MY mole at county hall tells
me that council leader
David Whalley’s estimate
that there will be up to 300 jobs
lost with the implementation of
the Unitary Authority is wildly
inaccurate.
In fact they tell me that it is
more likely to be over 400 people
who will be going. In the
meantime, I’m also being told that
the chief executive has been
awarded a pay rise by the joint
implementation committee of 30
per cent. This would take her
wage from £170,000 to £200,000 and
chief officers from £120,000 to
£140,000.
Now I’m sure we’ll be told that
these kind of increases are
necessary to attract the right sort
of candidate, but try telling that
to the poor “schmucks” who are
losing their jobs.
I’m sure these huge wage
increases in a time of financial
struggle are a great comfort to
them.

The University of Exeter has
just announced that it is
officially naming the first
building completed at its
Tremough campus in Penryn
after the author Daphne du
Maurier.
Built as part of the first phase
of the development of the
Tremough Campus, which the
University of Exeter shares with
University College Falmouth, the
so-called Daphne du Maurier
building houses the campus
library as well as the University’s
Camborne School of Mines and
Centre for Ecology and
Conservation.
The press release accompanying
the announcement states the
name was suggested by University
of Exeter academics, who say it
reflects the local and international
ambitions of the University in
Cornwall.
Now, excuse me, but the last
time I looked neither Penryn nor
Falmouth had anything to do with
Daphne du Maurier, who lived up
the coast in Fowey.
These academics in their ivory
towers would be better off looking
at the history of Penryn, where
there are plenty of important
historical figures to choose from.
Sons of Penryn include
Lieutenant John Pasco. At the
Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 he was
the signal’s officer on Nelson’s
flagship HMS Victory. He ran up
the famous “England expects...”
signal.
There is also international
traveller Peter Mundy (1597-1667)
whose diaries and journals are
with the British Museum and the
Bodleian Library following his
travels around France, Spain the
Mediterranean, India, China and
the East Indies. He was the last
person from Penryn ever recorded
as seeing a live Dodo, that is until
the academics from the university
put their heads above the parapet!
Or we could even name the
building after some of Penryn’s
more recent sons, councillors John
Ashwin or Len Brokenshire for
instance who both dedicated their
lives to the service of their
beloved town.
And where did I find all this
information so easily? Why from
the excellent Penryn town guide
published by the town council of
course. Perhaps these academics
should have looked here as well
before coming up with such a daft
idea.

A disabled motorist contacted
me this week after being
given a ticket for parking
in a loading bay. Despite putting
his disabled card in the window
he returned to find, as he termed
it, that his car had been
“nobbled”.
A fair cop you might say, but the
74-year-old who has had two major
operations for bowel cancer claims
he had parked to “load” his car
with shopping after helping his
wife in Iceland.
Now I’m not prepared to argue
the ins and outs of whether or not
he was right or wrong.
What did amuse me however
was the police warning he was given. On it was written: “Not ALOUD to park in loading bay.”