SHOCK DOUBLE LIFE OF TOLCARNE SCOUT LEADER REVEALED

The Roundup can bring you the startling news that one of Tolcarne's most popular and hitherto upstanding inhabitants - Mr Maurice "Hairclip" Metherell (32), a local butcher and favourite Scout leader - has been leading a double life.

Metherell, pictured here on the left in his Scout uniform,  is popular amongst the lads of the Tolcarne Scout group.
Whilst he can sometimes come across as effeminate, he has been most helpful to the boys in encouraging them to explore their 'feminine side' in true 21st century metrosexual style.

Under Metherell's leadership they were the first scout troop to develop skills in hairdressing and home-baking.
These early successes were quickly followed by tutelage and skills in manicure, spray tan and the arts of the air steward.

It therefore came as a huge surprise, when it was revealed that "Mr Metherell" was leading a second life as Miss Maude Pengelly (29) a freelance courtesan operating out of a caravan parked in a layby on the B3315 near the turning for Paul.

Advertising on the internet, Maude Pengelly secured suitors from as far away as Padstow ( a 'Mr Stone', a local chef).
Her undoing came when she received a visit  from a Mr 'John Smith', who turned out to be none other than Mr Willy Botheras (62) from Pendeen, the Cornish Chief Scout and a man well known to "Mr Metherell".

As neither party was wearing the strong glasses they both require, it took a minute or two before the penny dropped.

However, drop it surely did and, as they say in Sennen, the encounter ended "sooner'n it begun' in a scene of mutual embarrassment.
Tolcarne is now advertising for a new Scout leader and the Pengelly caravan was last seen heading for Padstow in a hurry.

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JOIN MARAZION METHODIST PADDLING CLUB!!

Love the sea, but can't swim?

Does standing in deep water make you want to 'go'?

Do you find the bathing costumes of today indecent?

We know the problem and we know how to deal with it at the Marazion Methodist Paddling Club (MMPC).

 At the MMPC:

• We don't wear indecent costumes.
• We don't go out into water more than four inches deep.
•  For safety reasons, we always take the waters in groups of no less than ten, one of whom is always attached by rope to a stout tree on shore.
• We start every paddling expedition with a rousing rendition of William Whiting's 'Eternal father strong to save' - No. 917 in the Methodist Hymn Book.

If you are 21 or over, you are welcome to join us at a cost of just £756 per season.

For this:

You will receive a 'certified decent' handknitted costume in which you can paddle.

You will receive an intensive  three week paddling safety course.

Thereafter you will be able to join us in safe paddling and song on Marazion beach!

CALLING PARENTS AND YOUNGSTERS EVERYWHERE!

FREE YOURSELVES FROM THE EVILS OF THE INTERNET

Now both parents and youngsters can have lots of modern up-to-date and care-free communication fun with the Methodist Morse Code and Radio Kit.

Using this radio, you will find that you can only listen  to wholesome family programmes from around the world.
The radio, which comes in a fetching and handy 3ft square walnut-effect box is pre-tuned  to receive only Methodist Radio Relubbus and ten other Methodist stations around the world (1 in Devon and the others elsewhere in Cornwall).

You can sing along with your favourite hymns and even listen to your own requests, if you sre lucky enough to have had them selected from the many hundreds of thousands that are sent in.

For the technically minded, there is a dial with which you can adjust the volume.  However, be careful!  You can only listen to this radio set with headphones (2 sets supplied) and you might damage your ears, if you turn the volume up too high.

Parents are advised to listen with their youngsters for the first couple of years until they can be sure that the volume dial is not being abused.

The really interesting feature is the Morse device, which will permit your youngster to communicate with other youngsters.  This is guaranteed to give them hours of good clean honest fun.

In view of the potentially addictive nature of this equipment, it is strongly recommended that parents strictly control and limit children's access to it.

Parents are advised not to let the youngster near the equipment until AFTER the homework has been done AND checked.

The Methodist Institute for Juvenile Physical and Mental Health recommends that all youngsters still wearing short trousers (i.e. under 21 years of age) should be permitted no more than 30 minutes fun before they return to the family Scrabble table of an evening.

NEW BOOK, NEW AUTHOR

Popular Penzance prostitute, Kelly Killigrew (39), whose acute commercial sense led her to develop an initiative, "the price ladder", which has subsequently been gratefully copied by hundreds of professional ladies from St Buryan to right up to Camborne, has decided to branch out into writing.

For those unfamiliar with the price ladder, Kelly - no slouch when to comes to bargains - quickly twigged than when you offer pensioners '70% off' and the unemployed '50% off', you can protect your earnings by not disclosing 'off what' and still coin in the full sum - or even more.

However, now still with almost half her own teeth and free from disease at the last check just 19 years ago, Kelly, thinking of the future, has decided that, with gravity now beginning to pull its not inconsiderable weight, it is now time to carve out and develop a new career.

She has thus turned to writing and has conceived of the idea of penning a history of Notable Courtesans of West Penwith.

Despite this new departure, as she says herself, "I aren't givin up the scrubbin' completely.  I duh still do it, but I duh do the writin' in between like."   Thus she can often be viewed pacing up and down Parade Street with a notebook in her hand, furiously scribbling away in between rushed visits to the bushes of nearby Morrab Gardens in the company of 'reg'lars'.

Billy Curnow Publications of Adelaide Street, Penzance has snapped up the chance to take on this new local author. Says proprietor, Billy Curnow, "I wuz persuaded by the regal prose o' this queenathu pros and by the 50% off she gimme fer 6 weeks!"   Clearly, he hadn't heard of the price ladder.

With Kelly's kind permission we are taking just a brief look at some of the historical local talent she is featuring in her book.

On the left are the legendary so-called 'Eight Sirens of Sennen'.

They are, from the left, Lizzie Kelynack (16), Seline Hichens (17), Gracie Beckerleg (19), Alice Chirgwin (22), Sarah Jago (21), Aggie Curnow (27), Lavinia Lutey (24), and their captain and surprisingly agile yet one-legged star, Liza Cargeeg (29).

Known by Policeman Carne as 'the scourge of the cove', these young ladies busily worked the streets of Sennen Cove in the 1920s.  Dressed in a home-made uniform, they tended to stand out because of their unorthodox gait as they practised their eye-catching 'walk in formation'.  For more, get the book.

The beauty on the left was the famous Jane Hosking of Chypraze, pictured here at the age of 32.  A young lady of a fiercely intellectual and literary turn of mind, her stunning looks bewitched many a young man until she was finally successfully wooed and won by the 97-year-old shellfish billionaire, Abnego Baragwaneth. 

Although the latter was married, he was so smitten with the young temptress that he set her up in a sumptuous lovenest in Botallack on a fabulous daily allowance of 2/6d a day, excluding food. An accomplished and pioneering writer of the Cornish novella and a prolific poetess, all of the manuscripts of this noted but sadly unpublished writer were consumed by the chip fire that took her life in 1924.

Kelly tells the story of many another local fair maid but we will mention here only one more and that is the Newlyn nymph that was Priscilla "Pilchards" Polkinghorne, captured here on her 29th birthday.

At an early age, Prissy's keen intelligence shone brightly  at Newlyn Board School, where she displayed an easy facility and mastery of pure maths, nuclear physics, bio-chemistry and applied sandpit activities.

Known as "Pilchards" because of the the sharp smell her body emitted, she later grew into a ravishing beauty, much sought after at the tennis club and at Penzance swimming pool, where hundreds of local boys would congregate just to catch a glimpse of her breathtaking figure.

All the dashing swains from far around would pursue her - to no avail.  At the age of 17 she had lost her heart to a 77-year-old unhappily married dairy farmer from Tremethick Cross, whom she rapidly proceeded to make most happy.

In all weathers, she faithfully cycled up to see him for half an hour each evening at 7.30 , when he was out with the cows.  This went on for 40 years, when he sadly expired.  Consumed with grief, she followed him just two weeks after.

Hungry for more?  The book will be available from Billy Curnow Publications and at all good bookshops from next Wednesday at a price of just £749.99 each (or £3,500 for four copies!).

THE SAGE OF SENNEN SPEAKS

Tens of thousands of happy holidaymakers visit Sennen beach each year. They are entranced by its sparkling, shimmering beauty and, as they relax and play on its pure white sands, the cares of daily life simply slip away from their consciousness.

As they frolic in the sea or just lie there letting the sun gently tan their revealed adiposity, little do they realise that they are within a mere hundred yards or so of one of the greatest sages to walk this earth, former postman A.C.D.C. “Jimmy” Jago (103).

Since taking early retirement from the Post Office at just 28 years of age, Jimmy has not moved from the sumptuously appointed beach hut he built himself all those decades ago. In his seclusion, he has devoted himself entirely to scaling the heights and plunging the depths of philosophical contemplations and exploration.

Naturally, the great and the good have sought his counsel and over the years Mohandas Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, the great Billy Spargo himself and a host of other luminaries have taken the well-trodden path to his door.

The Duke of Cornwall, Seine Königliche Hoheit Karl von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha together with his old flame and new wife Kamillentee, and accompanied by his interpreter Matthias Wolfenbüttel, even has a regular monthly meeting with Jimmy to seek his advice on matters as diverse as architecture, growing cabbages as well as the royal predilection for wearing skirts.

So successful has Jimmy been in counselling on this delicate matter that Karl is now happy to be seen wearing his skirts in public. This newly found freedom has done wonders for the royal marriage, as can be seen from the accompanying happy snap.

The Roundup has visited Jimmy in his hut – or ‘hutment’ as he prefers to call it - to seek his views on the matters of the day. The Sage is pictured on the left wearing the typically cheerful and friendly mien, which reflects the still oceans of inner calm within. For those who do not know him, the Sage speaks only in verse.

Roundup: Your Eminence, do you have any comment on the recent political goings-on in the neighbouring UK?

Jago: The sky grows dark, as does the sea
‘T’is the black black influence of the BNP.
Led by a gryphon and followed by mules
The Bleddy Nazi Party are dangerous fools.

Roundup: Thank you for that insight, Your Holiness. Do you have any comment on the shenanigans in Westminster?

Jago: Drunk on power, but blind with fear
Gordon’s end is very near.
MPs feast on lush expenses
Too far now for mending fences.
London’s power now drains anew
To Edinburgh, Cardiff and Truro too.
Relubbus now will seize the day
And lead the world in Spargo’s way!

At this point, the penetrating pungent smell of home-made goat and nettle soup began wafting in from the cavernous kitchens at the back of the hut, indicating that it was time for the great man’s daily meal.

Bowing low, we reversed from the presence with repeated outpourings of grateful thanks and emerged, much refreshed, once more in the world of ordinary man.