Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee!


John Oswin

06 May 2003 12:08

Tourism in St Ives

Looking at your website for the very last time I find your attitude to 'outsiders' in St Ives quite scary.

I have looked at your website most weeks for some time now hoping to pick up a bit of local news/gossip that you used to portray quite well in the early days.  However, these days your site appears to be dominated by just a few 'insiders' talking shite about Doom Bar, Sonic The Hedge Hog and outsiders buying houses in St Ives.

I do believe you actually moved to St Ives from the north and have even bought a house there, so are just as guilty as anyone in stripping St Ives of its Cornish routes.  Believe it or not, people in other parts of the country have even bought houses not in their hometown and have therefore contributed towards spiralling house prices in the past few years.  Surely you couldn't expect St Ives to be the only place in the country where house values haven't increased.

I am seriously considering relocating to St Ives, but your views and your letters page scares the hell out of me. Thank god everyone else who lives down there doesn't share your same idealistic views that St Ives should be a quaint little fishing village full of locals only with absolutely no visitors welcome.

By the way, do you think you would be gainfully employed in your glamorous kitchen job if St Ives had no tourists?

Get over it, St Ives is a beautiful place that people like to visit, even if some of the visitors happen to be Scousers eating chips on the seafront or even Londoners 'driving posh cars'.

Vile Jelly

06 May 2003 18:33

Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion and you're welcome to create and run your own website to give everyone the benefit of the truth ..... as you see it. Go on, no one's stopping you. Or if you don't like what's on my site you can always ignore it and go to all the other interesting St. Ives sites that reflect the world as you want to see it.
 
But to correct a few misconceptions:-
 
All e-mails that get sent get published (assuming they are not illegal or immoral, which has never been the case to date). If you tune into next week's update you will see your own little oeuvre and this reply reproduced as are. As for the site being dominated by 'a few insiders talking shite', well, I can't dictate what gets sent to me. Still, at least it's fairly cheerful and positive stuff which is more than can be said for your contribution.
 
You are correct that I have moved to St. Ives from the North, anyone who has paid attention to the site will know that I have never tried to pass myself off as a 'born and bred' local. You are completely wrong about me owning a house, I have and always will rented a place I couldn't afford anything down here. The fact that I am not originally from St. Ives does not, as far as I'm concerned, disqualify me from sharing in and highlighting the problems faced by locals. By your logic the fact that I am over 18 and not an ethnic minority should disqualify me from being against child abuse and racism.
 
House prices in the area have not 'increased like the rest of the country', they have increased exponentially. They are not far off London prices for what you get but we don't get London wages down here, which is what makes the price differential such a problem.
 
As for scaring you out of moving down to St. Ives, I am mystified as to how such a perspicacious chap who has exposed the sorry sham of Spooky St. Ives can feel intimidated a few non-locals 'talking shite' on the internet. Or do you fear the wrath of cuddly animals such as Sonic The Hedgehog? Anyway, you seem to have developed an inability to see things on the site that don't support your anti-SSI view. Did you perchance miss the items Sad Loser Of The Week and When WhenIs Attack in the news bulletins of 11 April and 18 April (very kindly hyperlinked here for you)? So much for local hostility. What people object to is not 'outsiders' who move down and try to integrate with the community as it is but people who move down and try to re-order the community to suit themselves. The latter has been, I believe, termed economic colonisation. The whole point of colonisation, e.g. USA, Australia, being that it displaces the indigenous population for the benefit of the immigrants.
 
Finally, since the Sloop has been around since 1312 I don't think it can be said to be wholly dependent on tourism. Unfortunately, if there was no tourism in St. Ives a lot of people would love their jobs .... their wonderful minimum wage jobs. But on the other hand, faced with mass unemployment in the county, maybe even Tony and his London jet-set chums would have to get off their ministerial arses and actually do something. As coincidence would have it, I have just returned from the dentist after a spot of dental difficulty. The trip has cost me the best part of a week's wages because I had to go private. I had to go private because the waiting list to get registered with an NHS dentist is so long that the Cambridge University has sent a top research team down from the Theoretical Quantum Physics department to try and measure it. (Apparently, it extends in at least four dimensions and possibly more). As far as I'm concerned 'the money from tourism' issue is just something dragged out to excuse government from the chore of creating stable, long-term employment in Cornwall.
 
So, there.
 
PS. Do you know what an emmet is? (As in literally. Work that out, work out why tourists are given that nickname and then you'll be able to work out exactly how much we'll miss your singular presence).
 
PPS. Had a number of visiting Spookyists down over Easter and the Bank holiday. Was busy in the kitchen most of the time so only managed to get a few brief words in but they seemed alright, they seemed to think I was alright and a reasonable time seemed to be had by all. Which was also alright. And I don't recall any of them getting stoned to death or even savaged by cuddly hedgehogs. So, why not tighten your sphincter and try it yourself?

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