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

I'm from a city that has been decimated by airbnb.

Loads of tourists are inconsiderate arseholes.

My peak tourist moment was when their bloody bus parked over the entrance to my building partially on double yellow lines and blocking out the residents parking spot so I had to lug an entire weeks worth of supermarket shopping from a much more distant parking space and the people waiting to get back on the bus couldn't even do me the favour of keeping out of my way as I traipsed through them heavily laden for the third time.

Still cross about it and I sold that flat 8 years ago!

"Incomers are fine, as long as they then don't want to spend all their time criticizing our ways"

Blimey.

In our (Zone 2) London community, I don't know a single person who was actually born here. Yet it's the most 'community-minded' place I've ever lived. Constant WhatsApp group that pinged so much I had to turn it off. If a cat goes missing, everyone is out searching. Somebody needs something - they ask on the WhatsApp and will have multiple offers or suggestions. People leave things out for others to take or constantly give things away free via the chat. Elderly are checked on. All the teens babysit or if jobs for neighbours. People host open coffee mornings or garden parties. Everyone talks to everyone. People settle here from across the world, never mind the U.K. Yet, apparently, we are aloof and unfriendly in London. Hmmm... What I would say, is that nobody would ever use a phrase like 'our ways.' Nobody thinks they own the place and thank god for that. Change is inevitable in communities. Embrace it or get left behind.

I find this attitude so weird, london is the biggest tourist destination in the country, we’re used to tourists, we have the same issue with housing, over crowding etc, I don’t know why some Cornish people act like Cornwall is the only place to experience tourists when many places experience the same.

...our way of life, the slower do it drekly way, the cockerels that crow, the cows that roam the moorlands, the clocks that chime, the church bells that ring in the villages....
You picked one tiny bit of my post to try and make it look like an unreasonable thing for us to ask. Yet all those things I have listed above are actual things people moving here have tried to change.

A lot of the rest of the post was about community and how we all work together, yes we go out looking for lost cats, lost birds, lost dogs, lost children because at the moment we still have a bit of a community. That's what we want to survive through the over tourism.

Visited a few times. Most times we loved it, but the last couple of times we've been (twice in 3 years) we've found the locals to be so rude and horrible to tourists. Some of them really make it clear they don't want you there.

I also found it to be completely overpriced comparative to other seaside places down south. Lots of areas were starting to look unkept and in need of a lick of paint. And to top it off it rained loads.

We said we wouldn't return for quite a while. The locals can keep the place to themselves for me 🤣

Quite. Cornwall is starting to feel like it’s run by the League of Gentlemen. Give me my zone 3 London local area any day. Our WhatsApp group is so welcoming to everyone, including Ukrainian refugees and people from all over.

If I was a decent open-minded person from Cornwall (they must exist!) I would be really annoyed with some of my neighbours on this thread.

The Notting Hill carnival is hell for locals. Visitors (maybe even from Cornwall) use their gardens to shit and piss in. Vile idiots exist everywhere.

It doesn’t however lead to fear and loathing of all ‘incomers’.

On a more serious note, my parents would love to visit Cornwall. They have never been and no longer can travel abroad as they are in their eighties and in poor health. They love UK holidays and really loved Norfolk last year.

I was considering taking them to Cornwall after my final kid goes to university this year. But after this thread, I definitely won’t. Especially as they are Asian and would not be welcomed by many.

Well such is life. Things are changing everywhere. The world is a different place now. Change is not unique to Cornwall, nor is community.

The League Of Gentlemen is what I was trying to remember @DontGoThereYet ! Thank you 😊

I live in the City of London along with around 9000 other people - we have/had (I'm not sure of the exact figures now) around 500,000 'incomers' turning up every day because they work here. We still chat in the Post Office, give directions to everyone who asks and help our neighbours carry things up steps and so on - we have a huge number of local community projects too (and an awful lot of churches).

I don't use Whats App but I have friends from Peru, Malaysia, Korea, the Phillipines and Australia as well as all over Europe, and everybody gets along just fine. The 'selfish, myopic and rude' comment seems more than a little pot and kettle to me 🤨

Honestly, I would just take them, I am here now and we are having a lovely time, locals have been really nice. No traffic queues where we are either.

Thanks. Yes it’s such a beautiful place. And a lot of it is flat and easy to explore. I think I live in a bubble though where people generally welcome diversity. The thoughts going on in the minds of locals (judging from this thread) is definitely putting me off.

Amazingly, London is also full of unique culture and history. Our waiting staff also expect to be tipped. We also get annoyed when tourists cause travel carnage by forgetting to pack their common sense, and position themselves stupidly (don't stand about with your luggage discussing your route at the bottom of escalators, and please: READ the signs, stand on the RIGHT, let people pass on the left!). We also get annoyed when folks come to our famous streets and use them as urinals. And if you think outsiders buying in Cornwall is affecting prices for locals: try renting a flat on a barista's salary anywhere further toward the centre of London than zone 5. Why so many folks in Cornwall think these issues are unique to their corner of our green and pleasant land is just baffling. There's a mix of arsholes and angels pretty much everywhere, really.

I think you're right. Go back to Norfolk, or maybe the Suffolk coast? We're a mixed race family and we've found everyone friendly and welcoming there.

We have previously been to southwold, framlingham, aldeburgh etc and the less touristy bits, though my parents haven’t. Good idea!

On the contrary, I am white and I make a particular point of engaging non-white families cycling or walking in my local area if they look a bit lost. They have made the effort to come here, and should feel welcome. And the path maps are not brilliant. I also try to explain the landscape, how it was shaped by the mining, and where they can see what life was like 100 years ago. We sometimes forget how fast the world has changed, and that less than 150 years ago, families paid a penny a day for basic schooling, to be taught to read and write, and that the cleverest neatfingered girls who got maths would become seamstresses, which was a highly skilled occupation.

@PaulineG1990 please tell me you’ve got a top box?! I’d be really disappointed you’re not a top box wanker, as we affectionately call them.

It was quite entertaining during the pandemic how certain people who didn't declare their earnings (nothing wrong with only taking cash, but you should still declare it) to avoid tax and CMS payments found themselves without support. Serve them right!

How many second homes in Cornwall do you actually have @PaulineG1990 ? I do know someone with three, plus a grand house in Devon and a house in Chelsea. They are all investments, otherwise known as places to park surplus cash safely. None are let out.

We only have the two properties. We use one in the school holidays and the other one at Christmas. When we go down at Christmas it’s like a ghost town though. So many empty properties.

Most people who live in London choose to live there, if they don't, they'd have moved out long ago. Cornwall is being changed against the wishes of Cornish people. That's the difference. Londoners are buying large swathes of it up and turning it into a theme park for the wealthy, and the Cornish people are just treated as "help", servants for the wealthy interlopers.

You’re right of course! People who live in London can just up and leave, we don’t have any responsibilities or commitments or ties to the place. Whereas the folk in Cornwall are DETAINED there, destined to be treated as ‘the help’. Look at the big fence stopping them from leaving!

…… because of people like you.

Firstly, on many accounts I agree with some of what you’ve said. I grew up in cornwall, now live in Bristol, and return regularly with my family to stay with my parents who run self catering cottages on the Lizard Peninsula where I grew up.

I agree some of the Cornish could be awful to tourists during Covid and I regularly moaned to my parents about it. But I also saw numerous instance of people being absolutely vile to locals. I went to a local handmade chocolate shop and witnessed one family very politely asked to wait outside as there were their maximum numbers in the shop at the moment only to be subjected to a torrent of abuse. Lots of my friends who run or work in tiny restaurants there spoke of nights when business was non existent due to people not turning up for their bookings, having not bothered to let them know - hard when they were already operating on reduced capacity. Cornwall has one main intensive care unit and for the entire of lockdown around 70% of intensive care beds were taken up by people from outside Cornwall who had broken rules to travel, and brought covid with them. This wasn’t just a few and of course it has bred a bit of resentment. The county doesn’t have a great infrastructure and sadly can be brought to its knees easily.

I’m in Cornwall at the moment and yesterday I witnessed people burying their fag butts and other rubbish in the sand and walking away, as well as one man angrily berating the lifeguard for the fact there was less beach than in the pictures (didn’t realise tides existed). Today I sat having breakfast in a popular cafe that has notices all over its website and social media saying people need to book, and a board outside saying full today, and still loads of families have come in and had a go at the teenage waitress for the fact they are too full to accommodate them.

No, it’s not all tourists fault. But I can also fully understand the frustration from the locals. And no tourists shouldn’t need reminding about decent courtesy and manners, and it’s great that you don’t. But some people really do!

This is absolute nonsense!! They wouldn’t be treated any differently except by a few bigots which you get everywhere.