Glasgow Herald, Centenary (1930)

A Wrestling Festival

A purely wrestling festival is a most uncommon sight out of doors, but I must recall with great pleasure the day when, at that delightfully situated old Cornish village, St Colomb, the centenary celebrations were held of a great wrestling match when one, Polkinghorne, the Cornish champion, overcame Cann, the pride of Devon a hundred years ago and nearly brought the two counties to open war!  It is an interesting commentary on the value of wrestling as inducing healthy old age to know that these two stout souls were each 54 when they fought it out, and that at St Colomb we saw two old antagonists, Champion Hancock, a patriarch of 85, and Stone, a veteran of 75 appear on the green and actually wrestle.

The whole countryside must have been assembled there and the number of hale and hearty old-timers was amazing.  The practise of wrestling certainly seems to be conducive to healthy longevity.  For days preceding the centenary little else was talked about and competitors rolled up from all parts of the Duchy.  Old and young, men and women, the men wearing the ubiquitous black velour that completes the foreign air of the dark Cornish visage, made up the crowd that trudged the roads that day; drove in crowded “jingles” or arrived in dilapidated motor cars.

Time was when wrestling was as universal a British pastime as archery, and for the same stark reason—unless a man were a stout fellow of his hands his life was not worth much.  Down in Cornwall alone does outdoor wrestling still flourish.  In Devon and in the North of England and in rural Scotland wrestling is slowly recovering its popularity, but generally it is to be regretted that it is not so widely practised as it should be—and undoubtedly would be were its virtues more universally appreciated.