Michel Dignand asked John Ironmonger:

How can you be a Cornishman? You don't mention Cornwall once in your bio, except to say you are a Cornishman. I lived in Cornwall for many many years, as did nearly all of my family. I love Cornwall. But I can't call myself a Cornishman because I wasn't born there. So what's the story?

John Ironmonger Ouch - maybe I'd be better off saying I don't have a county attachment - because I was born in Kenya and didn't come to live in Cornwall until I was seventeen. But my mother was from Cornwall - she grew up in Mevagissey - and whenever we came to the UK for holidays we'd stay with the family in Cornwall. So it felt like my home county. I even went to school for a while at the Lawn School in St Austell, and my mother kept a house in Carlyon Bay where we'd often live on visits to England. And because I came to school in England I would spend half terms and my Easter holiday with family in Cornwall. So in the absence of any other county affiliation from childhood, I have always thought of myself as Cornish. Just like you, living in Shropshire hasn't made me a Salopian. That's the story.

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