Broadcasts live every Wednesday at 8:00p.m. uk time on Radio Soapbox: http://radiosoapbox.com
In this episode of the Kernow Connection, hosts Shelley Tasker and Mallificus Scott navigate through a lively discussion filled with local updates, personal anecdotes, and historical insights. The show kicks off with a brief chat about the increasing presence of independent candidates in over 300 constituencies, followed by a seamless transition to the Kernow Connection segment. Shelley and Mallificus share their experiences with live radio, the joys and challenges it brings, and the unique connection it fosters with listeners.
Listeners are treated to a fascinating deep dive into the life of Emily Hobhouse, a courageous campaigner from Liskeard who stood up against the British Army, government, and public during the Second Boer War. Shelley's detailed recount of Hobhouse's efforts to improve conditions in concentration camps and her lifelong dedication to humanitarian causes is both enlightening and inspiring.
The episode also touches on recent local news, including the controversial takeover of Trewithen Dairy by a German firm and Cornwall's high ranking in planning applications with the Land Registry. The hosts discuss the implications of these developments on the local community and environment.
Throughout the episode, Shelley and Mallificus share personal stories, from dealing with family illnesses to the excitement of new ventures like Mallificus's rock and roll bed in his van. The show wraps up with a teaser for next week's episode, promising more intriguing discussions and special guests.
[00:00:00]
Unknown:
Standing. So we've over doubled the amount of independents,
[00:00:04] Unknown:
and we're standing in over, over 300 constituencies. Brilliant. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to cut you off there, Pete, because we are literally now gonna end. But brilliant stuff. Thank you so much. And thank you, Jo Wood, for coming on and helping out with the chat as well until Pete made it. I wish you all the luck in the world, Pete, and I'll keep, following your page. And, yeah, fingers crossed. Let's get these independents in. And thanks for all the best, Shelley. Thank you. Thank you very much, Pete. Take care. And Jo, thank you, Jo. We're coming on and helping out with the chat as well until Pete made it. I wish you all the luck in the world,
[00:00:52] Unknown:
Kerno Connection coming up next. Welcome, 1 and all, to the Kernow Connection, your little neural pathway to the southwest of the UK. Cornwall, that is. We're coming live out of radiosoapbox.com. A very, very real radio service. Your hosts tonight will be missus Shelley Casker and missus Lucas Scott.
[00:03:53] Unknown:
Are you there, Shelley? Sorry. Good evening. I was just thinking, shall I say hello or not? Is is it the right moment?
[00:03:59] Unknown:
Good evening. Less volume. Yeah. There we go. A little less volume on the No. That's fine. Good evening, Maleficus. Good evening. And listeners. You're just and listeners. Indeed. Yeah. You've just had a, a quite an informative show, haven't you? You? Oh my gosh. Yeah. He knows his stuff. Doesn't he, Jest? Doesn't he, Jest? Yeah. I'm gonna go back and listen to the lot. Oh,
[00:04:21] Unknown:
that will give me an extra on my download.
[00:04:27] Unknown:
Okeydokey. Well, before we start, Shelley, we should say that we here on the kernel connection reserve the rights to all our words and all our thoughts. We do this simply because it's impossible to reserve the rights to anybody else's, A thought worth bearing in mind for any practitioner of law. It picks you up and puts you down, and no one seems to So take me from the struggle road to where they'll never reach me. I put me in a place and time where all my friends will be. I keep it here inside my head wherever I may be. But when the spirit The amazing Graham Hart there, folks. Ah, it's brilliant to be playing his tunes on on the Yeah. He's, he's had a bit of air play. Out there listening.
[00:09:24] Unknown:
Yeah. I played his song in my first show as well. A lot of his songs. Yeah. Because, we had a bit of problem getting farmer Pete online. So, luckily, one of his helpers stepped in for a little bit until, he managed to sort his Skype out, but I was like, find a tune. So Oh, yeah. Do one of those live radio panic. Yeah.
[00:09:43] Unknown:
I don't panic anymore. It is what it is. You can't do anything, can you? No. I've learned to deal with these things. Yeah. Yeah. I I I have. I think my worst baptism of my 2 worst baptisms of fire, I think, have to be, first well, first of all, but not first and foremost, but first of all, I think one of the Kerno connections, your connection, just dived. Took a nose dive completely. And, that was it. I think you just had to sit and listen for the rest of the show. I don't know what went on there. I can't remember that one. Yeah. And the other time I think I ended up talking about death for half the show. So that was uplifting for everyone.
[00:10:24] Unknown:
But oh. Oh, no. I do remember that that one. I was ill, and you did the show. But, yeah, you did. You spent half an hour talking about death, but it was really it was nice.
[00:10:33] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Death is part of life, isn't it? You know? Yeah. I I guess it is. As my dad says, it's a disease we're all born with. Absolutely. And the other time, funnily enough, how it revolves around death, I was on on air with Sean Sertbus when his mother died. Oh god. So he left me for the last half hour of the show, and I was kinda like, oh, crikey. Porsche. How do you how do you how do you follow that? I don't know. But, yeah. Anyway, so, enough enough of this this talk. Well, you know, live dilemmas, isn't it? Live dilemmas. It's so nice to be going out live there. I've been really enjoying doing the live shows with Andy.
It just it's because you know they're live, it's you you just feel more in touch with it and Yeah. More on the ball. And if people are listening at said time, I dare say a lot of the Limeys audience are probably in the land of nod because I think, predominantly, they're American.
[00:11:31] Unknown:
But, yeah, and we go out at 10 AM in the morning UK time. So it looks like early. In the land of nod, I would imagine. But I don't know. There's just something really nice about, going out live as a pros as opposed to And I think as a listener as well, if I was listening to I mean, I know it's different when you listen to podcasts and stuff, but there is something when you're listening to live radio when people are talking. I don't know what it
[00:11:54] Unknown:
Yes. Well well, you're engaged in their moment. They're having the moment, that that that train of thought at the same time as you are. So it's kind of whether you connect with it or whether you don't, I suppose decide whether you switch over to a new station or not. Well, exactly. Exactly.
[00:12:09] Unknown:
We don't aim to bore you anyone. No. No. No. No. Don't don't aim to bore you. But if I was to get stuck, you see, people say, what what could you talk about, like, for half an hour? And I think I could talk about childbirth and things like that, but it's probably not everyone's cup of
[00:12:24] Unknown:
tea. I think things just I think things just happen, don't they? But, yeah, no. The the the joys of live radio, which is yeah. Like I say, I look I look forward to it. I look forward to catching up with you. I look forward to catching up with Andy each week. So, yeah, 'tis 'tis all good. And, of course, the the good listeners. We we do get some good feedback from this show from I've had a few emails for so I'm not gonna shout any names out, but they know who they are. So, Look at you with all your fans. I don't get fan mail. It's not it's our fans. It's the No. They don't email me. There's no connection. Maybe you don't put your email address out afternoons. [email protected].
[00:12:59] Unknown:
Come on. Spam me. We've just had a hello so I feel important. Or send me a present, like, my dear host did. Thank you. I got my book today. Oh, did you? Oh, I do love a present in the post. I love a present in the post. Yeah. Even my mum was excited. She was here. Well, and did did you have a good look through? I haven't had a chance to have a good look through, but I've got it here on my,
[00:13:24] Unknown:
desk, and I will have a little peek at it. The back. No. There's a caption I'd like you to read out on radio. Okay. Towards the back of the book, there's a very small policeman, and he's in the bottom right hand corner. So you could sort of flick through the book and and be able to find him.
[00:13:42] Unknown:
A policeman?
[00:13:43] Unknown:
Yeah. He's he's dressed as a policeman. Oh, yeah. I can see it. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Read out the little caption. And this man is a very tiny little man, isn't he, Shelley? How big is he? Let me put my glasses on because,
[00:13:53] Unknown:
tiny that small. No. He's not, but the writing is. Right. Stephen Treloar of William Street known as Stee Cuddon, who was deliberately dressed up for this well known photograph. He was a famous local character who had an unfortunate speech impediment. Condition of his waistcoat due to his particular affection is still remembered locally.
[00:14:15] Unknown:
Oh, it's hanging off him, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. No. No. No. No. It's just the fact that he had a speech impediment, and his waistcoat was always covered in spit.
[00:14:24] Unknown:
Oh. Oh, okay.
[00:14:28] Unknown:
And it still remember I I love little things like that. That one I I am disappointed.
[00:14:33] Unknown:
What's that? I'm I'm disappointed. My last book, you wrote on the inside.
[00:14:38] Unknown:
You know, you haven't written it in this book. I'll tell you what. I thought I'm gonna have to push it back. No. Do you know what? I'll tell you what. I didn't write in it on purpose because I thought, you having a photography studio and being in the same location that the book represents, I thought it would be interesting for you to leave in your little waiting room.
[00:14:56] Unknown:
Well, it would, but I don't have a waiting room. Well, why not? Because there isn't that much room. You know? Oh.
[00:15:04] Unknown:
No. That would I wouldn't leave books out there, but, no, don't worry. I'll, when I see you, you can write your name in it. Alright? Well, we're off down we're off down to Mullion next week on 1st. So, And you knew that? That was something I was gonna say, actually. I'm not gonna be here on the first, folks. So there probably, will be a 2 hour Shelley Tasker show. Will there? Sorry. Did I just spring that on you on live on air? Didn't You did. You quite often do. These live things that happen, we've been talking about them all show. Let's just brush over this one.
[00:15:36] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I'll be there waiting and oh, alright. Well, thanks for letting me know. I've only got a week. That's next week.
[00:15:43] Unknown:
That's next week. But then it might mean you'd go Did you say Wednesday 1st? No. What date did you say? 1st, but I won't be here that for that week. So Wednesday 3rd?
[00:15:53] Unknown:
That's the one. That's next week, Maleficar. Shame on you.
[00:15:57] Unknown:
Well, I did Shame on you. To be fair, a couple of weeks ago. Oh. But it's just slipped my mind in conversation recently. Sorry. Well, I know now. Thank you. Okay. The good the good staff, the good team, should I say, at, radio soap box.com. Thank you. I'd be much obliged if you could alter the slot slightly so that, so, yeah, up to you whether you wanna do the connection next week. Okay. I'll sleep on it. I'll sleep on it. And, yeah. Or or if you would like me just to supply
[00:16:35] Unknown:
an hour's worth of music for the hour. So I don't wanna let the listeners down. This is weekly now. You know? There might be somebody that, like, that's the highlight of their week. Notice. Didn't tell anyone. I don
[00:16:47] Unknown:
Short notice. Didn't tell anyone. I don't know. I haven't had any emails telling me that it's the highlight of peace. Well, it might be.
[00:16:55] Unknown:
Nothing more disappointing. No.
[00:16:59] Unknown:
Oh, dear. Right. So I'm gonna ask you what you've been up to briefly. Have you been up to anything this this week?
[00:17:06] Unknown:
But it's only Wednesday, isn't it? Not of any in oh, well, interest. I had to tell my son about the bees and the birds or the birds and
[00:17:15] Unknown:
the bees yesterday. I hope you got it the right way, Rhett. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:17:20] Unknown:
Oh, Maleficus. I've ruined his innocence. I've ruined it. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of knew he knew snippets and stuff, but obviously not enough. And the conversation came up, and he'd been doing inappropriate things with his finger motions and stuff. And his friends had told him. And he was like, I don't know what they mean inappropriate. And I was like, well, it kind of is a little bit apparent. Anyway, we're just pulling in the drive, and I just had to say it as it was, really, in a nice way. And then he looked at me and he went, that's disgusting. And then we came in on our merry little way.
And then you sit there singing, oh, no.
[00:17:56] Unknown:
He's got you haven't spoiled his innocence. No. I know, but I just did his innocence by him turning around and going, that's disgusting.
[00:18:03] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. And then I had to make sure that I put in that's you know, and it's just for people that love each other very much and, you know, you've got to be 16 at least. And then I said, don't say anything to your nephew neither because it's a grown up thing. Yeah. Or married. Yeah. Yeah. So, apart from that little thing, which is quite a cute little moment A big thing, really. Is is a big thing. Yeah. But ever since last week, I literally came off the show and Darren started being ill, and then it hit the whole family. Mum and dad were Yes. Had it. Oh, dad had it for, like, 5 days.
I was only sick twice, but you know when you're the last person and you know it's coming because Piran always stays with his dad on a Wednesday. And he phoned me on a Thursday morning, and he said he's been being sick all night. I was like, oh my god. Darren's been being sick all night as well. I was thinking that Darren just eating something. You know? Then mom and dad were like, we've been up all night being ill, and then I'm like, oh my god. Then he feels sick just thinking, oh my god. It's gonna hit me. Anyway, I did it. I lost a couple of pounds, every cloud and all of that. And now I've gained that £2 that I lost. But that was fun gaining them back, wasn't it? Well, I just ate normally, which just goes to show, doesn't it, really? I don't think I eat that bad, but I did have I booked in because I've had a couple of weeks off the gym because of various illnesses and my nan's deaf and stuff. And I was like, right. I'm back on it. So I booked a class for this evening, and then I went out for lunch with my mum and my friend, and I thought, I can't go doing a class with a full belly. So I canceled it.
And I'm just like, I've signed up for a 6 month membership that I don't think I even want anymore. So, anyway, the driver's gone. Not nothing beats get getting out and having a good walk. I mean, it's it's Yeah. But it's not enough, Maleficos. A little stroll with the dog. I need to be doing weights. I need to be working on my waist. Anyway weights? Weights. Yeah. Do do that cardio stuff and well, anyway.
[00:20:02] Unknown:
I'm I'm lucky in that respect in that I do a very physical job. And these last 2 weeks in fact, these last 3 weeks have been gruellingly physical. You know, something I've learned over the last few weeks is that I'm nowhere near as fit as I used to be. Obviously, I'm 48. What do what do you expect? But, actually, I think, physically, I'm stronger than I've ever been
[00:20:24] Unknown:
Right. Just because of the work that I'm doing on a continual basis. And it's like Don't you find that everyone our age, though, always says that now? Well, I am 47. I say that to everybody. I am approaching 50. You know? I'm not gonna look like I did in my twenties.
[00:20:39] Unknown:
Yeah. But you can't expect to, bounce as well as you did when you were a kid if you fall. No. Exactly. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Kids do tend to bounce a bit, don't they? And sort of get up when you and, you know, how many adults do you turn around to and go, oh, they're there. You'll be alright. You know, rub it better. Come on. Let's go. Yeah. You don't say that to an adult, do you? You have to be all concerned about it.
[00:21:02] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:21:05] Unknown:
Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, we're all wading together. So We are. Lovely. So have you traveled the new a 30
[00:21:15] Unknown:
yet? No. I don't think I ever will.
[00:21:19] Unknown:
I don't think you're gonna have much choice because there isn't as many options to turn off it as there used to be.
[00:21:25] Unknown:
Well, I'll probably I only go to, like, Truro that way. I'll probably just go to the back roads. I I don't like busy roads, really busy roads, and I'll be, like, going round and round and round about and just stressing right out. Yeah. Yeah. No. Uh-uh. I got there to
[00:21:42] Unknown:
I traveled from well, when I got on the a 30 would be what we would call Hamburger Hill at Fraden, and I got to Illogan in 20 minutes, and it would usually take about 30 to 35. Progress? I have to say, I don't like the fact that they've ripped up a load of beautiful Cornish countryside for it, but they've managed to stick the road on the crest of a hill for most of the way. So you can see pretty much both coasts for most of the way. It's nuts. It's actually incredibly picturesque. It's just unfortunate they've had to put a road across it all.
[00:22:23] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. But but, I mean, it's been going on for, well, God knows how long, hasn't it? It is. Yeah. And Darren changed jobs, like, 18 months ago. And it was supposed to be, well, this is 20 minute less journey than what I'm doing, but it's been taking the same amount of time. And yesterday, I came home, and I was like, oh, did you leave work early? He said, no. The 30 is up and running. I was like, wow. We've only been waiting 18 months.
[00:22:46] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not being funny. 330,000,000. That's cost Cornwall or the taxpayer or whatever. So that's, an awful lot of money. Over a 1000 oak trees destroyed, swathes of heathland, farmland, yada yada yada. So, yeah, there's pros and cons. But, yeah, we can we can we can get somewhere 20 minutes quicker. Jai. Yoo hoo. I have to say I was quite happy because I actually, the reason I went down there was to to pick up a a rock and roll bed. I've had a rock and roll bed fitted in my new van. So How is how exciting? How is your van? It's very it the van itself is very excited to have a rock and roll bed inside now. So the rock and roll bed, I take it you know what that is. It's a it's a chair or it's a bed that concertinas into a chair with seat belts and yada yada yada.
So, yes, it's, looking forward to making the most of, you know, just jumping in the van at the weekend and going somewhere picturesque. I guess I could travel up onto the a 30 and assess where I'm going to go. You could. You could. Oh, lovely. Exciting. Yeah. So, yeah, that's quite cool. I'm just trying to think as well. There were some other news bits about Cornwall that I wanted to cover. Oh, right. Okay. Falmouth pack packet ark article here. God. Get my I'll put my teeth back in in a sec. Trewithan Dairy. That's really quite a famous dairy down here. Trewithan supplies a lot of milk to a lot of places in in Cornwall.
Just been taken over by a German firm. Oh. Yeah. So I'll just I'll just, give you a little, reject all. There we go. So, one of Cornwall's biggest dairies has been taken over by a leading jet, German dairy farm. Ermen, which is its name. Ermen, the German company. As announced today, it is open to a UK it is open to a UK production plant following the acquisition of Trawithen Dairy in Cornwall. And Pudding products will be produced at the factory and distributed across the UK and are expected to account for 15% of and global sales this year.
So I know who I am not really very happy about upholding Caesars the money. It's it's not even a Cornish company anymore. That's just my opinion. And I I I'm not gonna try and sort of dismantle anyone's business, but I'm not very comfortable buying any dairy products from anymore and won't be? Well, interestingly,
[00:25:38] Unknown:
was talking to farmer Pete about this just now. And on part of his manifesto, it's about stopping people coming in from other countries and buying farms and stuff like that. So So I should imagine there's quite a lot of it going on if that's, a big thing in one of his policies.
[00:25:58] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, absolutely disgusting. 1 of 1 of Cornwall's biggest dairies been taken over by a leading German dairy firm. So there we go. Wasn't very happy about that. Also, I sent you this one earlier in the week. May 20 24 transaction data. Cornwall is in the top five for planning applications with Land Registry for the month of May. So Cornwall being a tiny tiny little pinprick compared to the rest of the country actually came 5th in planning applications for probably housing, roads, fast fiber cable, all that kind of thing. So, yeah, in the top 5 in the UK, Cornwall for last month for planning applications with the land registry. So changes to land use, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.
So what does that mean? That means, probably more solar farms, more windmills.
[00:26:59] Unknown:
Yeah. I don't know. Affordable housing or houses for the immigrants?
[00:27:03] Unknown:
Yeah. Houses for not Cornish people, basically, because there aren't enough, you know, there there aren't enough Cornish people to fill the houses in Cornwall. So, what are they all doing here, Shelley? What are they all doing? Such a beautiful place. Yeah. Well, not anymore. They've built a bloody great road through the middle of it.
[00:27:21] Unknown:
Well, I think they they used to have this green belt law, but I think that's been changed a lot. Well, the green belt law places yeah. We're all set to go. I'm gonna get my friend on to talk about this,
[00:27:34] Unknown:
again. Because the Greenbelt law, basically, the duchy land which makes up for I think 13% of Cornwall's land. Duchy. The Duchy is not subject to to the green belt law. I mean, it should be, but it isn't, judging by the amount of green belt land that's been sold off for housing and and solar farms. So Duchy is not, is not, as far as I'm aware, I know they're probably supposed to but they're not ascribing to that law as far as I can see and so yeah. The but the green belt land, basically, if you if you put in for a change of use, which is what the planning applications with the land registry generally is, it's not just housing planning, that kind of thing, it's it's change of use. So if you get, like, some farmers' fields and you decide that, actually, you wanna stick a few caravans and tents in it and make some money out of your land over the summer, you can do that. You can do that. That's not a problem at all. And you can apply for a change of use to amenity land.
So it's you're providing amenity, you know, on that land. So if you change it into a golf course or if you put, I don't know, a a few inflatable swimming pools or some trampolines, and you just changed it into a place where kids could go and jump off of trampolines into inflatable swimming pool, whatever. You change it into amenity land. And once it's been amenity land for, I think it's 5 years, you can then apply. It becomes Brownfield site and you can apply for planning permission. So which is this whole thing about all these solar farms going up. Oh, yeah. It's still greenbelt land. No. Because after you've put solar panels on for x amount of years, it becomes brownfield site. So that means that potentially don't get me wrong. Some of the leases are for, like, 40 years on these fields for the for the, solar panels.
But when that 40 year lease is up, that's brownfield land. That's that that's it's not been put into no one's put it into practice yet because we haven't had solar panels here yet in Cornwall taking up loads of field land for for more than 40 years yet. But when those leases are up, that's Brownfield site, so you can apply for planning.
[00:29:53] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:29:54] Unknown:
I don't know. I don't know, Maleficast. What is the world coming to? Well, the world is coming to the bottom of the hour right at this moment in time. Brilliant. Yeah. So the world is coming to the bottom of the hour. You are listening to the Kernel Connection with your host, Shelley Tasker and Malefika Scott on radiosoapbox.com. We are so glad to be here. It's ridiculous. So, we're gonna have a short break now so that Shelley can get her head together for the for the kernoke the amazing kernoke connection which I know is coming after the break. And, we'll see you folks in a few minutes. This is Holloway Joe.
[00:30:32] Unknown:
Better be good.
[00:30:35] Unknown:
Always is. There you go. That's that's all Unguela performing Hallaway Joe in, Truro Cathedral. I actually know 2 of the guys, singing there. Ah. So yeah. Excuse me. Yeah. Nice little track. Nice little It's a little sea shantee to help you haul the ropes in unison, folks. That's what it's all about. You know? Haul the nets in in unison. Haul the main brace in unison. You know? Getting all the folks to to to work together as one. So there you go. There we go. Yeah. The songs used to work as a coxswain, you know, did for or does for for rowing and that kind of thing. That's that was the whole idea. Just so for those folks who may be overseas who aren't aware of what sea shanties were for, that's originally what they were for, which is why they're so rhythmical.
[00:33:48] Unknown:
You taught me something in there, Melissa, Chris. No. Did you know that? No.
[00:33:52] Unknown:
I didn't know that. Oh, well, there you go. That's that hence, the words will haul away together. You know? That's it's it's they're keeping a rhythm and they're you know? Yeah. That's that's the whole point. That's why that's why you have a shanty. It keeps everyone working together when you use it.
[00:34:07] Unknown:
Oh, I love it. Yeah. Very good. Yeah. There you go. So
[00:34:12] Unknown:
all that excitement over and done with. So we get onto my kerno connection. We get onto your kerno connection. I'm excited. What is it? Because I rec I recognize the name, you see. So I I I do. Yes. So Well but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say anything. I just take it away, Shelley. Over here. Away.
[00:34:30] Unknown:
I got really excited about this, and I wish I started looking into it a couple of weeks ago after my last one, actually, because there is so much information out there and documentaries on this woman. So I shall move forward. I'm going to be talking to you about Emily Hobhouse who was born 18 60, died 1926, born in Liskeard, and she was a campaigner. Right. In Victorian Britain, it took special courage to stand up to the British Army, the British government, the press, and the general public all at the same time. Emily Hobhouse had that courage.
She spent her life battling against the cruelty of war, especially the suffering meted out into innocent women and children. At her memorial service in 1926 in Bloem oh, I did practice saying this earlier. Bloemfontein, South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi referred to her as one of the noblest and bravest of women. Hundreds of people from many races followed her casket to its final resting place and all the flags in the air of area flew at half mast. Born to reverend Reginald Hobhouse and Caroline Trelawney, Clattery descended from Bishop Trelawney, Emily was the 6th of 8 children.
She had the advantages and disadvantages of gented Victorian girlhood. On one hand, she was protected from want and lived in the rectory of St. Ive, East Cornwall. On the other hand, she was by her own account, uneducated, forced to abide by her father's wishes in matters of the heart and everything else. After the death of her mother, Emily, the spinster daughter was obliged to nurse her father through 15 years of illness. During this time, she carried out much of his pastoral work, visiting the sick and destitute and learning for herself the other side of Victorian life.
When her father died in 1985, Emily's story took on an adventurous turn. She inherited a large sum of money and moved to Oxford to stay with her brother. There, she became deeply involved in the radical politics that had always interested her. At the request of the archbishop of Canterbury's wife, she traveled to Minnesota to do welfare work among the Cornish miners. In the then wild town of Saint Paul, she fell in love with John Carr Jackson. Jackson seems to have been unreliable where money was concerned and left town in a hurry. The pair had agreed to buy a ranch in Mexico using some of Emily's inheritance.
Emily went on to Mexico alone and there, her courage as well as the ranch seemed to have failed her. Jackson never appeared and Emily returned to England with a broken heart and considerably lighter of pocket. When the 2nd Boer War broke out in 18/99, Emily learned of the dire conditions endured by wives and children of Boas held by the British in concentration camps in South Africa. Leonard Courtney, a liberal MP, invited her to become secretary of the women's branch of the South African conciliation committee. And so at 40, this campaigner braved the long journey out to see for herself.
In the event, she saw more than the authorities wished. By pulling strings, she got hold of a couple of railway trucks and was reluctantly given permission to visit the concentration pitiful state of the women and children there. Everything, food, shelter, medical attention, and water were lacking. Even soap counted as a luxury was not allowed. Disease and starvation were rife. There were no kettles but there was no fuel either. She set about making life difficult for everyone in the authority till conditions until conditions in the camp improved.
Without official permission, she discovered and visited other camps of all which testified to the same cruelty, the same bureaucratic apathy. Back at the Bloemfontein, she found the population had, as she wrote, redoubled and swallowed up the results of improvements that had been affected. Disease was on the increase. The people made the impression of utter misery. Illness and death had left their marks. The army's policy of destroying farms, crops and livestock and forcing women and children into camps without proper supervision should have shocked anyone.
But England was far off and anyway caught up in a wave of jingoism in no mood to listen to critics. Hampered, insulted, thwarted, and slandered, she was nonetheless determined to make the government reign in the policies that cause such misery. The government at last agreed to look into her claims and set up the full set permission to do so. It upheld her findings. Hobhouse returned to South Africa in 1901 but was arrested and deported. She went to France and wrote up her experiences. In 1903 and 1905, she was again in South Africa and set up schools to teach young women spinning and weaving, falling ill. However, she returned to England in 190 8.
Emily's compassion did not stop at the borders of South Africa for she later went to Russia to help those caught up in the revolution. She also went to Leipzig after the First World War and did her best to relieve the plight of women and children there. The South Africans never forgot her. In 1921, they asked her to accept £2,300 in recognition of a human humanitarian work and to buy a house with it on the Cornish coast. She sculpted to take it but could not rebuff such kindness and did in fact buy a house in Saint Ives. But her health was failing and in 1926, she died.
Her ashes were taken to Bloemfontein and entered beside those of the statesmen and national heroes buried in the national memorial. Hardly known in Britain, she's revered in South Africa. Her image appeared on the South African stamp in 1976, and a town in Eastern Free State is named Hobhouse in her honor. So that's my little connection. And I've got a little woman, wasn't she? She was amazing.
[00:40:33] Unknown:
Never heard about 1976 was my year of birth as well. So there you go.
[00:40:39] Unknown:
Right. Okay.
[00:40:40] Unknown:
Not that that has any connection to the story whatsoever. But, yeah.
[00:40:45] Unknown:
No. I found it fascinating, and I literally, like, thought, oh god. I'm gonna watch the documentary still now, although I've got, like, a vague idea. It's, there's a lot of stuff out there. Hence, I found a little 3 minute audio that I thought might Oh, okay. Should I play that now? If you could, because then that will finish my kernel connection.
[00:41:02] Unknown:
Alright. Get your xylophone ready.
[00:41:05] Unknown:
I can't have xylophone myself.
[00:41:07] Unknown:
When he was operating in the Sue Barraga, which now incidentally forms part of the Addo Elephant National Park as a matter of interest, The Times even reported that this band of resolute men led by General Smuts, formed one of the most amazing aspects of the guerrilla war.
[00:41:24] Unknown:
To end this guerrilla warfare, the British adopt brutal methods to crush further Boer resistance.
[00:41:30] Unknown:
Firstly, Lord Kitchener's scorched earth policy had resulted in women and children being removed from the farms, the livestock being slaughtered, as it deprived the Boers in the veld with their ability to live off the veld and to source supplies from these different homesteads.
[00:41:45] Unknown:
Eisy Smuts is put under house arrest despite her pleas to be sent to a concentration camp with other Boer women. The harsh treatment of Boer women and children provoked Smuts and his men to fight on with renewed desperation and anger. British welfare campaigner Emily Hobhouse brings world attention to the plight of the Boer women and children.
[00:42:15] Unknown:
He was a dear little chap of about 4 All that was left of him were big brown eyes and white teeth, sitting lips stretched back too thin to close. He was emaciated. It's difficult to describe what it's like to see all those children in a state of collapse. After a while, they carried the corpses out at dawn and instead of passing through the town, went to the cemetery another route. The sudden realisation of the death rate dawned upon me. It was a death rate which had never been seen except in the times of the great plagues. The whole talk was of death.
Who died yesterday? Who lay dying today? And who would be dead tomorrow?
[00:43:17] Unknown:
The war, which lasts for two and a half years, witnesses the loss of over 4,000 Boer combatants and 22,000 British soldiers. 28,000 Boer women and children and 14,000 black inmates died in British concentration camps. Many of them were dumped in the veld in makeshift camps after their farmhouses were burnt down as a result of Kitchener's scorched earth policy. The brave but beleaguered Boers, having lost their republics and suffered much eventually submit to defeat with the signing of the peace treaty of Vereenigern. The Boers hand in their arms.
[00:44:15] Unknown:
And that's lovely. It's a pretty faithful story, the,
[00:44:19] Unknown:
the Boer War. My granddad fought in the Boer War. Oh, wow. I was calling it the Boer War. Yeah.
[00:44:25] Unknown:
Anyway. Well, it's that's how it's spelled though, isn't it? B o e r. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what you said, so I didn't well, you'll know this because you've got the book. But at the beginning of the book, there's a little bit where it says, the author of this book was a regular soldier who served with distinction in the South African War. And in the First World War, when he retired from army service, from army service due to wounds received on active service, he settled down in an English country village and he began to study politics and economics. He wanted to know why honest Tommy Atkins, I'm assuming you know Tommy Atkins is a is is the the full name of the British Tommy.
No. I didn't know that. Okay. So, you know, you know, they say, oh, it's the it's the Tommies are coming, the Tommies are coming, or the Jerrys are coming. So the Jerrys are the Germans, the Tommies are the are the English. Oh, okay. Yeah. But so but back then, they were known as Tommy, you know, you know, Tommy Atkins, because you were just Tommy Atkins from the village. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. That's that was the whole point. So why honest Tommy Atkins had been compelled to fight peaceful Boer farmers and enable an international diamond syndicate to gain control of the South African mines?
So that's that was my my granddad openly voiced his disdain for, the, you know, the scorched earth policy over in South Africa.
[00:45:51] Unknown:
Right.
[00:45:52] Unknown:
And the the you know, if you think about it, if you listen to the figures in that little clip there, more people died in captivity than as a result of combat. You know, so, and the combat was brutal. The bore the bore farmers I mean, you think about the losses that the British had. What was it? 4000 losses 4, Just over 4,000 losses of the Boer farmers and something like 20,000 losses for the British. You know, the the Boers were pasting the British, absolutely pasting them because they were using sneaky tactics, Shelley, like they'd dig a trench around the bottom of a hill And I think it was Margus Fontaine. If you look at Margus Fontaine, that was a one hell of a battle. It involved the Scottish regiments. I don't know whether it involved my granddad's regiment, because he was Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, but I know that the Black Watch definitely were at Margus Fontaine.
And, you know, back in the days where you didn't do war on Sundays, Shelley, if you were British, because that was that was a day for worship and a day for playing cricket. Right? I never knew that either. Yeah. Yeah. Baden I think it was Baden Powell, the guy who started up the Cub Scouts. So Cubs, and and later Girl Guides was was branched off from Cub Scouts, but Cub Scouts originally was started up by Baden Powell. Baden Powell was actually a up by Baden Powell. Baden Powell was actually a general, I think he was in command of somewhere like Grahamstown, somewhere like that, and they didn't do war on Sundays. That was a day for worship and cricket.
[00:47:30] Unknown:
Wow.
[00:47:33] Unknown:
So back in those days, what they would do is they would get a whole load of people on horseback and and infantry and stuff, and they'd charge it to the top of the nearest hill, and claim it as their own. What the sneaky bores would do, because obviously a high point, if you've got the high ground, you see, you've got the high ground, then then you've got a commanding view of the area and you can fire cannons or artillery, whatever, whoever's coming. That was the whole thing with the British ideals. So we'll charge to the top of that. Yeah. We'll charge across the felt, and we'll go up to the top of that that mountainous hill over there and and claim it as our own. The sneaky boar farmers would dig a trench around the bottom of said hills.
Margus Fontaine was one of them. And they'd lie in wait in the sneaky trenches and wait for the British or the Scots or whoever or the Welsh regiments to I don't know if there were any Welsh out there, but, they'd wait for them to get, you know, like the old saying, close enough to see the whites of their eyes. Because the British were all expecting the tops of the hills to be defended because that's the most easily defendable position. But if the sneaky boars have run a have run a trench around the bottom of the the the hill that you're charging for and not expecting any opposition towards, then when they see the whites of your eyes, you're pretty screwed by that time. When they see the whites of your eyes, you're pretty screwed by that time. And there's a Margaret Fontaine was a big one because they they marched. The poor Scots regiments who had been used you know, they'd spent months on a boat to get there, and then they'd been used to sort of Scottish weather, I'm presuming, and marched out into sort of 30, 40 degree heat, dry heat in Africa, in their kilts with their little pale white skins and and and literally at Margus Fontaine, there was no cover.
There was no, like, there there might have been a few scrub bits of bushes and a few little rocks on the felt, but the felt was largely flat land. That's what it was. You had these big hills which rose out. So they'd be they'd be marching forward as they did back in Napoleonic times as well, you know, in in formation and this that and the other. And the Boers would just wait until they got close and just would open up. And Margus Fontein was an absolute massacre, absolute massacre. And there were people that were pinned to the ground throughout the main day, you know, the heat of the whole day, and they couldn't escape, basically, from the tiny little rocks and things that they were literally lie lying down on the ground and hiding behind and hoping not to get hit.
Guys were sort of getting up and running the Scots were getting up and running because they were that desperately thirsty. They'd get up and run to try and escape and get water out of desperation and then they'd be shot. There were guys hidden behind rocks with as many as 3 bullet holes round in the top of their heads, you know? So they were pinned, massacred and the guys that did survive were so demoralized and, not necessarily demoralized, but they were they were in such a bad way they'd spent the whole day lying in South African sun on their tummies with their poor little bare white legs showing and they had blisters that were hanging over their socks when they walked off the battlefield.
You know, so yeah. I mean, the Boer War was a nasty one but it's interesting because the Boer War was fought not for any kind of British sovereignty, It was fought to enable, as my granddad said, an international diamond syndicate to gain control of the mines.
[00:51:23] Unknown:
Very interesting.
[00:51:24] Unknown:
So Emily Emily Hobhouse was all part of that thing, though. She she was the one that exposed to the world pretty much, the first concentration camps. Now there is arguments that the Spanish had concentration camps at one point before the British.
[00:51:40] Unknown:
Yeah. I went down that rabbit hole last night. Oh, did you? I did. I don't know why. I was looking at the concentration camp meaning and, like, looking at where more about them and stuff like that. And then I found this, little YouTube clip, something debunked, but she was basically it was supposed to be a British man, wasn't it, that, invented concentration camps? That's what they put it down to. That's what they put it down to. But, actually, like you say, I think they say the Spanish before and stuff and,
[00:52:09] Unknown:
well, I'd actually Well, I know that Lord Kitchener was Lord Kitchener is the guy that you know, on the poster, Britain needs you, you know, with the big stars and and pointing it. So Lord Kitchener, was responsible for the the scorched earth policy, which basically meant that, they wanted to starve the boars into submission by destroying their means of getting food. So the the peaceful Boer farmers would be going out to war while their wives and daughters would be looking after the farmsteads. I mean, yeah, it's asking for trouble, ain't it? You know? Oh, definitely.
Yeah. So, so they they it was easy pickings for the British. They burnt the farmsteads to the ground, destroyed all the food, and and rounded up all the occupants and sent them down to Cape Town to live in concentration camps where a lot you know, as we said earlier, more people died in the concentration camps than combatants died.
[00:53:03] Unknown:
Well, question, Maleficos. Go on. Is it my culinary connection this week or yours?
[00:53:10] Unknown:
I just I was sort of adding to it, really, being honest. It's Right. Okay. I'm joking. I'm joking. My granddad was sort of part and parcel of that time. Yeah. If you think about it, he was in his twenties during the Boer War. He was born in 18/79. So, like
[00:53:26] Unknown:
No. It's fascinating. It is fascinating how that all ties in. Oh, good. I've got
[00:53:31] Unknown:
a lovely book full of photographs from the Boer War that my granddad took.
[00:53:36] Unknown:
Oh, wow.
[00:53:39] Unknown:
Yeah. You should you should see the mustaches on these guys. Seriously impressive. Lord Kitchener has not got nothing on some of these guys.
[00:53:49] Unknown:
But it just goes to show, doesn't it? So many people are just unforgotten. I've never heard about her before. If it wasn't for this book of my 101 Cornish voices no. 101 Cornish lives, I wouldn't have
[00:54:01] Unknown:
ever found out, really. Yeah. What happened? She was from Liskeard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Our book's wonderful. And and Oh, I love a book. And do you know what? That's because we're all supposed to there's only one group of people that came up with concentration camps. We can't we can't count the other groups of people that have done it in the past because somehow they're not as bad. Oh, okay. Anyway, you know, whatever. Oh, man. So, yeah, really interesting show you had, with with the farmer, Chappie. I'm gonna go back over that one as well and have a little listen. And the good thing is, Shelley, my van has got a little USB port in it so I can take my podcasts on the road. Oh, great stuff. Well, so you listen to me doing the kernel connection next week.
Well, no. Because I'll have to be somewhere to download it, won't I? I I won't I won't I I I don't have I don't have a mobile phone, Shelley. I can't listen live. I know. But your wife has, your partner. Sorry. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Alright. Alright, my lovely. Can I just borrow your phone for an hour so I can listen to to the show? Well, actually, just join in. Yeah. Just join in.
[00:55:05] Unknown:
I'm on holiday, but I'm gonna do a bit of work. Yeah. Yeah. I I don't think so. No. I'm glad you're getting away. No. I'm joking. Joking. Joking. But, yeah, enjoy your holiday.
[00:55:17] Unknown:
So you go to Mullion a lot, don't you? I love Mullion. Yeah. I love I love that area. I love that area of Cornwall. You are right on the, you know, right on the tip of tip of the world, almost. You know, Kate Winslet had nothing on the Titanic when she was flapping her arms about at the front. It's you know, you go down to the Lizard Peninsula and you look out over the sea, that's just that's some that's something else, especially on a beautiful sunny day. Yeah. I've only been there a couple of times, but I want to, go down to, like, the Lizard area there because they've got
[00:55:47] Unknown:
the electricity station in place, haven't they?
[00:55:50] Unknown:
Yes. Yes. Yes. They've got the certain events, certain places that Phil Hadley may well take us at some point. So, I got your message about the, which dates you can do. So I will contact Phil. And, basically, folks, for for you listeners out there, Phil Hadley, we had a historian on had him on a couple of times on this show. And he is, gonna take me and Shelley around to a few poignant places, wartime poignant places in Cornwall, and, just give us a little talk on some of it. So I I thought it would be a good opportunity to, you know, take a little recording device of some variety and, yeah, we'll we'll splice it together. We'll splice the journey together and and put it into a show for for you folks. Should be really interesting.
[00:56:38] Unknown:
So, you know We're having a day trip, mate. We're having a day trip. We're having a day trip. A little history. Yeah. A little day out. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:56:48] Unknown:
That what so what I was gonna ask you was is, what who have you got on next week on your show? I do like to ask this at the end of the show just because, you know You've got nothing else to say. No. It's nothing to do with that. It's just it's because, you've you've been having really interesting guests on as well. Well, thank you. Thank you. It's that's that's not a compliment to you. That's a compliment to your guests.
[00:57:10] Unknown:
Hey. Who's gonna do the groundwork? No. What can I say? I'm fortunate to know so many wonderful people, and I don't know them all. But, next week, I think it's Mel Sheridan. She's having problems, and she's got something to expose with the waterworks in Haile. Oh, okay. Quite a story. Quite a story. So I think that's next week.
[00:57:30] Unknown:
I think we're done now. Interesting. I have a friend, Anne in Hale, who will be avidly listening, I'm sure.
[00:57:35] Unknown:
Right. Okay. So that's for that. And then unsure of, both of my guests yet for my new show, Women's Hour, which I've done 2 shows now and I've really enjoyed.
[00:57:48] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, I haven't listened to any of them because it's only been a staff, isn't it? Yeah. You told me quite clearly. I wasn't invited not even to listen. So there we go.
[00:57:57] Unknown:
I've I've I've done it. I've I've had, over the last 2 weeks, 4 really interesting people, and it's nice because half an hour as well is not too long, You know? Yeah. 2 guests in an hour. It's it's just rolled. I've I've enjoyed it. Girly stuff and just chatting to women and things about that I'm interested in and stuff. You know? Yeah. There we are. So
[00:58:19] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, it beats talking to me. I I get it. I know I can be a a bit a bit of a stick in the mud, a bit boring. But no. Absolutely brilliant Kno connection this week, Shelley. Emily, you can't help me. As well. I'm no. I know I'm just joking. She's she's she's she's quite a character and quite a, quite really,
[00:58:39] Unknown:
quite an icon of that era. So, yeah, very interesting. And I didn't know Shelley, you taught me. I didn't know she was from Liskeard. So you've taught me something tonight as well. Well, you've said yeah. No. I didn't. I know I said, is it mine or yours, but I was joking. That was interesting. Yeah. Very interesting. And I love these things. Like I say, I could have spent ages researching her, so I might even watch a documentary on her tonight.
[00:59:01] Unknown:
Yeah. I need to know more. Yeah. Okey dokey. Well, look. I'm gonna play us out. My my bandmates had some some health issues recently. So so, Jeff, if you're listening, this this one's this one's for you. You might recognize it. So I'm gonna play us out with this one. We will catch up with you good folks next week, next Wednesday evening at 8 PM, UK time.
[00:59:23] Unknown:
Say goodnight, Shelley. Goodnight, listeners. I was just about to say it, and I was thinking you're not here next week. But, hey. We'll sort that out. Well, Shelley might be here. I might not be. You told a fib on air.
[00:59:35] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, I made a faux pas. There we go. Live. As we said, this has been the live show, the live Kernel Connection show. Alright. Lots of love, folks. You take care, and we will both catch up with you soon. Soon. Have a good week.
Standing. So we've over doubled the amount of independents,
[00:00:04] Unknown:
and we're standing in over, over 300 constituencies. Brilliant. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to cut you off there, Pete, because we are literally now gonna end. But brilliant stuff. Thank you so much. And thank you, Jo Wood, for coming on and helping out with the chat as well until Pete made it. I wish you all the luck in the world, Pete, and I'll keep, following your page. And, yeah, fingers crossed. Let's get these independents in. And thanks for all the best, Shelley. Thank you. Thank you very much, Pete. Take care. And Jo, thank you, Jo. We're coming on and helping out with the chat as well until Pete made it. I wish you all the luck in the world,
[00:00:52] Unknown:
Kerno Connection coming up next. Welcome, 1 and all, to the Kernow Connection, your little neural pathway to the southwest of the UK. Cornwall, that is. We're coming live out of radiosoapbox.com. A very, very real radio service. Your hosts tonight will be missus Shelley Casker and missus Lucas Scott.
[00:03:53] Unknown:
Are you there, Shelley? Sorry. Good evening. I was just thinking, shall I say hello or not? Is is it the right moment?
[00:03:59] Unknown:
Good evening. Less volume. Yeah. There we go. A little less volume on the No. That's fine. Good evening, Maleficus. Good evening. And listeners. You're just and listeners. Indeed. Yeah. You've just had a, a quite an informative show, haven't you? You? Oh my gosh. Yeah. He knows his stuff. Doesn't he, Jest? Doesn't he, Jest? Yeah. I'm gonna go back and listen to the lot. Oh,
[00:04:21] Unknown:
that will give me an extra on my download.
[00:04:27] Unknown:
Okeydokey. Well, before we start, Shelley, we should say that we here on the kernel connection reserve the rights to all our words and all our thoughts. We do this simply because it's impossible to reserve the rights to anybody else's, A thought worth bearing in mind for any practitioner of law. It picks you up and puts you down, and no one seems to So take me from the struggle road to where they'll never reach me. I put me in a place and time where all my friends will be. I keep it here inside my head wherever I may be. But when the spirit The amazing Graham Hart there, folks. Ah, it's brilliant to be playing his tunes on on the Yeah. He's, he's had a bit of air play. Out there listening.
[00:09:24] Unknown:
Yeah. I played his song in my first show as well. A lot of his songs. Yeah. Because, we had a bit of problem getting farmer Pete online. So, luckily, one of his helpers stepped in for a little bit until, he managed to sort his Skype out, but I was like, find a tune. So Oh, yeah. Do one of those live radio panic. Yeah.
[00:09:43] Unknown:
I don't panic anymore. It is what it is. You can't do anything, can you? No. I've learned to deal with these things. Yeah. Yeah. I I I have. I think my worst baptism of my 2 worst baptisms of fire, I think, have to be, first well, first of all, but not first and foremost, but first of all, I think one of the Kerno connections, your connection, just dived. Took a nose dive completely. And, that was it. I think you just had to sit and listen for the rest of the show. I don't know what went on there. I can't remember that one. Yeah. And the other time I think I ended up talking about death for half the show. So that was uplifting for everyone.
[00:10:24] Unknown:
But oh. Oh, no. I do remember that that one. I was ill, and you did the show. But, yeah, you did. You spent half an hour talking about death, but it was really it was nice.
[00:10:33] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. Death is part of life, isn't it? You know? Yeah. I I guess it is. As my dad says, it's a disease we're all born with. Absolutely. And the other time, funnily enough, how it revolves around death, I was on on air with Sean Sertbus when his mother died. Oh god. So he left me for the last half hour of the show, and I was kinda like, oh, crikey. Porsche. How do you how do you how do you follow that? I don't know. But, yeah. Anyway, so, enough enough of this this talk. Well, you know, live dilemmas, isn't it? Live dilemmas. It's so nice to be going out live there. I've been really enjoying doing the live shows with Andy.
It just it's because you know they're live, it's you you just feel more in touch with it and Yeah. More on the ball. And if people are listening at said time, I dare say a lot of the Limeys audience are probably in the land of nod because I think, predominantly, they're American.
[00:11:31] Unknown:
But, yeah, and we go out at 10 AM in the morning UK time. So it looks like early. In the land of nod, I would imagine. But I don't know. There's just something really nice about, going out live as a pros as opposed to And I think as a listener as well, if I was listening to I mean, I know it's different when you listen to podcasts and stuff, but there is something when you're listening to live radio when people are talking. I don't know what it
[00:11:54] Unknown:
Yes. Well well, you're engaged in their moment. They're having the moment, that that that train of thought at the same time as you are. So it's kind of whether you connect with it or whether you don't, I suppose decide whether you switch over to a new station or not. Well, exactly. Exactly.
[00:12:09] Unknown:
We don't aim to bore you anyone. No. No. No. No. Don't don't aim to bore you. But if I was to get stuck, you see, people say, what what could you talk about, like, for half an hour? And I think I could talk about childbirth and things like that, but it's probably not everyone's cup of
[00:12:24] Unknown:
tea. I think things just I think things just happen, don't they? But, yeah, no. The the the joys of live radio, which is yeah. Like I say, I look I look forward to it. I look forward to catching up with you. I look forward to catching up with Andy each week. So, yeah, 'tis 'tis all good. And, of course, the the good listeners. We we do get some good feedback from this show from I've had a few emails for so I'm not gonna shout any names out, but they know who they are. So, Look at you with all your fans. I don't get fan mail. It's not it's our fans. It's the No. They don't email me. There's no connection. Maybe you don't put your email address out afternoons. [email protected].
[00:12:59] Unknown:
Come on. Spam me. We've just had a hello so I feel important. Or send me a present, like, my dear host did. Thank you. I got my book today. Oh, did you? Oh, I do love a present in the post. I love a present in the post. Yeah. Even my mum was excited. She was here. Well, and did did you have a good look through? I haven't had a chance to have a good look through, but I've got it here on my,
[00:13:24] Unknown:
desk, and I will have a little peek at it. The back. No. There's a caption I'd like you to read out on radio. Okay. Towards the back of the book, there's a very small policeman, and he's in the bottom right hand corner. So you could sort of flick through the book and and be able to find him.
[00:13:42] Unknown:
A policeman?
[00:13:43] Unknown:
Yeah. He's he's dressed as a policeman. Oh, yeah. I can see it. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. Read out the little caption. And this man is a very tiny little man, isn't he, Shelley? How big is he? Let me put my glasses on because,
[00:13:53] Unknown:
tiny that small. No. He's not, but the writing is. Right. Stephen Treloar of William Street known as Stee Cuddon, who was deliberately dressed up for this well known photograph. He was a famous local character who had an unfortunate speech impediment. Condition of his waistcoat due to his particular affection is still remembered locally.
[00:14:15] Unknown:
Oh, it's hanging off him, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. No. No. No. No. It's just the fact that he had a speech impediment, and his waistcoat was always covered in spit.
[00:14:24] Unknown:
Oh. Oh, okay.
[00:14:28] Unknown:
And it still remember I I love little things like that. That one I I am disappointed.
[00:14:33] Unknown:
What's that? I'm I'm disappointed. My last book, you wrote on the inside.
[00:14:38] Unknown:
You know, you haven't written it in this book. I'll tell you what. I thought I'm gonna have to push it back. No. Do you know what? I'll tell you what. I didn't write in it on purpose because I thought, you having a photography studio and being in the same location that the book represents, I thought it would be interesting for you to leave in your little waiting room.
[00:14:56] Unknown:
Well, it would, but I don't have a waiting room. Well, why not? Because there isn't that much room. You know? Oh.
[00:15:04] Unknown:
No. That would I wouldn't leave books out there, but, no, don't worry. I'll, when I see you, you can write your name in it. Alright? Well, we're off down we're off down to Mullion next week on 1st. So, And you knew that? That was something I was gonna say, actually. I'm not gonna be here on the first, folks. So there probably, will be a 2 hour Shelley Tasker show. Will there? Sorry. Did I just spring that on you on live on air? Didn't You did. You quite often do. These live things that happen, we've been talking about them all show. Let's just brush over this one.
[00:15:36] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I'll be there waiting and oh, alright. Well, thanks for letting me know. I've only got a week. That's next week.
[00:15:43] Unknown:
That's next week. But then it might mean you'd go Did you say Wednesday 1st? No. What date did you say? 1st, but I won't be here that for that week. So Wednesday 3rd?
[00:15:53] Unknown:
That's the one. That's next week, Maleficar. Shame on you.
[00:15:57] Unknown:
Well, I did Shame on you. To be fair, a couple of weeks ago. Oh. But it's just slipped my mind in conversation recently. Sorry. Well, I know now. Thank you. Okay. The good the good staff, the good team, should I say, at, radio soap box.com. Thank you. I'd be much obliged if you could alter the slot slightly so that, so, yeah, up to you whether you wanna do the connection next week. Okay. I'll sleep on it. I'll sleep on it. And, yeah. Or or if you would like me just to supply
[00:16:35] Unknown:
an hour's worth of music for the hour. So I don't wanna let the listeners down. This is weekly now. You know? There might be somebody that, like, that's the highlight of their week. Notice. Didn't tell anyone. I don
[00:16:47] Unknown:
Short notice. Didn't tell anyone. I don't know. I haven't had any emails telling me that it's the highlight of peace. Well, it might be.
[00:16:55] Unknown:
Nothing more disappointing. No.
[00:16:59] Unknown:
Oh, dear. Right. So I'm gonna ask you what you've been up to briefly. Have you been up to anything this this week?
[00:17:06] Unknown:
But it's only Wednesday, isn't it? Not of any in oh, well, interest. I had to tell my son about the bees and the birds or the birds and
[00:17:15] Unknown:
the bees yesterday. I hope you got it the right way, Rhett. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:17:20] Unknown:
Oh, Maleficus. I've ruined his innocence. I've ruined it. Yeah. Yeah. I kind of knew he knew snippets and stuff, but obviously not enough. And the conversation came up, and he'd been doing inappropriate things with his finger motions and stuff. And his friends had told him. And he was like, I don't know what they mean inappropriate. And I was like, well, it kind of is a little bit apparent. Anyway, we're just pulling in the drive, and I just had to say it as it was, really, in a nice way. And then he looked at me and he went, that's disgusting. And then we came in on our merry little way.
And then you sit there singing, oh, no.
[00:17:56] Unknown:
He's got you haven't spoiled his innocence. No. I know, but I just did his innocence by him turning around and going, that's disgusting.
[00:18:03] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. And then I had to make sure that I put in that's you know, and it's just for people that love each other very much and, you know, you've got to be 16 at least. And then I said, don't say anything to your nephew neither because it's a grown up thing. Yeah. Or married. Yeah. Yeah. So, apart from that little thing, which is quite a cute little moment A big thing, really. Is is a big thing. Yeah. But ever since last week, I literally came off the show and Darren started being ill, and then it hit the whole family. Mum and dad were Yes. Had it. Oh, dad had it for, like, 5 days.
I was only sick twice, but you know when you're the last person and you know it's coming because Piran always stays with his dad on a Wednesday. And he phoned me on a Thursday morning, and he said he's been being sick all night. I was like, oh my god. Darren's been being sick all night as well. I was thinking that Darren just eating something. You know? Then mom and dad were like, we've been up all night being ill, and then I'm like, oh my god. Then he feels sick just thinking, oh my god. It's gonna hit me. Anyway, I did it. I lost a couple of pounds, every cloud and all of that. And now I've gained that £2 that I lost. But that was fun gaining them back, wasn't it? Well, I just ate normally, which just goes to show, doesn't it, really? I don't think I eat that bad, but I did have I booked in because I've had a couple of weeks off the gym because of various illnesses and my nan's deaf and stuff. And I was like, right. I'm back on it. So I booked a class for this evening, and then I went out for lunch with my mum and my friend, and I thought, I can't go doing a class with a full belly. So I canceled it.
And I'm just like, I've signed up for a 6 month membership that I don't think I even want anymore. So, anyway, the driver's gone. Not nothing beats get getting out and having a good walk. I mean, it's it's Yeah. But it's not enough, Maleficos. A little stroll with the dog. I need to be doing weights. I need to be working on my waist. Anyway weights? Weights. Yeah. Do do that cardio stuff and well, anyway.
[00:20:02] Unknown:
I'm I'm lucky in that respect in that I do a very physical job. And these last 2 weeks in fact, these last 3 weeks have been gruellingly physical. You know, something I've learned over the last few weeks is that I'm nowhere near as fit as I used to be. Obviously, I'm 48. What do what do you expect? But, actually, I think, physically, I'm stronger than I've ever been
[00:20:24] Unknown:
Right. Just because of the work that I'm doing on a continual basis. And it's like Don't you find that everyone our age, though, always says that now? Well, I am 47. I say that to everybody. I am approaching 50. You know? I'm not gonna look like I did in my twenties.
[00:20:39] Unknown:
Yeah. But you can't expect to, bounce as well as you did when you were a kid if you fall. No. Exactly. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Kids do tend to bounce a bit, don't they? And sort of get up when you and, you know, how many adults do you turn around to and go, oh, they're there. You'll be alright. You know, rub it better. Come on. Let's go. Yeah. You don't say that to an adult, do you? You have to be all concerned about it.
[00:21:02] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:21:05] Unknown:
Oh, I love it. I love it. Well, we're all wading together. So We are. Lovely. So have you traveled the new a 30
[00:21:15] Unknown:
yet? No. I don't think I ever will.
[00:21:19] Unknown:
I don't think you're gonna have much choice because there isn't as many options to turn off it as there used to be.
[00:21:25] Unknown:
Well, I'll probably I only go to, like, Truro that way. I'll probably just go to the back roads. I I don't like busy roads, really busy roads, and I'll be, like, going round and round and round about and just stressing right out. Yeah. Yeah. No. Uh-uh. I got there to
[00:21:42] Unknown:
I traveled from well, when I got on the a 30 would be what we would call Hamburger Hill at Fraden, and I got to Illogan in 20 minutes, and it would usually take about 30 to 35. Progress? I have to say, I don't like the fact that they've ripped up a load of beautiful Cornish countryside for it, but they've managed to stick the road on the crest of a hill for most of the way. So you can see pretty much both coasts for most of the way. It's nuts. It's actually incredibly picturesque. It's just unfortunate they've had to put a road across it all.
[00:22:23] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. But but, I mean, it's been going on for, well, God knows how long, hasn't it? It is. Yeah. And Darren changed jobs, like, 18 months ago. And it was supposed to be, well, this is 20 minute less journey than what I'm doing, but it's been taking the same amount of time. And yesterday, I came home, and I was like, oh, did you leave work early? He said, no. The 30 is up and running. I was like, wow. We've only been waiting 18 months.
[00:22:46] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, not being funny. 330,000,000. That's cost Cornwall or the taxpayer or whatever. So that's, an awful lot of money. Over a 1000 oak trees destroyed, swathes of heathland, farmland, yada yada yada. So, yeah, there's pros and cons. But, yeah, we can we can we can get somewhere 20 minutes quicker. Jai. Yoo hoo. I have to say I was quite happy because I actually, the reason I went down there was to to pick up a a rock and roll bed. I've had a rock and roll bed fitted in my new van. So How is how exciting? How is your van? It's very it the van itself is very excited to have a rock and roll bed inside now. So the rock and roll bed, I take it you know what that is. It's a it's a chair or it's a bed that concertinas into a chair with seat belts and yada yada yada.
So, yes, it's, looking forward to making the most of, you know, just jumping in the van at the weekend and going somewhere picturesque. I guess I could travel up onto the a 30 and assess where I'm going to go. You could. You could. Oh, lovely. Exciting. Yeah. So, yeah, that's quite cool. I'm just trying to think as well. There were some other news bits about Cornwall that I wanted to cover. Oh, right. Okay. Falmouth pack packet ark article here. God. Get my I'll put my teeth back in in a sec. Trewithan Dairy. That's really quite a famous dairy down here. Trewithan supplies a lot of milk to a lot of places in in Cornwall.
Just been taken over by a German firm. Oh. Yeah. So I'll just I'll just, give you a little, reject all. There we go. So, one of Cornwall's biggest dairies has been taken over by a leading jet, German dairy farm. Ermen, which is its name. Ermen, the German company. As announced today, it is open to a UK it is open to a UK production plant following the acquisition of Trawithen Dairy in Cornwall. And Pudding products will be produced at the factory and distributed across the UK and are expected to account for 15% of and global sales this year.
So I know who I am not really very happy about upholding Caesars the money. It's it's not even a Cornish company anymore. That's just my opinion. And I I I'm not gonna try and sort of dismantle anyone's business, but I'm not very comfortable buying any dairy products from anymore and won't be? Well, interestingly,
[00:25:38] Unknown:
was talking to farmer Pete about this just now. And on part of his manifesto, it's about stopping people coming in from other countries and buying farms and stuff like that. So So I should imagine there's quite a lot of it going on if that's, a big thing in one of his policies.
[00:25:58] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, absolutely disgusting. 1 of 1 of Cornwall's biggest dairies been taken over by a leading German dairy firm. So there we go. Wasn't very happy about that. Also, I sent you this one earlier in the week. May 20 24 transaction data. Cornwall is in the top five for planning applications with Land Registry for the month of May. So Cornwall being a tiny tiny little pinprick compared to the rest of the country actually came 5th in planning applications for probably housing, roads, fast fiber cable, all that kind of thing. So, yeah, in the top 5 in the UK, Cornwall for last month for planning applications with the land registry. So changes to land use, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah.
So what does that mean? That means, probably more solar farms, more windmills.
[00:26:59] Unknown:
Yeah. I don't know. Affordable housing or houses for the immigrants?
[00:27:03] Unknown:
Yeah. Houses for not Cornish people, basically, because there aren't enough, you know, there there aren't enough Cornish people to fill the houses in Cornwall. So, what are they all doing here, Shelley? What are they all doing? Such a beautiful place. Yeah. Well, not anymore. They've built a bloody great road through the middle of it.
[00:27:21] Unknown:
Well, I think they they used to have this green belt law, but I think that's been changed a lot. Well, the green belt law places yeah. We're all set to go. I'm gonna get my friend on to talk about this,
[00:27:34] Unknown:
again. Because the Greenbelt law, basically, the duchy land which makes up for I think 13% of Cornwall's land. Duchy. The Duchy is not subject to to the green belt law. I mean, it should be, but it isn't, judging by the amount of green belt land that's been sold off for housing and and solar farms. So Duchy is not, is not, as far as I'm aware, I know they're probably supposed to but they're not ascribing to that law as far as I can see and so yeah. The but the green belt land, basically, if you if you put in for a change of use, which is what the planning applications with the land registry generally is, it's not just housing planning, that kind of thing, it's it's change of use. So if you get, like, some farmers' fields and you decide that, actually, you wanna stick a few caravans and tents in it and make some money out of your land over the summer, you can do that. You can do that. That's not a problem at all. And you can apply for a change of use to amenity land.
So it's you're providing amenity, you know, on that land. So if you change it into a golf course or if you put, I don't know, a a few inflatable swimming pools or some trampolines, and you just changed it into a place where kids could go and jump off of trampolines into inflatable swimming pool, whatever. You change it into amenity land. And once it's been amenity land for, I think it's 5 years, you can then apply. It becomes Brownfield site and you can apply for planning permission. So which is this whole thing about all these solar farms going up. Oh, yeah. It's still greenbelt land. No. Because after you've put solar panels on for x amount of years, it becomes brownfield site. So that means that potentially don't get me wrong. Some of the leases are for, like, 40 years on these fields for the for the, solar panels.
But when that 40 year lease is up, that's brownfield land. That's that that's it's not been put into no one's put it into practice yet because we haven't had solar panels here yet in Cornwall taking up loads of field land for for more than 40 years yet. But when those leases are up, that's Brownfield site, so you can apply for planning.
[00:29:53] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:29:54] Unknown:
I don't know. I don't know, Maleficast. What is the world coming to? Well, the world is coming to the bottom of the hour right at this moment in time. Brilliant. Yeah. So the world is coming to the bottom of the hour. You are listening to the Kernel Connection with your host, Shelley Tasker and Malefika Scott on radiosoapbox.com. We are so glad to be here. It's ridiculous. So, we're gonna have a short break now so that Shelley can get her head together for the for the kernoke the amazing kernoke connection which I know is coming after the break. And, we'll see you folks in a few minutes. This is Holloway Joe.
[00:30:32] Unknown:
Better be good.
[00:30:35] Unknown:
Always is. There you go. That's that's all Unguela performing Hallaway Joe in, Truro Cathedral. I actually know 2 of the guys, singing there. Ah. So yeah. Excuse me. Yeah. Nice little track. Nice little It's a little sea shantee to help you haul the ropes in unison, folks. That's what it's all about. You know? Haul the nets in in unison. Haul the main brace in unison. You know? Getting all the folks to to to work together as one. So there you go. There we go. Yeah. The songs used to work as a coxswain, you know, did for or does for for rowing and that kind of thing. That's that was the whole idea. Just so for those folks who may be overseas who aren't aware of what sea shanties were for, that's originally what they were for, which is why they're so rhythmical.
[00:33:48] Unknown:
You taught me something in there, Melissa, Chris. No. Did you know that? No.
[00:33:52] Unknown:
I didn't know that. Oh, well, there you go. That's that hence, the words will haul away together. You know? That's it's it's they're keeping a rhythm and they're you know? Yeah. That's that's the whole point. That's why that's why you have a shanty. It keeps everyone working together when you use it.
[00:34:07] Unknown:
Oh, I love it. Yeah. Very good. Yeah. There you go. So
[00:34:12] Unknown:
all that excitement over and done with. So we get onto my kerno connection. We get onto your kerno connection. I'm excited. What is it? Because I rec I recognize the name, you see. So I I I do. Yes. So Well but I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say anything. I just take it away, Shelley. Over here. Away.
[00:34:30] Unknown:
I got really excited about this, and I wish I started looking into it a couple of weeks ago after my last one, actually, because there is so much information out there and documentaries on this woman. So I shall move forward. I'm going to be talking to you about Emily Hobhouse who was born 18 60, died 1926, born in Liskeard, and she was a campaigner. Right. In Victorian Britain, it took special courage to stand up to the British Army, the British government, the press, and the general public all at the same time. Emily Hobhouse had that courage.
She spent her life battling against the cruelty of war, especially the suffering meted out into innocent women and children. At her memorial service in 1926 in Bloem oh, I did practice saying this earlier. Bloemfontein, South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi referred to her as one of the noblest and bravest of women. Hundreds of people from many races followed her casket to its final resting place and all the flags in the air of area flew at half mast. Born to reverend Reginald Hobhouse and Caroline Trelawney, Clattery descended from Bishop Trelawney, Emily was the 6th of 8 children.
She had the advantages and disadvantages of gented Victorian girlhood. On one hand, she was protected from want and lived in the rectory of St. Ive, East Cornwall. On the other hand, she was by her own account, uneducated, forced to abide by her father's wishes in matters of the heart and everything else. After the death of her mother, Emily, the spinster daughter was obliged to nurse her father through 15 years of illness. During this time, she carried out much of his pastoral work, visiting the sick and destitute and learning for herself the other side of Victorian life.
When her father died in 1985, Emily's story took on an adventurous turn. She inherited a large sum of money and moved to Oxford to stay with her brother. There, she became deeply involved in the radical politics that had always interested her. At the request of the archbishop of Canterbury's wife, she traveled to Minnesota to do welfare work among the Cornish miners. In the then wild town of Saint Paul, she fell in love with John Carr Jackson. Jackson seems to have been unreliable where money was concerned and left town in a hurry. The pair had agreed to buy a ranch in Mexico using some of Emily's inheritance.
Emily went on to Mexico alone and there, her courage as well as the ranch seemed to have failed her. Jackson never appeared and Emily returned to England with a broken heart and considerably lighter of pocket. When the 2nd Boer War broke out in 18/99, Emily learned of the dire conditions endured by wives and children of Boas held by the British in concentration camps in South Africa. Leonard Courtney, a liberal MP, invited her to become secretary of the women's branch of the South African conciliation committee. And so at 40, this campaigner braved the long journey out to see for herself.
In the event, she saw more than the authorities wished. By pulling strings, she got hold of a couple of railway trucks and was reluctantly given permission to visit the concentration pitiful state of the women and children there. Everything, food, shelter, medical attention, and water were lacking. Even soap counted as a luxury was not allowed. Disease and starvation were rife. There were no kettles but there was no fuel either. She set about making life difficult for everyone in the authority till conditions until conditions in the camp improved.
Without official permission, she discovered and visited other camps of all which testified to the same cruelty, the same bureaucratic apathy. Back at the Bloemfontein, she found the population had, as she wrote, redoubled and swallowed up the results of improvements that had been affected. Disease was on the increase. The people made the impression of utter misery. Illness and death had left their marks. The army's policy of destroying farms, crops and livestock and forcing women and children into camps without proper supervision should have shocked anyone.
But England was far off and anyway caught up in a wave of jingoism in no mood to listen to critics. Hampered, insulted, thwarted, and slandered, she was nonetheless determined to make the government reign in the policies that cause such misery. The government at last agreed to look into her claims and set up the full set permission to do so. It upheld her findings. Hobhouse returned to South Africa in 1901 but was arrested and deported. She went to France and wrote up her experiences. In 1903 and 1905, she was again in South Africa and set up schools to teach young women spinning and weaving, falling ill. However, she returned to England in 190 8.
Emily's compassion did not stop at the borders of South Africa for she later went to Russia to help those caught up in the revolution. She also went to Leipzig after the First World War and did her best to relieve the plight of women and children there. The South Africans never forgot her. In 1921, they asked her to accept £2,300 in recognition of a human humanitarian work and to buy a house with it on the Cornish coast. She sculpted to take it but could not rebuff such kindness and did in fact buy a house in Saint Ives. But her health was failing and in 1926, she died.
Her ashes were taken to Bloemfontein and entered beside those of the statesmen and national heroes buried in the national memorial. Hardly known in Britain, she's revered in South Africa. Her image appeared on the South African stamp in 1976, and a town in Eastern Free State is named Hobhouse in her honor. So that's my little connection. And I've got a little woman, wasn't she? She was amazing.
[00:40:33] Unknown:
Never heard about 1976 was my year of birth as well. So there you go.
[00:40:39] Unknown:
Right. Okay.
[00:40:40] Unknown:
Not that that has any connection to the story whatsoever. But, yeah.
[00:40:45] Unknown:
No. I found it fascinating, and I literally, like, thought, oh god. I'm gonna watch the documentary still now, although I've got, like, a vague idea. It's, there's a lot of stuff out there. Hence, I found a little 3 minute audio that I thought might Oh, okay. Should I play that now? If you could, because then that will finish my kernel connection.
[00:41:02] Unknown:
Alright. Get your xylophone ready.
[00:41:05] Unknown:
I can't have xylophone myself.
[00:41:07] Unknown:
When he was operating in the Sue Barraga, which now incidentally forms part of the Addo Elephant National Park as a matter of interest, The Times even reported that this band of resolute men led by General Smuts, formed one of the most amazing aspects of the guerrilla war.
[00:41:24] Unknown:
To end this guerrilla warfare, the British adopt brutal methods to crush further Boer resistance.
[00:41:30] Unknown:
Firstly, Lord Kitchener's scorched earth policy had resulted in women and children being removed from the farms, the livestock being slaughtered, as it deprived the Boers in the veld with their ability to live off the veld and to source supplies from these different homesteads.
[00:41:45] Unknown:
Eisy Smuts is put under house arrest despite her pleas to be sent to a concentration camp with other Boer women. The harsh treatment of Boer women and children provoked Smuts and his men to fight on with renewed desperation and anger. British welfare campaigner Emily Hobhouse brings world attention to the plight of the Boer women and children.
[00:42:15] Unknown:
He was a dear little chap of about 4 All that was left of him were big brown eyes and white teeth, sitting lips stretched back too thin to close. He was emaciated. It's difficult to describe what it's like to see all those children in a state of collapse. After a while, they carried the corpses out at dawn and instead of passing through the town, went to the cemetery another route. The sudden realisation of the death rate dawned upon me. It was a death rate which had never been seen except in the times of the great plagues. The whole talk was of death.
Who died yesterday? Who lay dying today? And who would be dead tomorrow?
[00:43:17] Unknown:
The war, which lasts for two and a half years, witnesses the loss of over 4,000 Boer combatants and 22,000 British soldiers. 28,000 Boer women and children and 14,000 black inmates died in British concentration camps. Many of them were dumped in the veld in makeshift camps after their farmhouses were burnt down as a result of Kitchener's scorched earth policy. The brave but beleaguered Boers, having lost their republics and suffered much eventually submit to defeat with the signing of the peace treaty of Vereenigern. The Boers hand in their arms.
[00:44:15] Unknown:
And that's lovely. It's a pretty faithful story, the,
[00:44:19] Unknown:
the Boer War. My granddad fought in the Boer War. Oh, wow. I was calling it the Boer War. Yeah.
[00:44:25] Unknown:
Anyway. Well, it's that's how it's spelled though, isn't it? B o e r. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what you said, so I didn't well, you'll know this because you've got the book. But at the beginning of the book, there's a little bit where it says, the author of this book was a regular soldier who served with distinction in the South African War. And in the First World War, when he retired from army service, from army service due to wounds received on active service, he settled down in an English country village and he began to study politics and economics. He wanted to know why honest Tommy Atkins, I'm assuming you know Tommy Atkins is a is is the the full name of the British Tommy.
No. I didn't know that. Okay. So, you know, you know, they say, oh, it's the it's the Tommies are coming, the Tommies are coming, or the Jerrys are coming. So the Jerrys are the Germans, the Tommies are the are the English. Oh, okay. Yeah. But so but back then, they were known as Tommy, you know, you know, Tommy Atkins, because you were just Tommy Atkins from the village. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. That's that was the whole point. So why honest Tommy Atkins had been compelled to fight peaceful Boer farmers and enable an international diamond syndicate to gain control of the South African mines?
So that's that was my my granddad openly voiced his disdain for, the, you know, the scorched earth policy over in South Africa.
[00:45:51] Unknown:
Right.
[00:45:52] Unknown:
And the the you know, if you think about it, if you listen to the figures in that little clip there, more people died in captivity than as a result of combat. You know, so, and the combat was brutal. The bore the bore farmers I mean, you think about the losses that the British had. What was it? 4000 losses 4, Just over 4,000 losses of the Boer farmers and something like 20,000 losses for the British. You know, the the Boers were pasting the British, absolutely pasting them because they were using sneaky tactics, Shelley, like they'd dig a trench around the bottom of a hill And I think it was Margus Fontaine. If you look at Margus Fontaine, that was a one hell of a battle. It involved the Scottish regiments. I don't know whether it involved my granddad's regiment, because he was Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, but I know that the Black Watch definitely were at Margus Fontaine.
And, you know, back in the days where you didn't do war on Sundays, Shelley, if you were British, because that was that was a day for worship and a day for playing cricket. Right? I never knew that either. Yeah. Yeah. Baden I think it was Baden Powell, the guy who started up the Cub Scouts. So Cubs, and and later Girl Guides was was branched off from Cub Scouts, but Cub Scouts originally was started up by Baden Powell. Baden Powell was actually a up by Baden Powell. Baden Powell was actually a general, I think he was in command of somewhere like Grahamstown, somewhere like that, and they didn't do war on Sundays. That was a day for worship and cricket.
[00:47:30] Unknown:
Wow.
[00:47:33] Unknown:
So back in those days, what they would do is they would get a whole load of people on horseback and and infantry and stuff, and they'd charge it to the top of the nearest hill, and claim it as their own. What the sneaky bores would do, because obviously a high point, if you've got the high ground, you see, you've got the high ground, then then you've got a commanding view of the area and you can fire cannons or artillery, whatever, whoever's coming. That was the whole thing with the British ideals. So we'll charge to the top of that. Yeah. We'll charge across the felt, and we'll go up to the top of that that mountainous hill over there and and claim it as our own. The sneaky boar farmers would dig a trench around the bottom of said hills.
Margus Fontaine was one of them. And they'd lie in wait in the sneaky trenches and wait for the British or the Scots or whoever or the Welsh regiments to I don't know if there were any Welsh out there, but, they'd wait for them to get, you know, like the old saying, close enough to see the whites of their eyes. Because the British were all expecting the tops of the hills to be defended because that's the most easily defendable position. But if the sneaky boars have run a have run a trench around the bottom of the the the hill that you're charging for and not expecting any opposition towards, then when they see the whites of your eyes, you're pretty screwed by that time. When they see the whites of your eyes, you're pretty screwed by that time. And there's a Margaret Fontaine was a big one because they they marched. The poor Scots regiments who had been used you know, they'd spent months on a boat to get there, and then they'd been used to sort of Scottish weather, I'm presuming, and marched out into sort of 30, 40 degree heat, dry heat in Africa, in their kilts with their little pale white skins and and and literally at Margus Fontaine, there was no cover.
There was no, like, there there might have been a few scrub bits of bushes and a few little rocks on the felt, but the felt was largely flat land. That's what it was. You had these big hills which rose out. So they'd be they'd be marching forward as they did back in Napoleonic times as well, you know, in in formation and this that and the other. And the Boers would just wait until they got close and just would open up. And Margus Fontein was an absolute massacre, absolute massacre. And there were people that were pinned to the ground throughout the main day, you know, the heat of the whole day, and they couldn't escape, basically, from the tiny little rocks and things that they were literally lie lying down on the ground and hiding behind and hoping not to get hit.
Guys were sort of getting up and running the Scots were getting up and running because they were that desperately thirsty. They'd get up and run to try and escape and get water out of desperation and then they'd be shot. There were guys hidden behind rocks with as many as 3 bullet holes round in the top of their heads, you know? So they were pinned, massacred and the guys that did survive were so demoralized and, not necessarily demoralized, but they were they were in such a bad way they'd spent the whole day lying in South African sun on their tummies with their poor little bare white legs showing and they had blisters that were hanging over their socks when they walked off the battlefield.
You know, so yeah. I mean, the Boer War was a nasty one but it's interesting because the Boer War was fought not for any kind of British sovereignty, It was fought to enable, as my granddad said, an international diamond syndicate to gain control of the mines.
[00:51:23] Unknown:
Very interesting.
[00:51:24] Unknown:
So Emily Emily Hobhouse was all part of that thing, though. She she was the one that exposed to the world pretty much, the first concentration camps. Now there is arguments that the Spanish had concentration camps at one point before the British.
[00:51:40] Unknown:
Yeah. I went down that rabbit hole last night. Oh, did you? I did. I don't know why. I was looking at the concentration camp meaning and, like, looking at where more about them and stuff like that. And then I found this, little YouTube clip, something debunked, but she was basically it was supposed to be a British man, wasn't it, that, invented concentration camps? That's what they put it down to. That's what they put it down to. But, actually, like you say, I think they say the Spanish before and stuff and,
[00:52:09] Unknown:
well, I'd actually Well, I know that Lord Kitchener was Lord Kitchener is the guy that you know, on the poster, Britain needs you, you know, with the big stars and and pointing it. So Lord Kitchener, was responsible for the the scorched earth policy, which basically meant that, they wanted to starve the boars into submission by destroying their means of getting food. So the the peaceful Boer farmers would be going out to war while their wives and daughters would be looking after the farmsteads. I mean, yeah, it's asking for trouble, ain't it? You know? Oh, definitely.
Yeah. So, so they they it was easy pickings for the British. They burnt the farmsteads to the ground, destroyed all the food, and and rounded up all the occupants and sent them down to Cape Town to live in concentration camps where a lot you know, as we said earlier, more people died in the concentration camps than combatants died.
[00:53:03] Unknown:
Well, question, Maleficos. Go on. Is it my culinary connection this week or yours?
[00:53:10] Unknown:
I just I was sort of adding to it, really, being honest. It's Right. Okay. I'm joking. I'm joking. My granddad was sort of part and parcel of that time. Yeah. If you think about it, he was in his twenties during the Boer War. He was born in 18/79. So, like
[00:53:26] Unknown:
No. It's fascinating. It is fascinating how that all ties in. Oh, good. I've got
[00:53:31] Unknown:
a lovely book full of photographs from the Boer War that my granddad took.
[00:53:36] Unknown:
Oh, wow.
[00:53:39] Unknown:
Yeah. You should you should see the mustaches on these guys. Seriously impressive. Lord Kitchener has not got nothing on some of these guys.
[00:53:49] Unknown:
But it just goes to show, doesn't it? So many people are just unforgotten. I've never heard about her before. If it wasn't for this book of my 101 Cornish voices no. 101 Cornish lives, I wouldn't have
[00:54:01] Unknown:
ever found out, really. Yeah. What happened? She was from Liskeard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Our book's wonderful. And and Oh, I love a book. And do you know what? That's because we're all supposed to there's only one group of people that came up with concentration camps. We can't we can't count the other groups of people that have done it in the past because somehow they're not as bad. Oh, okay. Anyway, you know, whatever. Oh, man. So, yeah, really interesting show you had, with with the farmer, Chappie. I'm gonna go back over that one as well and have a little listen. And the good thing is, Shelley, my van has got a little USB port in it so I can take my podcasts on the road. Oh, great stuff. Well, so you listen to me doing the kernel connection next week.
Well, no. Because I'll have to be somewhere to download it, won't I? I I won't I won't I I I don't have I don't have a mobile phone, Shelley. I can't listen live. I know. But your wife has, your partner. Sorry. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Alright. Alright, my lovely. Can I just borrow your phone for an hour so I can listen to to the show? Well, actually, just join in. Yeah. Just join in.
[00:55:05] Unknown:
I'm on holiday, but I'm gonna do a bit of work. Yeah. Yeah. I I don't think so. No. I'm glad you're getting away. No. I'm joking. Joking. Joking. But, yeah, enjoy your holiday.
[00:55:17] Unknown:
So you go to Mullion a lot, don't you? I love Mullion. Yeah. I love I love that area. I love that area of Cornwall. You are right on the, you know, right on the tip of tip of the world, almost. You know, Kate Winslet had nothing on the Titanic when she was flapping her arms about at the front. It's you know, you go down to the Lizard Peninsula and you look out over the sea, that's just that's some that's something else, especially on a beautiful sunny day. Yeah. I've only been there a couple of times, but I want to, go down to, like, the Lizard area there because they've got
[00:55:47] Unknown:
the electricity station in place, haven't they?
[00:55:50] Unknown:
Yes. Yes. Yes. They've got the certain events, certain places that Phil Hadley may well take us at some point. So, I got your message about the, which dates you can do. So I will contact Phil. And, basically, folks, for for you listeners out there, Phil Hadley, we had a historian on had him on a couple of times on this show. And he is, gonna take me and Shelley around to a few poignant places, wartime poignant places in Cornwall, and, just give us a little talk on some of it. So I I thought it would be a good opportunity to, you know, take a little recording device of some variety and, yeah, we'll we'll splice it together. We'll splice the journey together and and put it into a show for for you folks. Should be really interesting.
[00:56:38] Unknown:
So, you know We're having a day trip, mate. We're having a day trip. We're having a day trip. A little history. Yeah. A little day out. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:56:48] Unknown:
That what so what I was gonna ask you was is, what who have you got on next week on your show? I do like to ask this at the end of the show just because, you know You've got nothing else to say. No. It's nothing to do with that. It's just it's because, you've you've been having really interesting guests on as well. Well, thank you. Thank you. It's that's that's not a compliment to you. That's a compliment to your guests.
[00:57:10] Unknown:
Hey. Who's gonna do the groundwork? No. What can I say? I'm fortunate to know so many wonderful people, and I don't know them all. But, next week, I think it's Mel Sheridan. She's having problems, and she's got something to expose with the waterworks in Haile. Oh, okay. Quite a story. Quite a story. So I think that's next week.
[00:57:30] Unknown:
I think we're done now. Interesting. I have a friend, Anne in Hale, who will be avidly listening, I'm sure.
[00:57:35] Unknown:
Right. Okay. So that's for that. And then unsure of, both of my guests yet for my new show, Women's Hour, which I've done 2 shows now and I've really enjoyed.
[00:57:48] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, I haven't listened to any of them because it's only been a staff, isn't it? Yeah. You told me quite clearly. I wasn't invited not even to listen. So there we go.
[00:57:57] Unknown:
I've I've I've done it. I've I've had, over the last 2 weeks, 4 really interesting people, and it's nice because half an hour as well is not too long, You know? Yeah. 2 guests in an hour. It's it's just rolled. I've I've enjoyed it. Girly stuff and just chatting to women and things about that I'm interested in and stuff. You know? Yeah. There we are. So
[00:58:19] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, it beats talking to me. I I get it. I know I can be a a bit a bit of a stick in the mud, a bit boring. But no. Absolutely brilliant Kno connection this week, Shelley. Emily, you can't help me. As well. I'm no. I know I'm just joking. She's she's she's she's quite a character and quite a, quite really,
[00:58:39] Unknown:
quite an icon of that era. So, yeah, very interesting. And I didn't know Shelley, you taught me. I didn't know she was from Liskeard. So you've taught me something tonight as well. Well, you've said yeah. No. I didn't. I know I said, is it mine or yours, but I was joking. That was interesting. Yeah. Very interesting. And I love these things. Like I say, I could have spent ages researching her, so I might even watch a documentary on her tonight.
[00:59:01] Unknown:
Yeah. I need to know more. Yeah. Okey dokey. Well, look. I'm gonna play us out. My my bandmates had some some health issues recently. So so, Jeff, if you're listening, this this one's this one's for you. You might recognize it. So I'm gonna play us out with this one. We will catch up with you good folks next week, next Wednesday evening at 8 PM, UK time.
[00:59:23] Unknown:
Say goodnight, Shelley. Goodnight, listeners. I was just about to say it, and I was thinking you're not here next week. But, hey. We'll sort that out. Well, Shelley might be here. I might not be. You told a fib on air.
[00:59:35] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, I made a faux pas. There we go. Live. As we said, this has been the live show, the live Kernel Connection show. Alright. Lots of love, folks. You take care, and we will both catch up with you soon. Soon. Have a good week.
Introduction and Hosts
Technical Difficulties and Live Radio Challenges
Personal Anecdotes and Family Stories
Cornish News and Updates
Emily Hobhouse: A Cornish Heroine
Discussion on the Boer War and Historical Context
Upcoming Shows and Farewell
