The great divide

• 07.06.2021 12:03 UTC+02:00
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Writing for BBC Travel, Richard Collett explores the Tamar River's divide, separating Cornwall from the rest of Britain. It's a fairly trite piece, but a couple of points got me thinking, which is always at best uncomfortable, if not outright dangerous.

As he guided me through Cornwall's old county capital, Tremain explained that while the rest of the UK often sees Cornwall as "just another English county", Cornwall is technically a Duchy. Alongside the Cornish language, it's a curious historical quirk that's used to promote the idea of a Cornish "nation" that's distinct from England. Duchies were semi-independent medieval fiefdoms ruled over by dukes and duchesses rather than directly subject to the laws and taxes of English kings and queens.

Richard Collett, The UK's Forgotten 'Fifth Nation', BBC Travel

Cornwall is not the only Duchy in Britain. If that is the major criterion to determine it as the forgotten fifth nation, then Lancaster is the sixth. Admittedly, it may not have its own language…and dialects don't count. That the Duchy of Cornwall isn't subject to taxation by the Crown seems a moot point when the money goes, instead, to ol' bat-ears himself. It's not by accident that HRH Prince Charles, heir to the throne, is also the Duke of Cornwall.

To this day, the Duchy and the vast Cornish estates and revenues that go with it are automatically conferred upon the eldest son of the reigning monarch.

Richard Collett, The UK's Forgotten 'Fifth Nation', BBC Travel

Anyhow, on to something far more important. Affairs of the stomach.

…as Charlotte Dancer, information and communications officer for the cross-border Tamar Valley AONB, explained, the mighty Tamar continues to both unite and divide those on either bank. "One of the major differences between the two sides is how we eat our scones," she said lightheartedly. "At one of our AONB conferences, we had plates of scones that had cream on first, then jam – for the Devon residents – and other plates of scones that had jam first then cream for the Cornish residents." Culinary differences aren't the only cultural identifiers marking the Cornish from the English…

Richard Collett, The UK's Forgotten 'Fifth Nation', BBC Travel

Let's get one thing straight, Dick. The only correct way to eat scones with jam and cream—if you really must—is jam first and then the cream. Spreading jam on cream is impossible, and wrong. Therefore, this is clearly not a difference between the Cornish and the English, it's a difference between right (Cornish, the English that I'm aware of) and wrong (Devonians).