WHAT LIES BENEATH..

This is a photo I took last October, when we were having another of our frequent stays in Cornwall.   It was taken from the coast path and shows Gwithian beach on the north coast as we dodged the occasional shower.

I make no secret of my affection for Cornwall.   Yes, it`s got places like this, beaches to die for and if you go just as a `tourist` then you will never run out of places to visit.   But for me there is so much more to explore, to experience, to learn from.   The history, the culture, the language, the heritage of industries such as fishing and mining, much of which has been misrepresented by misty eyed romantics and commercial travellers.

And I`ve just finished enduring Caroline Quentin`s latest television series about Cornwall which over the past few weeks has revealed her to be just that - a commercial traveller flitting across the county and getting involved with people and events whether they liked it or not.   Now, throughout the series, she gave the impression that she was something of a native with her references to `my Cornwall` but having been born in Reigate in Surrey, educated in Hertfordshire and living in Tiverton in Devon, she is as much Cornish as, well, I am.

I`ve mentioned before that there is a growing tendency for `travel documentaries` to drift into the danger of the presenters becoming more important than the people and places they are supposed to be presenting - `Coast` and `Countryfile` are prime culprits.   But Caroline Quentin has raised `presenter power` to a new level.   She not only found it impossible to resist imposing her strident personality on unsuspecting local people and events but she did so with such an assault on the senses that I breathed a genuine sigh of relief when the series ended last night and I didn`t have to contend with her gushing insincerity any more .

Now I imagine that from the point of view of the Cornwall tourism industry, the series was a welcome advertisement and if it adds to the economic well being of the county then all to the good.   But Cornwall deserves better.   I live in hope that one day perhaps the enlightened and constantly inventive BBC Four will produce a programme or a series that shows Cornwall as it really is - with all its economic struggles, its social deprivation, the harsh reality of what lies beneath the tourist hotspots where, for example, Redruth and Camborne are among the poorest places in Europe - and in the process widen the horizons of those for whom Cornwall is nothing more than a holiday retreat and those who are seduced by superficialities such as Caroline Quentin.