Old Cornwall Celebrates Gorsedh Kernow 2024 at Callington

Posted on by Federation Of Old Cornwall Societies

Photos courtesy of Ivor Corkell

The Old Cornwall movement played a significant role in ensuring the success of the Gorsedh this year at Callington.

Callington OCS were a key player in the local organising committee and helped plan a week-long series of events for the Esedhvos, as well as the Gorsedh ceremony itself. The ceremony took place on Saturday 7th September at Callington Community College. There was a fantastic array Old Cornwall banners on parade this year, which really added to the spectacle of the event. Redruth arranged for a young person to be their banner bearer which was lovely to see.

Several Old Cornwall members were made bards at the Gorsedh, including Brian Oldham the President of Liskeard Old Cornwall Society, Les Pierce of Callington OCS, and Barbara Tremewan of Perranzabuloe OCS, and are to be congratulated for their contribution to Cornish culture. The President of the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies was included amongst the dignitaries who attended.

The Federation bookstall was in attendance, highlighting the great work done by Old Cornwall in the publishing field.

This year Pol Hodge completed his term as Grand Bard, and Jenefer Lowe was instituted as the new Grand Bard for the next three years. We look forward to working with Jenefer to further strengthen the ties between the two organisations.

Following the ceremony a fantastic tea was provided for the banner bearers including pasties, saffron cake, and splits with jam and cream. All were washed down with copious amounts of tea.

Thanks are due to:-
Callington OCS, and in particular Kathy Wallis, who worked so hard to make everything a success this year.
The Tamar Teasers (the Red Hatters), Callington WI, and the Callington Scouts, for serving teas.
Terry Knight & Ros Hayward for planning, erecting, and staffing the Federation Bookstall.
Priscilla Oates for acting as Banner Marshal.
Ivor Corkell for his role in photographing everything.
All of the Old Cornwall banner bearers who travelled to Callington to ensure that Old Cornwall put on a really good show.

Crying the Neck – Looe OCS

Posted on by Nev Meek

We held our Crying the Neck on Tuesday 27th August, despite the rain. Fortunately it cleared up enough for our ukulele group (miraculously, 9 of them turned out) to play some folk tunes, and local Cornish expert Dr Ken George read the service in Cornish for us. John Little read the English and cut the corn, using the sickle given to Looe OCS by our Past President, Ken Terry. Someone had seen John in the Museum the previous Friday and told him that the sickle should be wrapped in a gold cloth and blessed with spring water, so we found some gold tissue paper and sprinkled the sickle with the Cornish equivalent of Peckham Spring!

The farmer had gone home in disgust as the corn was too wet for his harvester, but it did mean we were spared the dust from tractors going back and forth to the granary. At the time we fixed the date he was confident harvest would be over by the last week in August, but the weather intervened.

We served cider or apple juice and saffron cake to around 30 people, including the musicians, so while we haven’t achieved total authenticity it was the most enjoyable Crying the Neck we have had for years, despite the weather.