THE WESSEX SOCIETY VS. CELTIC DEVON ARGUMENT
This long ongoing argument started in 2002 on the BBC Cornwall and BBC Devon websites. What happened as far as I can tell is that some Devonians decided they did not like having their county included in the Wessex region. Wessex Society members argued that as Devon had been conquered by the Kingdom of Wessex in the 8th century that Devon had been thoroughly 'saxonized' and was therefore rightfully a part of the reborn Wessex. It then got into a (still unresolved) debate as the Devonians gave examples of customs they share with Cornwall as evidence of the survival of Celtic culture there. They also stated that the ancient Brythonic language that went on to become modern Cornish, was spoken in Devon until quite a late date. There was much debate as to where the borders of Wessex actually were and as to whether Devon was ever fully incorporated into it. There was then a competition on BBC Devon to design a flag for county. The final design looked remarkably like the Cornish flag and added to the claims of Celtic heritage, many Cornish folk have openly criticized Devon of stealing their identity. The fact that the flag was later dedicated (but not by the Celtic Devon people) to a Celtic saint who preached in Cornwall, further inflamed passions. For the record the saint in question, St. Petrock, also did missionary work in Devon and Somerset. Some people claimed that only the "English" St. George could be the patron saint of "Anglo-Saxon" Devon. So basically a man from Turkey who never set foot in Devon and who probably never heard of England, is a better patron saint than one who did a lot of missionary work there. The mind boggles at all the anachronisms!
That's the cultural side of the argument, the political side takes the following form. The
Celtic Devon people, who I must point out are NOT nationalists nor do they regard themselves as not English, decided to start a petition calling for a devolved Devon region that would be seperate from both Cornwall and the Wessex region. Their argument is that the Wessex region and the Government's South West Regional Assembly are no good for the needs of Devon. The Devon Says No Campaign was started.The trouble with all this is that at some point in the early 2000's there appears (that would be a reasonable piece of conjecture) to have been some sort of agreement between at least one of the three organisations of the Wessex movement and people seeking a Cornish assembly. The agreement would have been something along the lines of Wessex would include Devon and leave Cornwall by itself in its own region. In return, Cornish regionalists/nationalists would offer much needed support to the Wessex movement. Devon taking matters into its own hands was not on the script, so there have now been big efforts to discredit the Devon regionalists. These have now taken the form of them being 'agents of the Establishment' trying to destroy a possible Cornish assembly by sowing confusion through trying to start up a rival Devon assembly, plus creating a bogus Celtic Devonian heritage in mimicry of the Cornish one. This it is claimed will result in the South West Regional Assembly being imposed on Cornwall or at least a joint Devon/Cornwall assembly, both of which would be deeply unpopular in Cornwall. I have a pretty good idea where the rumour came from (an obvious piece of black propaganda) and who thought it up, and it certainly plays up to Cornish paranoia a treat because it is a theory often repeated. Whether or not Devon has real Celtic heritage I'll leave to the reader to decide, but its supporters seem to have walked into a veritable lion's den.I'm quite supportive of Devon having its own assembly and would love it if Somerset could do something similar or perhaps have a shared assembly.