Sick of some Cornish people bleating on as though they are the worlds only tourist destination

[Endlesssummer2022]

Just read the article below and found a few gems such as these:

’ have you ever wondered where the local people live? Or have you noticed that many of your holiday neighbours are recognisable in the narrow lanes of the pretty fishing villages because they are the same people you live near in London?’

and…

‘Despite what you may have read, we Cornish do welcome visitors and are happy to share our love of our land with you. But it might help if you do a bit of research – Cornwall is fiercely independent and has a proud and unique history and heritage…* *And try not to be rude to local people. If you’ve been asked to not drink from a glass bottle on the beach, there is a reason for that. Don’t forget to tip waiting staff. ‘

What patronising bollocks. So Londoner’s (as those are apparently the only people who visit Cornwall) are so untraveled and boorish we need to be told not to be rude to people, pay tips, not to smash glass bottles in sand, that we’ve bought all of their houses, that it’s ‘their’ land and we’re the ones who are rude?

I’d already decided I wouldn’t go back there after how some of them carried on during Covid but this article has pissed me off. Why would anyone go there when they can go to equally lovely places in the UK/World and not be treated with contempt?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/29/welcome-to-cornwall-please-dont-ruin-it-for-us-local-people

As a non-Cornish person who now lives in Cornwall, I completely agree with you. I'm not a rich, second-home owner either. Just an average, poor South-Easterner who moved to Cornwall for the surf and outdoor lifestyle, stayed for the Cornishman and subsequent children we made.
I encounter a lot of Cornish people who truly believe that the majority of 'upcountry' folk all take their holidays in the motherland. They genuinely seem to struggle to believe that there are lots of beautiful, interesting places around the UK and that they too are also free to visit them.

I don't understand why people say things like, "don't come" and "I'm with the Cornish" Surely the point of the post (it's in the title,) is people bleating on about Cornwall as if nowhere else has these problems. Nobody is denying the problems, just denying the uniqueness or otherwise of Cornwall in being victim to them.

But that’s what she just said!!! Did you read the reply?

It’s like when I go to my local country park. I’m very attached to it and I pick up litter because of that. Probably the only reason beautiful places aren’t full of litter and poo bags hanging on trees is because of the locals caring for their area.

Oooh, reading this in Cornwall. On holiday. And a Londoner! (Well, not by birth, wrong vowels, but after 25 years more Londoner than anything else).

Any local we have bumped into has been fine. Some slightly grumpy, some charming. Probably, on balance, nicer than back in London, but that’s a low bar 😉.

That guardian article is just clickbait surely. It’s a difficult position - like London, the tourists are flipping annoying, but the economy needs then. Rough with smooth.

Without the income from tourism though Cornwall would have serious problems, it it its USP, like many other tourist hotspots.

Hear Hear @crackofdoom

Would you like our Hen and Stag weekends?

York locals fume as leafy suburban streets overrun with noisy stag and hen parties | UK | News | Express.co.uk

Locals (everywhere) hate tourists.

Nothing special about the Cornish.

Newquay also has a nice line in stag and hen weekends 😱

This all makes me very sad. I'm from the SE, have been going to Cornwall for years, first with my aunts and uncles and now with my own children. We've never had anything but lovely treatment when we've been there, I can't recall a single incident of rudeness.

We're booked again for October and looking forward to it, but I feel very unwelcome reading this thread and I really don't want to feel like that, I love Cornwall. I've been called an emmet many times by a Cornish friend in jest but I guess I didn't realise that tourists were so widely hated.

Given some of the behaviour listed above I'm not surprised but it seems to be anyone that's disliked, not just yobs.

I'm of Cornish heritage. 3 generations of my family still live there, though I've never lived there. I hate the place. People are so insular, completely void of aspiration, quick to point fingers, and hugely racist. Plus, if the weather is shit, as it often is, there's fuck all to do. And it's extremely expensive.
I don't understand the hype.
None of the problems the Cornish experience are unique. If anything, they are lucky they only encounter some of these issues seasonally.

I lost all respect for the Cornish when they behaved like lunatics during the pandemic. One woman was on telly going on about how ‘ only the Cornish understand the sea’ and no one outside of Cornwall should visit cornwall… It’s an island, we are and island nation. A fair few of us understand how the sea works. Irritating people. Ridiculous jumpers.

Nice try but as you know tourists in London and Cornwall are not evenly distributed. So just as there are more tourists in say Trafalgar Square than say Mile End there are more tourists in Padstow or St Ives than there are in say St Dennis.

What matters is the impact on local infrastructure so whilst the tubes, hospitals, road networks in London are designed for 9 million people but have to cope with an additional 20 million tourists, the infrastructure of Cornwall is designed for 560k people but has to cope with an additional 4 million tourists. Plus the majority of London tourists are without their cars whereas the majority of tourists in Cornwall are with their cars.

Its not fair to say "its Londoners". But its unfair to pretend that rural areas cant suffer from excess tourism because its spread over a geographically larger area. Most people who live in cities like the buzz, the people, etc. Most people who choose rural areas dont. If I want hubbub and people I'd not move to Cornwall: if I wanted space I'd not move to London.

A lot of people in London over the age of 45 have HUGE (broadly unearned) wealth from property price inflation - so can afford (eg) an amazing holiday home not through working harder or being smarter, but through a quirk of politics /demographic/policies that they werent instrumental in.

20% of jobs being in the tourist industry is an appalling statistic - these are almost all badly-paid, temporary, no future shit roles. And a fifth of employed people are in these utterly shite jobs, working split shifts, school holidays and weekends for minimum wage. Fine if youre actually AT school. But crap otherwise.

I dont live in Cornwall. Ive been there on holiday once, DC spent most of it in hospital - it was striking how much Saturday-night drug abuse went on, how overstretched the ambulance service was, how reliant it was on (volunteer) first responders to get to you with oxygen to keep child alive during the 5 hour wait for an ambulance.

Edinburgh has so many events all through the year to milk the tourists, they can hardly complain that they come, it's a regular money spinner, the local population avoids the city like the plague during the Festival and Hogmanay, they're there for the tourists.

Sounds horrific!

Tansytea
No, Cornwall isn't unique in suffering from tourist overcrowding, and very few Cornish people believe that. The Lake District and the Scottish Highlands must get it almost, if not equally, as bad, among other places.

The reason it seems that everyone is always going on about Cornwall is that they are! But it's not us, it's the bloody media, they're obsessed with bloody Cornwall and I wish they'd fucking stop!! I mean, how many series does the BBC churn out featuring a middle aged celebrity pottering around Cornwall exclaiming about the loveliness of it all?! It's lazy programming, and it needs to stop. We're overexposed as it is!!

I live in Brighton and we are deep in hen and stag do season, but we get tourists all year round. I don't really mind. Can't imagine it without them really.

English tourists have become ruder, noisier, more ignorant and basically trashier in recent years. They are no longer welcome in many resorts across Europe. Why should Cornwall feel any different about them?
I have relatives in Ireland. Apparently when people there are going on holidays to Spain or the Canaries their main criteria is to avoid areas where the English tend to congregate. It's embarassing really.

We're overexposed as it is

Yorkshire says "Hold my beer"

Sometimes they even take down farmer's fences and make camp fires out of them. They use mountain rescue services like a taxi service instead of an emergency service.

What bollocks. 😂

English tourists have become ruder, noisier, more ignorant and basically trashier in recent years. They are no longer welcome in many resorts across Europe. Why should Cornwall feel any different about them?

Well since a high % of Londoners aren't English it can't be Londoners that are the issue! 😆

When I lived in England, I lived in southwold, which was touristy in the summer. It was hellish in those months. People parked on our driveway several times each summer season, resulting in me being unable to get to work (public transport was dire). Rubbish dumped in and beside our wheelie bin, which was pulled up near my house several metres away from the road. Tourists meandering slowly around town and on the roads meaning it takes twice as long as usual to run to the shop for bread and milk. If that hasn’t sold out.
As many of the houses were second homes and used for air bnb, often there’d be loud parties through the week meaning we’d be kept up the majority of the night and tired for work.
Out usual tidy town would be sprinkled with litter, broken glass etc. Beaches would have broken glass hidden in the sand. Dog poop lined the pavements, only in the high season though. Some holiday makers were just so unnecessary rude to shop staff.

It seemed that usual civil, clean and calm people go away on holiday and turn into complete louts! So I don’t think it’s patronising that article telling people how to behave on holiday, as unfortunately some people do just seem to forget.

I'm English and avoid going to places where the English congregate! Blackpool in the sun is not my idea of fun.

Now there's a town that I feel sorry for!

Anyone getting offended about being asked not to leave bottles on the beach etc. is part of the problem. I also live in an area popular with tourists. The behaviour is astounding.