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Sunday 10 June 2012

Kernow Calling - more Gloriana questions than answers

I have recently blogged about the Royal barge Gloriana and how she flew the national flag of Cornwall alongside the other national flags of the UK. The point to my blog was that we shouldn't get carried away with the meaning behind this occurrence until someone in authority, re the river pageant, had confirmed it.

A newly formed, enterprising group 'Kernow Calling' called the Radio Cornwall newsdesk to see if they had discovered anything.
Transcript of phone call to BBC Radio Cornwall's news desk.
Friday 8th June 2.00pm.
The lady we spoke to on the news desk did not give her name.

K.C: "Hi I'm ringing from KernowCalling about the flying of the flag of St Piran on the Gloriana during the river boat pageant last Sunday."

News Desk: " Gloriana ? "

K.C: " The Royal barge Gloriana on Sunday flew the St Pirans along with the flags of the other home nations that make up the UK, seeing as this is the first time the St Piran has been given equal status we wondered what coverage you are giving it ?"

N.D: " Okay I'll just ask."

N.D: ( After a few minutes). "I've just spoken to my colleague and he said that this was covered on the breakfast show this morning,they had an expert on who explained the reason they had flown the St Piran was due to one of the boat builders having come from Cornwall, there was no special significance to it."

K.C: " What...? That makes no sense this is a vessel of state it flew the flags of Scotland,Wales,Northern Ireland,Cornwall and England the nations that make the UK and as a courtesy the flag of the City of London as the square mile has a degree of autonomy and the royal barge was on their part of the Thames.
Also it flew the flag of Motability, as they had selected the oar crew and the Queen is the charity's patron.
So your saying the Queen had decided as one was of the boat builders was Cornish the St Pirans would be flown for that reason only... well that's just really confusing, wouldn't the St Piran have been flown lower than the national flags if that was the case..Could you just double check that is the reason ? "

We could hear her relaying what had just been said to a male colleague .We heard him reply.

Man:" That doesn't matter we've had it confirmed and that's what were sticking with."

N.D: " I've spoken to my colleague and he says our position is that we have had it confirmed why the St Piran was flown and that's what were going to stay with."

K.C: " So the story needs no more investigating ?"

N.D:" No."

K.C: " Okay and are you happy for us to publish a transcript of this conversation on our web page?"

N.D: " What...Why?"

K.C: " Just so we can let people know what we are doing."

N.D: " Well...okay if you want to."

K.C: " Thanks very much for your time."
This raises more questions but doesn't provide any answers.

From the transcript it is clear that Radio Cornwall is more than happy to find some banal answer to the question as to why Cornwall's flag was flown alongside those of England, Wales and Scotland. Why is this if they are supposed to represent Cornwall?

If the answer that Radio Cornwall have received is correct then surely there should have been a lot more flags flown on the Gloriana. If everyone who contributed anything to it being there was represented by a flag then there were probably a few people a tad unhappy that their contribution hadn't been recognised?

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