This is Devon --
I FEEL that an injustice is being done by those mocking Cllr Tudor Evans' enthusiasm for a US Presidential visit to Plymouth at the time of "Mayflower 400" in the year 2020.
This is not a new idea and if there is foolishness in it then I must raise my hand and admit to having been at least one of the prime movers in the past!
Back in 1998, the late (and much missed) Diana Hirst and I initiated the first few years of Plymouth American Thanksgiving Festivals, as a medium firstly for promoting Plymouth's Mayflower Heritage more actively and secondly to attract ex-pat Americans in the UK and Europe to visit Plymouth as an off peak season destination.
This in turn being a plan (and marketing office) developed much earlier by the Plymouth Mercantile Association, during the years 1900-1910.
As our project gathered momentum, I wrote (as CEO of the former Plymouth North American Business Club) to the city council's chief executive, Alison Stone, on December 10 1999, setting out suggestions for work to commence as soon as possible upon preparations for the celebration (and all-important funding) of "Mayflower 400" in the year 2020.
This being with a view to us stealing a march upon both Southampton and London (who were already beginning to consider the potential themselves at that time). Alison replied on December 16, indicating that the matter had been passed to the Directorate for Regeneration.
The following year, 2000, myself, and organising colleagues had very fruitful discussions with the then most charismatic and helpful U.S. Naval Attache in London – Captain Stewart Barnett – including the scope for a U.S. Presidential visit to Plymouth in 2020 (the 75th anniversary year since President Harry Truman's visit to our waterfront in August 1945).
These discussions centred upon the building blocks which would be necessary to provide the credibility for the British Foreign Office, US State Department and the Pentagon to treat the proposal seriously as "a runner".
The embryo plan was to link the visit to the hosting in Plymouth of a NATO Summit (or similar), supported by a goodwill visit by a USN aircraft carrier (either one of their giants – to anchor beyond the Breakwater – or a lighter Fleet Carrier at Cawsand Bay or in the Sound).
This vessel to provide a secure base from which the Presidential party might operate, together with a venue for hosting a Thanksgiving celebration on US "home turf".
It would also be poignant as a semi-commemoration of President Truman's meeting in the Sound with King George VI on board an RN battleship.
Much work would be needed on both sides to develop the structure before referral to the White House, commencing with the suggestion on our side to the city council that the Millbay regeneration (Plymouth's one time "Atlantic Gateway") should include, in the interim, the naming of a "Harry Truman Boulevard" (or "President Truman" Boulevard etc). This has not happened, to date.
Much goodwill was generated (extending upward to the US Ambassador), but as our respective organising teams dispersed to other roles in our careers over subsequent years, the outstanding proposals we left behind were not actively taken up by our respective successors. But, there is still time, so let's not knock Tudor for his renewal of interest.
If Tony Blair could get President George W Bush to his constituency in the North, surely we can use that "breaking of the London mould" as a regional precedent – particularly in view of our much more closely related historical, naval and cultural associations with the US? But we do need to sustain friends in high places on a prolonged basis.
NEILL MITCHELL
(Past Chief Executive of the former Plymouth North American Business Club) Reported by This is 7 hours ago.
I FEEL that an injustice is being done by those mocking Cllr Tudor Evans' enthusiasm for a US Presidential visit to Plymouth at the time of "Mayflower 400" in the year 2020.
This is not a new idea and if there is foolishness in it then I must raise my hand and admit to having been at least one of the prime movers in the past!
Back in 1998, the late (and much missed) Diana Hirst and I initiated the first few years of Plymouth American Thanksgiving Festivals, as a medium firstly for promoting Plymouth's Mayflower Heritage more actively and secondly to attract ex-pat Americans in the UK and Europe to visit Plymouth as an off peak season destination.
This in turn being a plan (and marketing office) developed much earlier by the Plymouth Mercantile Association, during the years 1900-1910.
As our project gathered momentum, I wrote (as CEO of the former Plymouth North American Business Club) to the city council's chief executive, Alison Stone, on December 10 1999, setting out suggestions for work to commence as soon as possible upon preparations for the celebration (and all-important funding) of "Mayflower 400" in the year 2020.
This being with a view to us stealing a march upon both Southampton and London (who were already beginning to consider the potential themselves at that time). Alison replied on December 16, indicating that the matter had been passed to the Directorate for Regeneration.
The following year, 2000, myself, and organising colleagues had very fruitful discussions with the then most charismatic and helpful U.S. Naval Attache in London – Captain Stewart Barnett – including the scope for a U.S. Presidential visit to Plymouth in 2020 (the 75th anniversary year since President Harry Truman's visit to our waterfront in August 1945).
These discussions centred upon the building blocks which would be necessary to provide the credibility for the British Foreign Office, US State Department and the Pentagon to treat the proposal seriously as "a runner".
The embryo plan was to link the visit to the hosting in Plymouth of a NATO Summit (or similar), supported by a goodwill visit by a USN aircraft carrier (either one of their giants – to anchor beyond the Breakwater – or a lighter Fleet Carrier at Cawsand Bay or in the Sound).
This vessel to provide a secure base from which the Presidential party might operate, together with a venue for hosting a Thanksgiving celebration on US "home turf".
It would also be poignant as a semi-commemoration of President Truman's meeting in the Sound with King George VI on board an RN battleship.
Much work would be needed on both sides to develop the structure before referral to the White House, commencing with the suggestion on our side to the city council that the Millbay regeneration (Plymouth's one time "Atlantic Gateway") should include, in the interim, the naming of a "Harry Truman Boulevard" (or "President Truman" Boulevard etc). This has not happened, to date.
Much goodwill was generated (extending upward to the US Ambassador), but as our respective organising teams dispersed to other roles in our careers over subsequent years, the outstanding proposals we left behind were not actively taken up by our respective successors. But, there is still time, so let's not knock Tudor for his renewal of interest.
If Tony Blair could get President George W Bush to his constituency in the North, surely we can use that "breaking of the London mould" as a regional precedent – particularly in view of our much more closely related historical, naval and cultural associations with the US? But we do need to sustain friends in high places on a prolonged basis.
NEILL MITCHELL
(Past Chief Executive of the former Plymouth North American Business Club) Reported by This is 7 hours ago.