A ROUSING performance of Trelawny, which is to feature in BBC’s The One Show, was given by Bude Lifeboat Singers at Morwenstow last week.
A BBC crew and presenter Gyles Brandreth visited the village to make a film about Cornwall’s ‘national anthem’, Trelawny, and the story behind it, including its author, the Rev Robert Stephen Hawker.
Hawker was in his early twenties and a newly-married undergraduate at Oxford when he wrote ‘The Song of the Western Men’ in 1825 while staying with his wife, Charlotte, in a cottage on the southern boundary of Morwenstow parish. It was published anonymously in a Plymouth newspaper, leading many people to think it was a traditional ballad without an author to attribute it to. The Post last week previewed The One Show visit and reproduced the words of the famous song.
Filming for The One Show item, which is hoped to be aired around St Piran’s Day, took place at the Old Vicarage, built by Hawker. It was also hoped to venture out to Hawker’s Hut to film the lifeboat singers, but poor weather put paid to that idea.
The lifeboat singers, which included representatives from Newquay and Padstow lifeboats, all retired, and past and present crew of Bude lifeboat, instead gave their performance in the Old Vicarage. Bude Lifeboat Singers started in the 1960s and flourished for 30 years, singing on the Brendon lawn on Lifeboat Day every August.
Those present for the filming also included two of the original lifeboat singers — Ray Budd, born in Stratton and one of the George Mitchell Minstrels, and Nick Blood. Also there to sing was the ‘only non-Bude Bude lifeboat singer’ Johnny Murt, from Padstow.
Jonathan Ball, who conducted the group, said they were ‘delighted’ to be singing for the programme.
The present members of Bude lifeboat who also sang were Mike Tame and Robin Bale.
Mr Tame, who has had a taste of filming with the BBC before for ‘Real Rescues’, said: “It’s nice to be here with a wealth of talent. It’s very good fun and different.”
Mr Bale, who has been filmed singing before at Morwenstow Church under the direction of John Hobbs for a programme with Griff Rhys Jones, added: “It’s quite humbling to be here with these people.”
Gyles Brandreth met and filmed with Jill Wellby, who has lived at the Old Vicarage for 30 years this July.
She told the Post: “It was very entertaining! He said he knows we are all hardy folks but he feels the cold, coming from London.
“We were discussing Hawker, his clothing, his eccentricities, the fact he believed in all sorts — witches and demons, and what kind of man he was.
“He built the school with his own money and built this house. He built the King William Bridge. He never received any money for it [Trelawny] and he did have money worries later in his life.”
Gyles, who said he has filmed a lot for The One Show in Cornwall, said of the anthem: “I don’t wish to be controversial, but I so love this song, I’ve almost become Cornish nationalist overnight! I’m ready to be draped in the flag, I want to live off pasties.”
Of Hawker, and filming in the house he built, he added: “It’s lovely to be in the real place. You know his big regret was he published the words of Trelawny anonymously and we, thanks to your paper, have been able to give him his due.
“It is a day of pride for the Post, The One Show and for me.
“I love the Victorian era anyway. I have written a lot of novels on the Victorian era. To learn more is fascinating.
“I was particularly excited when I heard about the opium he took and his young bride 40 years his junior — I thought this man could be my new role model!”