Golowan Festival

At the end of June each year, the Golowan Festival celebrates the summer solstice in Penzance. Local primary schools participate in parades and display their paper structure to the public. The theme this year was “Back to the Future”. This year’s Golowan Festival was special, as it was the first festival after a two-years break due to the lock-down.

Everyone looked so happy to see each other.

Here are some happy shots -

Besides happy dancers and bands, lots of interesting structures were walked through; a gorilla, a panda, a garbage man…

My take on “Back to the Future” is about getting back to the basics, the way mankind has been living for centuries. Only then, we can move into the future era. If we are not greedy, we have plenty of supplies from nature. All we have to do is to learn how to harmonize with this natural cycle, not a man-made economy. The first step is not to create imperishable rubbish!

I think Penzance is on the right track on this. Let me share some of my observations in the town.

Plastic Free Town

All stall holders at the Mazey Day and Quay Day, two major days during the Golowan Festival, received an Event Charter with a “Plastic Free Penzance” letter head. As I had a stall called “Petals of Peace”, I received it as well. The document says “Penzance was the first community in the UK to be awarded Plastic Free Communities Approved status by Surfers Against Sewage, in recognition of our work to reduce the impact of single-use plastic on the environment.” The focus is on plastic bottles, cups, bags, straws, cutlery, etc., and balloons. All traders, especially caterers, were asked not to use throw-away plastics.

Local grocery shops switched from plastic to paper bags some time ago as shown below. A grocery shop set up a milk dispenser to sell fresh milk straight from the famous local clotted cream producer (right photo below). No complications of semi-skimmed or skimmed with different coloured plastic caps. Life can be very simple if we live simply. We are provided with either 1 litre or a half litre bottle to start with, then it is our responsibility to wash the bottle at home and help ourselves at the dispenser again.

I was using a chopstick and sponge to clean the bottom of the bottle…then two shops started to stock long-handled brush cleaners!

And below are some photos of another local shop. They are completely free from “packaging”. Customers still use a very thin plastic bag, but I bring my own containers to get my cereals or rice. I return my jam jars to them so that jam makers can re-use them.

Locally supplied

At the beginning of lock-down two years ago, when shelves at super markets became empty, Causeway head in Penzance looked like it was thriving. Of course there were tensions and we were all very careful in our behaviour. The shops closed early so that they can deliver food to elderly people. However, local shops gained more customers who normally go to supermarkets. A lady running an organic grocery shop (the left photo below) was saying, “we have no problems of food supply, because they all come locally”. I was touched with this simple statement.

Middle two photos above shows a local delicatessen. Left hand picture was taken during the lock down. Their entrance was sealed with the counter so that we wouldn’t walk in. Right hand picture shows the current entrance of the same delicatessen. Once I tasted their local eggs, I refuse to purchase eggs from anywhere else. I bring the same egg carton, and the same plastic containers, washed and dried, for my next purchase.

I must include a local bakery in this blog. People keep on walking into this shop. During the tourists season, we must get in early in the morning otherwise most bread is gone. Last winter, a severe gale blew a roof off their bakery which is in the country side. They had to shut down the shop for several weeks. But when they re-opened, they put a lovely message in the window -

“After every storm, there is a rainbow.”

This positive thinking is very important as we are in a transition period to get “back to the future”…