Maybe it was Brixton rather than Brixham. An easy mistake to make!
Is that the Brixton between Plymouth and Modbury?
Must be a few years since Brixton Miners Welfare played in the Plymouth & District League.
Well, no there aren’t any miners welfare clubs - as such - down this way but we’ve previously discussed Peasedown Miners Welfare (North Somerset coalfield) as historic opponents of various Torquay United teams.
Some of those SWPL clubs you’ve been studying - St Dennis and Foxhole Stars - are from china clay country in Cornwall. Nearby Bugle and Nanpean played in the old SW League with Roche being another prominent club in that area. They say football was the preferred sport of the clay workers in Cornwall; rugby that of the deeper mineral miners further west (I’m always sceptical about the claim that Argyle have
all of Cornwall as their catchment area: in theory, yes, because there’s nobody else; in practice I think it’s more of an East Cornwall thing these days).
I’ve not inspected the facilities but there is a football pitch - and active club - at Lee Moor up in Devon’s china clay hills. In South Devon, Teign Village - built for quarry workers - has just celebrated its centenary and has a team in the South Devon League.
Keep wandering the moors though - there are loads and loads of celebrities out there - and not all of Ms Widdicombe's political persuasion.
There’s plenty of interesting mining history on Dartmoor - Stefano would be an excellent guide and will know all the best Italian-style cafes within the national park boundaries - and they’ve just started to pave the way for re-opening the tungsten mine at Hemerdon on the edge of the moor. The Tamar Valley - Morwellham and the Devon Great Consols Mine - is also worth a look. The recent waymarking, trail routes and car parks now make it very accessible even though I sense this has taken away some of the mystique about the place.
Bolsover has returned Dennis Skinner since the year dot and NE Derbyshire is also solid Labour, but you wouldn't know any of this from the attitudes of the football fans who attend Sheffield Road. Sadly, football attracts the Sun-reading section of the local population and if you wanna hear reactionary opinions loudly expressed then the B2Net stadium on a Saturday is the place to be. .
I think we know that the correlation between voting behaviour, political loyalty, opinion and outlook isn’t quite as strong as is often suggested. It’s quite possible that 80% of Chesterfield’s Labour voters agree with 80% of Torbay Tory voters over 80% of issues. There may also be some Tories with a more liberal outlook than some of those Labour voters, etc, etc.
But you’d notice some key
differences between the political landscapes of the two areas; the main one revolving around the cultural and historical role of organised labour and the traditional working-class. Indeed, you’d probably find a quite different response in South Devon to the term “working-class”, what it means and what it once meant. It's probably not an expression that rolls so easily off the tongue in these parts.
Nonetheless an interesting side issue is the great historical strength of Co-op retailing (and other services) in Plymouth and South Devon. This was true when I was a kid and the Co-op continues to have a high profile to this day. I'm not sure if this is a quirk, a reflection upon Plymouth's social history or if it's linked to Westcountry Liberalism and non-conformism.
And what of local Liberalism? A form of anti-Toryism? A rejection of Labourism? A strong tradition and set of values in itself? Or a cry to say that, somehow, we’re different down here? Others may wish to comment even though we’ve been there before on this site.
But back to the issue of organised labour and class identity. This struck me recently visiting museums in Liverpool and Sheffield, each of which has sections about labour and working-class history - or, if you prefer (as I think I do),
people’s history. By contrast, many museums and histories in the South West (with the possible exception of Plymouth and West Cornwall) are probably more likely to take a lords-and-ladies approach. In Torquay, for example, there’s been a lot of history written about the
wealthy who popularised the town from the 19th century (they say the town was at the height of its powers in the
’sixties - the 1860s, that is) but very little about the people who serviced the needs of the rich. They would have moved from the villages of rural Devon (and further afield) to work as servants, build the houses, do the repairs, deliver supplies and all the rest. Their history is a fascinating one, yet to be written, and they are the forebears of many present Torquinians.
Another possible difference is the relatively widespread
antipathy to virtually any form of politics or government. Nothing new in this and nothing unique either, especially at a time when this is said to be a national and international trend. But I’ve always thought this has been more evident in Devon and Cornwall in an almost
frontier-like way; positive and to be welcomed in some ways; rather paranoid and blinkered in others.
And you may occasionally encounter an outlook that says “
I’m no Tory and I don’t like them but, yes, I vote Conservative. It’s just common sense”. Likewise you may also hear people accusing anybody vaguely left-of-centre of getting “all political” when anything which is - er -
political is discussed. Why, even on this august forum, the words “commie” and “socialist” get banded around by a small number of users to describe just about anybody who doesn’t believe in hanging ‘em, flogging ‘em, deporting ‘em or making ‘em even poorer. Sometimes it gets rather tetchy here but I must say that one or two of the old "reactionairies" (no names but they have PL postcodes) are absolute forum treasures and never too far away from not taking things entirely seriously.
But the thing you’ll hear most are the moans about the
"bloody council" (especially in Torbay). I heard the same complaints when a teenager in 1972; I’d read them in the local paper when I used to pop back for games in 1992; I hear them as loud as ever in 2012. It doesn’t matter if the council is Tory
or Lib Dem. Nor is there ever much distinction between elected members or paid officials. The view is invariably the same - regardless of
truth or
myth - and it’ll probably always be the case. It’s part of the culture and somewhat puts Torquay United in the shade as the national sport of Torbay.
A final difference may be that of
regional identity. I would imagine that the identity (however defined) of Chesterfield is greater than that of Derbyshire which, in turn, is greater than that of being in the - you know (how can I put it?) -
the Midlands. Maybe it’s partly defined as what it isn’t: not Yorkshire; especially not Nottinghamshire.
Here there's a certain connection to the idea of
Devon even if there's a degree of suspicion about the similarity of the recently-created Devon flag to the colours of Argyle. But the
South West/Westcountry thing is different again, albeit with umpteen definitions of what constitutes either area. These may range from the local media’s Devon, Cornwall (and parts of Somerset and Dorset) all the way through to the government’s (them again!) wider South West region which includes Tewkesbury, Salisbury and Christchurch. My advice would be to assume Devon and Cornwall unless indicated otherwise. Also assume an uneasy relationship with Cornwall within this equation. You’ll hear suspicion of London and a belief that the Westcountry is treated less fairly than
all the other regions (and is, somehow, far more
deserving). Again this is historic and we’re way beyond distinguishing between truth, perception and myth. But, go elsewhere, and you’ll hear
exactly the same in the North East where the prevailing politics are rather different. Lastly be prepared for media messages that portray a picture of the majority of us living in the
countryside with clear links to farming, fishing, tourism or the armed forces. That, it appears, is an aspect of our identity and self-image which excludes many of us.
And, for a thread that started with Totnes Town, we've not really got round to discussing TQ9 (save for that rogue from elsewhere in the South Hams)......
