in the drove the small ship onto the beach but they busy international had to wait while the lifeboat, Dora e n v e r shipping lanes that pass close to Cornish shores. with a crew of 13, was drawn overland by horse G The MV Blue Ocean lost a container containing and cart to be launched nearby. Meanwhile the bottles of 'Vanish' but the link has not been ship got so firmly grounded that, even after the officially confirmed. Some were leaking and m i s crew and most of the cattle had been saved, it posed a potential threat to marine wildlife, not to

– proved impossible

mention children and pets on shore.

to refloat it. 4

2 The bottles first appeared at Poldhu Cove which The keel and 4 is owned by the National Trust and volunteers

– some timbers have been collecting the flotsam in an attempt to remain on Long reduce the environmental impact. Rock beach and The bottles were not the first unusual items are usually delivered by the sea. In 1997 another goods covered by sand. container filled with millions of Lego pieces fell off Every few years, when weather conditions are

F e b r u a r y a ship and into the sea. Hundreds of pieces sufficiently rough, the sand is temporarily / washed up on the beaches of Cornwall in 2014. scoured away and the wreck is revealed only to By chance many of the lost toys were ocean be covered again when currents return to themed, so locals started finding miniature life normal. The recent storms uncovered the hulk jackets and octopuses on the beach. in early January, for the first time since July

J a n u a r y 2010.

In November last year a large chunk of an

Search and rescue 771 Squadron had operated since 1974 saving Whilst on a coastal theme, there have been two countless lives flying Sea King helicopters which significant developments in Cornish coastal had been in service years before. search and rescue. A private firm, Bristow Helicopters Ltd., will take In November a new lifeboat began service at over search and St. Ives. It is the first Shannon class lifeboat to rescue functions go on service in Cornwall. The Shannon class is using two Sikorsky an all-weather lifeboat powered by water-jets S-92 helicopters rather than traditional propellers, making it the equipped with the most agile and manoeuvrable lifeboat in the latest search and Royal National Lifeboat Institution’s (RNLI) fleet. rescue technology including night vision, mission The jet boat propulsion provides an NZ link back management and increased on-board medical to the inventor of jet boats, Sir Bill Hamilton. capabilities. Based on its creditable history of carrying out civilian search and rescue since The lifeboat crew, led by Coxswain Rob Cocking, 1971, Bristow has been awarded the national collected the new boat from the RNLI contract for search and rescue operations headquarters in Poole, Dorset. At the end of their throughout the UK working in conjunction with four day voyage they brought the lifeboat just HM Coastguard. Ten bases are being phased in outside St. Ives harbour and demonstrated her over four years with the Cornwall base operating capabilities to hundreds of spectators. The from a new £7 million purpose-built facility at lifeboat is launched across the sands of the Aerohub at airport. harbour using a dedicated Shannon Launch and Recovery System (SLARS) which, to the Add a little Cornish to your kitchen uninitiated, looks like a large very high-tech Rather than provide a recipe in this newsletter, caterpillar tractor and trailer. At the end of a here are some words in Kernewek to name deployment, it collects the vessel from the sea common ingredients used in baking. and delivers it back to the boathouse. Kernewek Sounds like English The cost of the £2.1 million lifeboat was Bleus blew sss flour bequeathed by a long-time RNLI supporter who left the whole of her residuary estate to the RNLI Sugra soo grah sugar for the provision Holan hoe lan salt of a lifeboat. The boat is to be Amanyn amm an in butter named after her, Dehen deh hen cream Nora Stachura. Oy/oyow oi/oi ow egg/eggs The SLARS was part fundraised Frooth syghys froo th see heese dried fruit by £100,000 Margerin margarine margarine donations from the local community and arrived at the station a few weeks ahead of the lifeboat. The list demonstrates two things. To make a noun plural, add -ow at the end of the word so Capable of 25 knots, the new lifeboat is 50% ‘oy’ becomes oyow – eggs. The second is that faster than the vessel she will replace. New Kernewek can ‘borrow’ words from English like technology on board will enable the crew to margerin and koffi (no prizes for guessing what control the vessel from the safety of their seats that means!). which include shock absorbers to significantly reduce the impact of the loadings on the crew Titanium Coxswain Rob Cocking said “The Shannon is a Titanium is a metal we hear about quite often fantastic boat. It is faster and more being used for high tech purposes in spacecraft, manoeuvrable which means that we’ll be able to aircraft, submarines and other military applications. If you play golf you may have clubs reach casualties more quickly. The new that contain titanium, it may lurk in the depths of equipment on board will also make shouts safer your car. The wide range of uses stem from its for our volunteer crew.” high strength-to-weight ratio, low density, More news on the search and rescue front came corrosion resistance and electrical and thermal with the announcement that the Royal Navy 771 conductivity. Squadron, based at Royal Naval Air Station The metal was discovered in Cornwall which as Culdrose near , ceased to provide coastal we all know, is renowned for its mineral riches. search and rescue support for the RNLI around William Gregor was born in Trewarthenick Estate the coasts of Cornwall on 31 December 2015. near Tregony on Christmas Day 1761. Educated 2

at Bath Grammar School, he became interested his family home but in chemistry and then, after two years with a he is also private tutor, entered St John's College, reinvesting in the Cambridge. After graduating he was ordained farm businesses. and got his first living in Devon but in 1873 took The emphasis is on the opportunity of transferring to the parish of doing everything Creed in Cornwall where he lived with his wife, sympathetically and Charlotte, for the rest of his days; in fact until he the plans have died of tuberculosis in 1817. been welcomed by the National Trust, the Wildlife Trust and the He is described as having been “a man of Georgian Society. singular charm of character and possessed of the highest intellectual qualities, though of a most Marcus Evans, listed at 397th on the Sunday modest disposition”. Whilst being dedicated to Times Rich List, owns other houses in London his parish duties, he painted landscapes, was an and Bermuda. He also owns 87.5% of Ipswich etcher of considerable merit, a musician and a Town football club. scientist. He helped to introduce vaccine inoculations to Cornwall and performed accurate Celebrity connections analyses of Cornish minerals. In the process he Another item to add to the list of unexpected recorded the discovery of a new metallic element. links to Cornwall or to your list of topics to start a conversation with “Did you know…?” In 1790 whilst analysing black sand, which he called manaccanite because he first found it in a Dame Kristin Scott stream in Manaccan, he noticed it was attracted Thomas, the actress by a magnet. He soon identified that this was who appeared in The due to the presence of iron closely mixed with English Patient, another ore which he purified into a white Nowhere Boy and lustrous metal that he also named manaccanite. Gosford Park among He published his findings in a number of other notable roles, European mineralogical journals. was born in , Cornwall on 24 May 1960. Her father was a In 1791 a German scientist named Klaproth pilot and lieutenant commander in the Royal isolated the same element and named it titanium Navy's Fleet Air Arm which has a base at after the Titans of Greek mythology. Klaproth Culdrose (see above). It does not take a stretch later acknowledged that Gregor had been the first of the imagination to assume that he was to discover the metal. Gregor had confused the serving there and that Kristin was born at naming of the ore and the metal so Klaproth’s Redruth Hospital which was possibly the closest name of titanium stuck. maternity unit to the base. Gregor (pictured) continued The family did not live in Cornwall for long. While with a successful scientific based in Yeovil, Lt Cdr Scott Thomas was career. Not only was he made tragically killed while flying an exercise over the an honorary member of the English Channel near Portland. Kristin was only Geological Society of London 5 years old. Her mother later married another but he was also a founding Fleet Air Arm lieutenant commander who was member of the Royal himself killed after ejecting from his aircraft off Geological Society of Cornwall. Trevose Head, Cornwall in January 1972. William’s older brother, Dame Kristin was educated a private schools Francis, was High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1788-89 including the elegantly named Cheltenham and MP for Cornwall from 1790 to 1806. Francis Ladies College and, after completing her inherited the family home at Trewarthenick Estate secondary schooling, started training as a drama but died without children in 1815 so the estate teacher in London. She did not excel but after passed to William. When William’s daughter died working as an au pair in Paris and speaking in 1825 the estate passed to a female cousin fluent French she later completed her theatrical and eventually the Gregor family lost ownership. training at the national school in Paris. It is a rather grand house set in grounds She married a French gynaecologist and had 3 occupying about 5 hectares that were landscaped children but is now divorced. She continues to by Humphry Repton with 4 km of frontage onto call France her home. the and 70 hectares of agricultural land. The estate changed hands for £9 million in 2008. She received the OBE in 2003 and the DBE for The buyer, English businessman Marcus Evans, is services to drama in the 2015 New Year’s restoring the estate to its former glory for use as Honours list. She has also been awarded the 3

French Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. The evening was also a great opportunity to catch up will old friends and have a yarn over a Rowing the Pacific cup of tea. Four very brave young women have just completed rowing Christchurch branch across the Pacific The Christchurch branch held a meeting on Ocean from San Saturday 12 December 2015. The President Francisco, California, welcomed 33 members 1 guest from Australia, to Cairns Australia in and 5 guest artists. Apologies were received a bright pink 29ft from 14 more. boat they named The President expressed condolences to Judy Doris. They were the first all-female team to make Wright whose mother had died in Cornwall and the 8,447 nautical mile journey in three legs, wished her a safe trip when she left for Cornwall stopping in Hawaii and Samoa to re-stock and on the following day. maintain the boat. Bruce Moore spoke of his connection with The women, calling themselves the Coxless Crew, Cornwall starting when he met our President Val were raising money to be split between Breast and was taken back to meet his new in-laws in Cancer Care and Walking with the Wounded, a Bideford North Devon. Bruce went on to say that charity which helps women who have been if he didn't live in New Zealand, Cornwall would injured in war. be his next choice. Inspirational leader of the crew, Laura Penhaul, Entertainment took the form of a selection of was brought up in Cambrose between seasonal music and amusing stories. and Redruth and attended Redruth School before heading to Bath University. She gained her The Traditional committee panto this year was master’s degree at Oxford Brookes University and "The Tortoise and the Hare and a rather cunning then worked at the Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. Rat” Dorothy was the narrator, the cast, Frieda, Immediately prior to beginning the preparations Val and Mac. for the marathon voyage she was lead Les told us of things happening in Cornwall over physiotherapist for Paralympics GB. She is a Christmas. keen marathon runner and triathlete. Community carols followed, accompanied by The West Briton newspaper quotes Laura as Heather on her accordion. The day finished with saying “Through my job I have worked with a lot the raffle and afternoon tea full of Christmas of people who have faced and overcome adverse goodies. situations and it has always made me think and inspired me to push myself to my physical limits.” Places mentioned in this newsletter What’s more, she dedicated her row to a close friend’ wife who was diagnosed with cancer when 3 months pregnant with her first baby. She died only months after giving birth. Overdue? A number of members have not yet paid their 2015/2016 subscriptions. If you are one, you will have received a notice with this newsletter. We would hate to lose you but, to be fair on those who have paid, this is your last chance or we will stop sending newsletters. Wellington meeting A group of members and their other halves, eight in all, gathered at Nick Bartle’s home on 16 January to watch the film, Tin, that featured in the last newsletter. Despite its low budget production, everyone appreciated its humour, the plot and the chance to reminisce about Cornwall.

That’s it for this newsletter. All the best, my ‘ansomes!

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