On the Disneyfication of Cornwall

Falling out of love with the book, so off-book writing today. An article destined for somewhere or other, haven't decided who gets it yet:


A sign appeared on the road from the RAF airbase into town, just before the Duchess of Wessex was due to arrive. Welcome to our town northallerton THE HEART OF NORTH YORKSHIRE, it proclaimed.

It is under-planted winsomely with primula and pansy and features a silhouetted skyline of the town centre; landmarks - none; chimneys - many. I keep expecting Dick Van Dyck to appear in silhouette. Maybe I'll draw him on, with Mary Poppins hovering under her brolly, feet turned out ten-to-two. And while I'm at it, I'll put a capital letter at the beginning of Northallerton. For it is a town, a Proper Noun, a place name.

I can just imagine the council wondering what to waste our council tax on next "I know," says a middle aged guy with a paunch and a shiny polyester suit from Burtons circa 1994: "Let's reinvent the town, let's get the image consultants in."

The image consultants invite the boring civil servants to a meeting. They have packet sandwiches and talk about blue-skying ideas, running them up the flagpole, no-brainers, exciting new concepts. They have a Power-Point presentation. They have a flip chart and new pencils each. In a nutshell, for those of us ho weren't invited: Forget grammar and bugger the Queen's English and just drop capitals willy nilly like you're naming a wine bar. But then add random capitalisation elsewhere like you're alternatively embarrassed and shouting.

Our town is not a brand, not a trendy wine bar or a clothes shop. It is simply a market town in North Yorkshire, the administrative captial of a large county, and while populated mainly by people involved in agriculture, it does not make us so dull we need pepping up with a bit of brand management. Nor so stupid we don't notice bad grammar.

I encountered something similar in Cornwall. I had promised my son a lucky piskie to put in his pocket when he underwent his SATs. Piskie? Pixie? "Where are all the pixies?" I asked my friend, a self-confessed Cornish girl born and raised, after four days' fruitless searching.

She helpfully advised me it was the backlash against the perceived Disneyfication of Cornwall. They wouldn't want people to think it was all pasties and pixies, oh no. So no pixies then (still a fair few pasties, I notice, but less eating them in the street than in Stockton-on-Tees where it is the local past-time, children are weaned on corned beef pasties). What next? I rant. No haggis or kilts or shortbread or whisky in Scotland? No leprechauns or Guinness or shamrocks or whiskey in Ireland? No leeks and dragons and funny black hats in Wales? No puddings in Yorkshire? No buns in Bath? No pork pies in Melton Mowbray? I could go on (and on and on...)

In a time when we are jealously guarding our foodie heritage and putting AOC-type labels on regional specialities with gay abandon, our tourist boards and councils are wasting time and money and effort dumbing down regional variety and character with their ham-fisted bureaucracy running wild.

It's not Disneyficiation, it's years of lore and legend and tradition and tales and quirks specific to each place, be it a country, a county, city, town or village. Stamped out by people looking for a 'project', something to validate their wages, short hours, long holidays, boundless expense claims and hours idling by the coffee machine with Wendy from Accounts, or Gavin from IT, as the case may be.

Rant over. I'm cross. I may even write to hambleton district council or even north yorkshire county council or perhaps william hague about this. Just as I'm trying to teach my seven year old son the rudiments of grammar and the peculiarities of our lovely language, it's all stuffed up for me. And these signs are now on every road in and out of the town now, not solely for Sophie's benefit then, I wonder if she noticed?