03/02/2014 Inside Out South West

What is to be done for our struggling high streets? This man's

turned around some of the UK's biggest businesses. Can he give

Penzance a new spin? We need to look to something other than shops to

make it really work. We need a different plan. Also tonight.

Singing the praises of the Devon priest with a passion for music. The

songs of the west. Folk songs of Devon and Cornwall collected from

the mouths of the people. And Judi Spiers on a Jewish revival in

Exeter. A few of us got involved in the synagogue, started having

services, started having parties. Started having a sense of community

again. Welcome to Inside Out. Southwest.

First night. The move to out`of`town and online shopping has left many of

our high streets struggling. We asked one successful retailer, and

recently appointed Labour Party adviser, to take a look at one of

our hardest hit towns. Penzance. One in seven shops empty.

It's all sadly typical of what's going on in many of our town

centres. I'm Bill Grimsey and I've run some of Britain's biggest

retailers. I say the high street as we've known it is dead. The real

hustle and bustle of 40 years ago, it's gone. It's not coming back.

It's so depressing. A pound shop where Woolworths used to be. Money

lenders and charity shops moving in. I'm off to Causewayhead. Home to the

type of small independents that are vital to the lifeblood of a town.

It's pedestrianised, which is good, and there's a nice buzz about the

place. When you look a bit closer underneath, you see one or two empty

shops creeping in, so that says perhaps it having a hard time and of

course we have three or four charity shops already in place, and, if you

look around, it need some tender loving care and some investment to

really make it work properly for the local community. Time to hear the

traders' gripes. What are the big issues you face? Increasing energy

bills, like everyone, really, increasing rates, although we are

lucky we get a small business rate relief which cuts our business rates

in half. That's good. It means the local authority are taking some

action on small businesses. Next I head to Penzance's main shopping

street. It runs up to a Victorian Market House, which has lain empty

for two years. To me, that's a crime. One enterprise which has

survived, and for a good 150 years, is Simpsons, now in the hands of the

fifth generation of the same family. They own their building so at least

they don't have to pay rent. But it's the out`of`town competition

that bugs them here. It's ridiculous that someone out of town, who have

all the advantages nowadays, because who hasn't got access to a car? They

get paid really low rates, like warehouses, and the Internet

companies, and in town, we have far too high car parking rates, business

rates are far too high so we are being disadvantaged by it. It's

true. There is a cluster of supermarkets on the edge of town.

But I don't agree they're the real issue. It's because of us, the

consumers. We want that convenience. In order to restore this town centre

as a thriving community hub, we need to look to something other than just

shops to make it really work. If you look around you, you can see those

empty buildings above the shops, too. There is a housing shortage in

this country. We need a different plan. And that's what I've told the

Government. We need more housing, offices and community facilities in

our high streets. Of course, I'm not the only one with bright ideas. Two

years ago, Mary Portas's review led to over ?1 million of funding being

shared between a dozen UK towns, including Liskeard. Shop vacancy

rates here have fallen dramatically, but I don't think the Portas

solution goes far enough. The big difference between my review and

Mary Portis, if we are saying to government, you can't tinker with

the edges, you can't do make overs, you can't provide these things. We

just don't want it any more, the way it was. But every town has to tailor

its own solution. Time to head East, to somewhere that seems to have

cracked it. In Totnes, 80% of shops are independent. Locals love them so

much they even prevented the Costa Coffee chain from moving in here.

Only one in 20 of the town's shops are empty. When I walk around, I

feel a great sense of locality and location. They even make their own

stuff, and where they don't make it on the premises, they saw fit

locally, so the economy thrives. And this is exactly the sort of facility

that I think every high street needs. A modernised library at the

heart of town. Totnes isn't Penzance. For starters, people have

got more money to spend here. But it's the real determination to keep

it local that I think many towns could learn from. A big part of what

we talk about is the leaky bucket scenario, so in one place,

everybody's money goes into the bucket and pensions go in and wages

and benefits, and then what happens, in most places, the money just pours

out. It pours out through people spending with multinationals. And

so, to be able to celebrate the fact that here we have got a really

strong buckets, less holes, basically, and a big part of what we

do, we celebrate that and think, how can we build on that? Transition

Town Totnes has come up with a 20`year plan. We posed a question,

what would an economy look like that worked for Totnes, so the blueprint

is a plan for how Totnes could look if we maximised the value of

people's spend, and I think bringing people together around that, they

saw what the possibilities were. The big thing I got from that meeting is

that they have an economic blueprint, a plan, for this town,

which is engaging with the community and helping the community understand

how it can make the local economy prosper. And I guess, when we get

back to Penzance, that's a big question we have got to have for

them. Have they got a plan? The challenge in Penzance is far greater

than they are here. It turns out Penzance hasn't got a plan to rival

Totnes but it does have movers and shakers. I'm off to meet some of

them in a rundown former cinema. Can they mastermind a solution to

Penzance's high street problems? They're certainly well aware of the

challenges. There are definitely problems here. Penzance tops the

league tables of deprivation, serious issues in Penn 's arms. The

problem we have in particular, large shops, in the high Street, and they

are proving very difficult to left. `` letter. And they recognise that

the high street of the future will have to be different from the one

we've known. Clearly, the town centre is not all about retail but

about culture and social exchange, which was the nature of what a town

centre used to be. That's all very idealistic, but how are you going to

make that happen? An important thing, prompted by the business

community, is to go ahead and embrace localism and develop a

neighbourhood plan. What period of time but that plan B? Over 18

months. So they do have a plan? Or at least plans for a plan? I think

the most encouraging part of the discussion we just had is that there

is a great deal of enthusiasm there, and an understanding that

something needs to happen. But it's going to take time, and I think time

is something the local residents doesn't understand. And I think the

main streets of Penzance will be struggling a good while yet. It's

time for me to return to London. Penzance demonstrates just what sort

of challenge other towns in the UK face. I have met some people who've

got plans to do something about it and they have got great intentions,

and I wish them all the luck in the world, because they are going to

need it. There is a big challenge here and good luck to them.

The Victorian craze for collecting led to all number of weird and

wonderful accumulations of curios. But the collection of one eccentric

clergyman from West Devon has done more than fill shelves in a museum.

Verity Sharp has the story of one of Devon's unsung heroes.

Faure folk fan like me, sessions like this one what all about. A warm

and inviting atmosphere to play and share some of the music we love. But

many of our most treasured folk songs only survive today because of

the extraordinary lengths that one Devon man went to to keep them

alive. Sabine Baring Gould was born in Exeter in 1834. He read classics

at Cambridge University before becoming an African priest. He

served his curiously at Horbury, and it was here he wrote the words to

one of our best known hymns. Sabine was surprised at the same Onward

Christian Soldiers brought him. He later said he dashed the words off

in no more than 15 minutes for a procession of schoolchildren. But it

was an ecclesiastical hit and even now, it's what he's best known for.

It was while he was at Horbury that Sabine met the love of his life.

Despite his Christian credentials, the 34`year`old vicar amazed

everyone by taking a bright half his age and far below his social

standing. But 16`year`old millworker Grace Taylor proved to be a good

match and would bear him an astounding 15 children. With a fast

family, the Baring`Goulds needed to find a larger house. So in 1881 they

moved here, to Lewtrenchard Manor, the Devon estate that Sabine had

inherited. The appointed himself squire and Parson and set about

rebuilding his new home. Today the house remains in the Baring`Gould

family but is leased by Sue Marie, who brought her family appear.

Sabine moves here in 1881. What was it like then? It wasn't it a good

state. He transformed it into what it is now. His family put his mark

on it in every possible way with architectural detail and enlarging

it in size. He was the person who brought his family here and turned a

house into a home. Absolutely. From a very early age she had this idea

that he wanted three things in life. One was that he was going to restore

this house. The second was that he was going to restore the church. The

third was that he was going to save the souls of the parish. He never

wavered and did an amazing job. The house is much and changed and

Sabine's influence still looms large. This is the library where he

did all his writing. Being an energetic chap as he was, he wrote

standing up. He never sat down. Was that normal? Not at all. I've never

heard of anyone else who did that! Another eccentricity. His energy was

legendary. He was one of the leading archaeologists of Dartmoor and one

of the top ten novelists of his time. There was hardly any subject

that he didn't write a book on. Folklore, theology, history,

travel... But there was one work above all others that he considered

to be his greatest achievement. And that was the songs of the West. Folk

songs collected from the mouths of the people.

# Of the sweet Nightingale as she sings in the Valley...

By 1882, when Sabine started collecting, these songs were already

dying out. His sources were very old and very

poor. # The clear crystal fountain through

England did go. And so he started combing the

villages of Devon and Cornwall, coaxing these folk songs out of the

working people who still remembered them. He had a particular view of

what he was going out for. He did not want the modern stuff. He was

after the old stuff, the old songs in mode and songs that had an

antiquity about them. He felt that was an essence of Englishness.

That's what he was looking for. He wasn't a confident musician, so

while he noted the words, he'd take along an assistant to write down the

June. These scholars, entirely out of place with their pens and

notebooks in hand, trailed after the singers as they went about their

chores. Sally Satterly, a renowned Dartmoor Dame, gave Sabine many

songs from her home. # And I do nothing but mourn.

# Now I have mourned by his grave for 12 month and a day.

# I'll set my sale before the wind. # To waft me far away.

He also invited singers to the more civilised environment of the manor.

Their stage with this large oak settle, then by the fire and now in

the entrance to the manner. Although he was interested in collecting the

words of the songs, he was most passionate about the tunes. Without

his collecting works we may well have lost great tunes like the

Helston Furry Dance. And then, of course, the wonderful Widecome Fair.

Sabine's was the first serious collection of its kind, something

that even the famous folk song collector Cecil Sharp admitted. But

today, Baring`Gould has largely been forgotten. He was so well known in

his day and yet today his name isn't really well known, despite all these

achievements and interests and what have you. Why do you think that is?

He was a sort of rumbustious character. He fell out with people.

He didn't get on that well with the folk Law Society and those kind of

things. Coupled with the fact he was down here. He wasn't, as Cecil Sharp

was, a hamster music teacher right in the middle of London, with all

that power and all of those connections. He was right out here

in the wilds. But his collection, Choon Wise, is one of the very

best. For me, as a trained musician and coming to this folk stuff, it

has beautiful tunes in it. It is unrivalled. Sabine was quiet and

parson and Lewtrenchard Manor 43 years, in which time he amassed some

900 songs. He died aged 89 in 1924 and was laid to rest alongside his

beloved Grace in Lewtrenchard church, within sight of the manor

house. He was determined that his collection would be more than just a

book in a library gathering dust. He wanted to revive the tradition that

he loved, and there's no doubt that there he succeeded.

# I will sing you. # What will you sing me?

This year sees the 250th anniversary of one of the oldest synagogues in

the country. It is in Devon and it has seen a remarkable revival. BBC

Radio Devon's Judy Spier 's delves into her own background to tell us

the story. Members of Exeter's Jewish community enter my local

synagogue for the Friday night service that marks the start of the

sabbath, as Jewish people have been doing here since 1763. Attendances

have increased noticeably in the last few years. In fact, you could

say that the Exeter Jewish community are enjoying somewhat of a golden

period. The time was when Jews weren't welcome here at all. The

first reference to Jews in Exeter dates from 1177, when work on Exeter

Cathedral had just started. They were brought to England following

the Norman conquest in 1066. I'm here to meet a man who has studied

the history of Exeter's Jews for the last 30 years. They came here

because it was an important city. The King at the time wanted Jews in

various centres, there were 26 in all in the end, where Jews were

allowed to operate as official comment moneylenders, doing the job

which Christians at that time weren't allowed to do. The cathedral

archives contain mediaeval records of transactions involving local

Jews. What is unique about these items is they are a record of Jewish

presence in Exeter, here in the middle ages. It says, a widow of

Henry Porter, he died with left debts. His debts included loans from

Jews. So when she sold the property, she wanted it made quite clear that

the money should be used to pay off all the debts, including the ones to

the Jews. Eventually it became acceptable for Christians to lend

money. Jews were no longer useful and anti`Semitism reared its ugly

head. A sin not held here in 1287 heard the Bishop rousing his clergy

to protect their congregations against what he called the insidious

wilds of their Jewish neighbours. Three years later, Edward the first

ordered the expulsion of all Jews from England. It would be another

four centuries before they were allowed to return. When my family

set up its Jura loop `` business in the area, they were following a long

tradition. Jewish people were eventually readmitted to England in

1566 and Oliver Cromwell. This time they came back as educated

professionals and skilled craftspeople. At the turn of the

18th century, Exeter was thriving thanks to the wool trade and the

city's situation on the River ex. During the war, this part of the

street took a hammering from the German bombers and was extensively

rebuilt. In fact, at one time this was probably Exeter's Jewish

quarter. One prominent Jewish family lived and worked here. We know this

because it says so on their 250`year`old trade card. The

Ezekiels work opticians. Successful Jewish families were gradually

assimilated into Exeter's middle class. But at the time Ezekiel made

these engravings, they were still subject to discrimination. In 1763,

his family wanted some land around the corner from the shop. The deal

had to be done through a third`party because Jews weren't allowed to

lease land. They wanted it to a synagogue. It has been in use ever

since. The holiest part of any synagogue is the Ark. Congregation

member Richard Hulsey describes its contents. In a synagogue, the only

living creatures you will see portrayed the Lions. They are the

Lions of Judah which represent the tribe of Judah, one of the 13 tribes

of Israel. The Ark houses the Torah. Each contains the five books

of Moses, which are also the first five books of the Bible. We have six

Torah scrolls here. The four larger ones were all written in areas of

Eastern Europe around about 1880. We have the pointer, because you never

touch a scroll with your hands, because your hand may have Greece on

them and you would damage it. And, of course, the breastplate because

we believe in biblical times that the high priest of Jerusalem would

have had some form of breastplate over his vestments. We are very

lucky because we are the only synagogue in England that has

Georgian silver still in the synagogue from which was made. As a

child attended an orthodox synagogue in Plymouth. Here in Exeter they

take a more progressive approach, but the layout is basically the

same. In all traditional synagogues, this is always in the

centre and the seats face in. Because this was considered to help

the study. A synagogue is not only a house of prayer it is also a house

of study. One thing is for sure, in my synagogue I would never be

standing here. I would be upstairs with the rest of the ladies because

we had to be separated, which was traditionally why you have the

gallery. Yes. Historically we would have put you upstairs. In many

synagogues you still are. In this synagogue we are not affiliated to

any particular type of Judaism, so we do things how we want. Somebody

will be called up and they will be called up using their Hebrew name,

in order to save the blessings for the reading of it. And somebody else

will then lain it. That is effectively chanting. It is chanted

to tunes that are hundreds if not thousands of years old. Around the

time that work started on the synagogue, the Ezekiels also

established a burial ground. Ezekiel Ezekiel, one of the first to be

buried here, lies in an unmarked grave. His niece, Betsy, lies

nearby. Exeter synagogue flourished for a century but then attendances

fell. By the mid`19th century, economic sway changing again. The

attractions of London were far more important. Jews gradually began to

move away. By the end of the 19th`century, the Exeter community

as good as closed down. But recent years have seen a revival in the

synagogue's fortunes, Anne Frank has been at the heart of it. It has

around 100 members at present. The revival has involved a move away

from the more traditional interpretation of Judaism. I may not

have long hair now but in those days people thought of me as a bit of a

hippie. A few of us who were settling down and having families

got involved in the synagogue, started having services, having

parties, having a sense of community again. That is what has continued.

We also tried to be inclusive, to welcome everybody. And they do,

because since I moved to Exeter I can't always get to my synagogue in

Plymouth, but I know I can always rely on a warm welcome in this

lovely, historic building. That is all from this week's Inside Out

South West. Join us next week. See you then.

A longer day, more exams and tougher discipline. That is what the

government wants for pupils in England's state schools. Ministers

believe it would bring standards closer to those in private schools.

There is a warning over a social network raise after it was linked to

guess in Ireland. It involves drinking and filming a stun. The

body of the young man was found in the River. Tributes have poured in

for the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. It is thought he died from

a heroin overdose. More of us are undergoing plastic

surgery. The number of operations jumped 17% last year. Most were for

breast implants, but the biggest rise was for liposuction.

Imagine parking your car outside your house and waking up to this

dash a parties, having a sense of community

Hello, I'm Natalie Cornah in the We

Hello, I'm Natalie Cornah in the South West. There's been widespread

flooding across the region after coastal communities were hit by

strong winds, large waves and a high tide. Sea walls were breached and

homes and shops