Cury & Gunwalloe’s Banner Dedication

The new Cury & Gunwalloe OCS Banner in all its glory

Cury & Gunwalloe Old Cornwall Society held their Dedication Service for their new banner at the Cury Village Hall on Saturday morning 7th August. 

President of Cury & Gunwalloe Priscilla Oates welcomed the Cornwall Federation President, Karin Easton and her husband Chris, who is also President of Perranzabuloe Old Cornwall. Ivor & Lyn Corkell from Camborne OCS, Len Sheppard, Federation Publicity Officer for over forty Old Cornwall Societies and Chair of Newquay OCS together with Newquay’s banner bearer William Emmett, Colin & Teresa Roberts of Mullion OCS with their Standard Bearer Valda, Priscilla representing London Cornish Old Cornwall Society and the Federation Banner Bearer, Charles Skinner. Unfortunately, Cury & Gunwalloe’s Banner Bearer, Samuel Shaw was unable to be present.

Before the dedication Members from each of the Societies present explained what the symbols on their banners represented. For our new banner Penelope Oates who set the Committee in the right direction described ours. Our colours are blue, yellow and green. On the banner two different blues represent the sea and the sky which surround our parishes, the yellow for the sun and the corn we grow, the green represent our parishes. Being two different parishes, it was not the easiest task to design what we were going to put on the banner to represent both villages. However, they managed to find symbols to represent both villages. The symbols represent our two villages both named for their Saint. The iconic Church for St. Winwalloe at Gunwalloe and the Wayside Cross of St. Corantyn of Cury. The Chough represents our Old Cornwall Society and our future. The sheaf of Corn for our farms and the pilchards for the past importance of the fishing industry.

Our dual Society Member, Rosemary Hawking embroidered it for us, Rosemary is a trained Ecclesiastical embroiderer it is all handmade and took about four hundred hours of work! A big thank you to Rosemary.

Priscilla then introduced the Rev. Paul Benney who grew up in Cury and Paul reminisced on his days at Cury and said how he remembers the various performances that used to go in the Village Hall like the pantomimes etc and his first performance was with the Sunday School Anniversary on the stage there.  He said he remembers very well one Chapel Harvest Festival when they had two big fish hanging down one each side of the altar, how things have changed. Paul will shortly be leaving us to go to a new Parish in St. Austell. Canon Shane Griffiths blessed the banner and said that although not Cornish himself he has always felt very welcome during his 14 years as Vicar at Mullion, Cury & Gunwalloe, his wife however three days before they moved to Cornwall traced her family through the ages to Mullion,

Karin Easton Congratulated Cury & Gunwalloe on the banner and said it was the first meeting she had been to since January 2020 when she attended St. Ives for their Centenary celebrations and thanked us for inviting her and her husband to our special day. Charles Skinner Federation Banner Bearer said it was an honour to be a Banner Bearer and read out what he would have said to Samuel if he had been present. Ivor Corkell did the customary roll call at the end of the meeting before we all sat down for a pasty lunch.

Rosemary Hawking will be at our September meeting to answer any questions we have about the banner and also we hope Samuel will be able to attend as well before he goes to University.

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