Intolerant campsite owners

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Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 11:45 am

This is a bit of a rant

I'm Welsh and when camping I like to hang out the flag of my country - here it is, look you ----> Welsh Flag

I have done this since starting camping wayy back when I still had hair.

And there has never been a problem.
Until this year.

I booked a site for my son and mine annual hol under canvas in Cornwall (3rd yr in a row to Cornwall).
Nice smallish site (the owner kept Guinea Fowl), if a little basic (no shop) - the owner had a 30ft flag pole in the entrance to the site with a Cross of St George flying off it.
Which of course is fine - we're in England after all.. Smile

However.
I hung out our little (2'x3') Welsh flag on a guy rope of our windbreak on a Tuesday evening and then went to offsite to get some milk.
My son stayed behind and when I got back he told me the owner had visited and said the flag had to come down as there had been "a complaint about it".
I ignored this as the owner had already had a pop at me about the tiny Cornish flag on my tent guyrope, stating that "Somebody could get offended by that".
Offended by the Cornish (Saint Pirans) flag? In Cornwall?!?!?
He walked away from that little altercation muttering something about the "St Johns Ambulance"!! (Similar colour scheme)

In case you don't know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Piran%27s_Flag
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John_Ambulance

Anyway, on the Wednesday we went off early for the day
We arrived back around 7pm to find that the flag had been unthreaded from the guy rope and thrown up against the windbreak by our bin. (It could not have blown there, wind too light, wrong direction and the windbreak would have protected it...

I asked the wife what happened and she confirmed that is was her husband as "he's very English"
You don't shoot the messenger, so I politely told her I was not happy about his actions.

On Thursday, he came and explained that his actions were based on a "Scottish family" complaining about my flag!!
Apparently this "Scottish family" asked permission to fly their flag, and when this was refused by the owner (go figure), they pointed out the fact that I was flying my flag.
Some "complaint", huh?
He started to get a bit heated (he was lying through his teeth after all!), so I made an attempt to calm things down and offered my hand (let's be decent about this, sort of thing..)
"I don't want to shake your hand" was the rather sneery response. Evil or Very Mad

So for the first time in my life, I was subjected to an intolerance that quite ruined my camping there - it was too late in the season to find another site although we did try.

There was never any complaint, that much is obvious.
Why would they ask with two flags already flying
Why would they ask anyway? It's not illegal to fly the Cross of St Andrew in England is it?
He's prepared to hide his bigotry behind a lie about a "Scottish family" thus insulting every Scot!
I can't help but wonder if he would have taken down my flag if I'd been French or German....

GRRRRRR!!

Anyway, I'm going to put up a warning about this utterly petty little man on a review site, sometime early next year - if one booking doesn't happen as a result of reading it, that'll be fine by me.

</Rant off>

Thank you for taking the time to read this...Writing it has helped enormously Very Happy

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 12:16 pm

Buy some daffodil bulbs, and plant a jolly welsh greeting across his field. That will cheer him up next spring.

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 12:40 pm

llamedos wrote:

Which of course is fine - we're in England after all.. Smile

Nope. Cornwall isn't in England. Its not even in the UK (although some would argue). It was never party to the Act of the Union - hence why we have an independence party and why we hate the English (never forgiven them for 1497 or 1549)

I'm Cornish born and bred. Sounds to me like your campsite owner is an "emmet" who settled. No true Cornishman would fly the flag of St George - only the St Piran flag.

Personally, I'd have doused your flag in petrol and then paraded around the campsite with it on fire. But that's only because I'm totally anti-social.
As far as nations go, Cornwall is much closer to the Welsh than it is to the English. You only have to look at the place names and the language.
Cornwall (along with the Taffs) is one of the six Celtic nations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nN9I_7djgo

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 1:20 pm

^^^
I'm happy to be corrected on that. Smile

(although the dousing of my flag in petrol rankles Wink

)

It's hard not to notice a strong similarity between Cornish and Welsh place names etc, and I've never heard of or experienced any anti-Welsh feeling from the Cornish, and neither would I really expect to.

...and yes he was definitely non Cornish - if I had to place his accent, I'd say South-East England or maybe Sarf London.

Nice youtube link btw Smile

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 1:22 pm

We have a similar problem in the United States with Confederate flags.

Smile

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 1:27 pm

^^ We have the opposite problem. Zurich wants to stay part of Switzerland no matter how many times we try to donate them to Germany.

(I'm wondering though, is there any part of the British empire besides London that doesn't hate England and is trying to become independent?)

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 1:53 pm

llamedos - dioch Wink

I'm responsible for getting the Welsh flag on the site! Very Happy

Im an Englander, living it up in Wales.
On a clear day, I can see Exmoor national park Very Happy

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 2:00 pm

All I can see / hear is J26 of the M4.... Rolling Eyes

Aaaah, I noticed the Welsh Flag

in your siggy.

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 2:52 pm

Love the new av Evil Sheep!!!

As for those silly English...they obviously don't watch NatGeo. Apparently, the Celts practised not only ritual sacrifice but cannibalism as well. I wouldn't mess with their decendants!

On a serious note, things are getting so silly everywhere. I like to fly the Gasden Flag lately, personally

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 3:40 pm

CowboyBuck wrote:

We have a similar problem in the United States with Confederate flags.

Smile

When will they ever learn to tolerate "freedom of expression in a culturally diverse society"?

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 3:53 pm

Tha's nowt but a bunch of nesh southerners.

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 4:33 pm

That campsite owner: is this the bloke?

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 4:49 pm

http://www.cornwallinformation.co.uk/news/?p=2552

Quote:

For those who choose to parade England’s St George’s Flag on Cornish soil, or wonder why Cornish folk call it The Butcher’s Apron, the above account explains its true symbolism in Cornish eyes and why it causes so much offence.

Hopefully he'll get grief from the offended locals, and see how you feel.

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 6:23 pm

@PsycheDelia - I was it was - Cleese could have done the silly walk or slapped a few Spanish waiters about for light entertainment Wink

@RoyCropper: Interesting, if a very gory history lesson.
Thanks for finding/sharing it

Quote:

Hopefully he'll get grief from the offended locals, and see how you feel.

Perhaps the locals need to find out where the site is Wink

(it's a little remote and not even on an OS map)

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:14 pm

llamedos wrote:

Perhaps the locals need to find out where the site is Wink

(it's a little remote and not even on an OS map)

If he's English, most locals will already think he's a shit - especially if the camp site is in the West of Cornwall. Doesn't matter how long he lives there or what he does - he will always be an outsider from "over the water".
The further East, the less people would take notice as the population has been diluted by the English.

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:21 pm

Us Devonians were there with the Cornish in 1549, at least the tinners from my ancestral area were. Devon was absorbed into England too, against popular will. Not a lot of people know that.

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:37 pm

Slightlyoutofit wrote:

llamedos wrote:

Perhaps the locals need to find out where the site is Wink

(it's a little remote and not even on an OS map)

If he's English, most locals will already think he's a shit - especially if the camp site is in the West of Cornwall. Doesn't matter how long he lives there or what he does - he will always be an outsider from "over the water".
The further East, the less people would take notice as the population has been diluted by the English.

The campsite is about 5 miles East of Penzance

Deep down in Kernow

Quote:

If he's English, most locals will already think he's a shit

That probably explains his offensive attitude towards the flag of St Piran

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 8:41 pm

Hope he doesn't come to a model railway exhibition.
I fly the German and Swiss flags, have had a layout with the confederate flag on it and one year we had every European flag up round the halls.

Poor bloke would have a nervous break down.

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 9:15 pm

Here's my flag...

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 10:09 pm

I'd have searched high and low for a Union Jack, Scottish, Australian and French flags, cut them into quarters and stiched 'em all together and replaced his flag with the patchwork version in the dead of night.

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 10:16 pm

The state I live in borders Canada, and a lot of places here have Canadian flags flying next to the US flag and have NEVER heard of anyone here getting cheesed about it. And if someone was flying their own country's (or region's) flag at a campground, I think most people would ask about it if they didn't recognize it.

(Though if you tried this in Arizona that may be a different story, won't go any further with that)

Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2010 8:14 pm

I've never flown a flag while camping, nor have I ever seen anyone else do it...
Must've something to do with being stuck on an island...

Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 1:10 am

As someone said - this guy is probably from London or Surrey way, made a mint there sitting on his arse and moved down to Cornwall and wants to pretend he's the dogs bollocks to the locals.
Just get on your camping forum and tell everybody that he especially welcomes nudists and Druids on his site.

Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 1:21 am

^^^
Also tell them that he's a flag lover, BYOF, and dogs and pet goats are welcome at the campsite.

Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 9:50 am

Send lads there on a mass camping safari to dig for buried trunkboxes, he'll like that, or type an angry review on Trip Advisor, most people feel better after that.

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