Pendennis Point of View column (From Falmouth Packet)

Pendennis Point of View column

4:00pm Sunday 24th February 2013 in News

As we were saying . . . it sometimes seems that little has changed down the decades, at least concerning local news issues.

In other ways, though, a great deal about Falmouth-Penryn has changed, in a comparatively short space of time. Looking back, has there ever been such a transformational quarter-century for the area?

Letting my imagination wander, I sometimes look around me for everything different that my father, who died in 1990, would notice if he were to return now.

He would immediately be struck by the thousands of students in the area, along with the vast new uni complex at Tremough and those huge wind turbines on the skyline.

He would blink in disbelief at such a busy local railway line, with the trains full and frequent.

He would stare across Falmouth harbour and think that half the Docks had disappeared – with the Empire and King’s wharves now no more – but then he might see a cruise ship or two, with hundreds of passengers swarming ashore.

And he couldn’t help but notice how much more vibrant, more alive, the whole waterfront area has become, especially with Events Square and the National Maritime Museum.

Then there is the Penryn by-pass . . . and the superstores – Asda, Sainsburys, Lidl.

To say nothing of runners, runners, runners, sometimes every 100 yards or so. Plus people walking along with glowing little rectangular things in their hands or pressed to their ears (with the internet and email, Twitter, Facebook etc etc all unheard of just 23 years ago, of course).

But then my Old Man could turn to the Packet. After the shock of seeing it printed in colour, he might notice a photo of Geoffrey Evans as Mayor – and conclude that some things do indeed never change!

By Mike Truscott