Celtic Culture & heritage

Donald Healey was born on 3rd July 1898 in Perranporth, Cornwall, elder son of Frederick (John Frederick) and Emma Healey (née Mitchell) who at that time ran a general store there.

Donald became interested in all things mechanical at an early age, most particularly aircraft. He studied engineering while at Newquay College.

When he left his father bought him an expensive apprenticeship with Sopwith Aviation Company in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey and he joined Sopwith in 1914 continuing his engineering studies at Kingston Technical College.

Sopwith had sheds at the nearby Brooklands aerodrome and racing circuit.

Barely 16 when WW1 started, he volunteered in 1916 (before the end of his apprenticeship) for the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and earned his "wings" as a pilot. He went on night bombing raids and served on anti-Zeppelin patrols and also as a flying instructor.

Shot down by British anti-aircraft fire on one of the first night bomber missions of the war, after a further series of crashes he was invalided out of the RFC in November 1917 and spent the rest of the war checking aircraft components for the Air Ministry.

After the Armistice he returned to Cornwall, took a correspondence course in automobile engineering and opened the first garage in Perranporth in 1920.

Healey found rally driving and motor racing more interesting than his garage and its car hire business and used the garage to prepare cars for competition.

The mythology of the Celtic peoples stretches back through the mists of time into a mysterious lost age. Although much was forgotten the stories passed on through oral tradition from generation to generation carried forward a memory and history of a magical past. Those that remained were preserved in the great works of Irish medieval literature. Tales that are steeped in the pre-Christian religious beliefs of the time. An age of wonder filled with magnificent, often flawed, heroes. Some gifted with supernatural abilities or aided by those possessed with magical skills. Pitted against dark forces also able to draw upon sourcery to achieve their ends. Animals and nature feature strongly in these stories, demonstrating the importance and connection that the Celtic people have to the environment in which they live. One such figure was Fionn mac Cumhaill, who is celebrated in Irish legend as a great warrior. The stories of Fionn and his followers the Fianna, form the Fenian Cycle (an Fhiannaíocht), many of them narrated in the voice of Fionn's son, the poet Oisín. It is one of the four major cycles of pre-christian Irish mythology along with the Mythological Cycle, the Ulster Cycle, and the Historical Cycle.

Fionn had two hunting dogs Bran and Sceolan. Intelligent and skilled in hunting they displayed a great loyalty to Fionn. Dogs are often known for these traits but with brother and sister Bran and Sceolan there was an added factor, for they were related to Fionn. Legend has it that they were born to Fionn’s aunt, Tuiren. This was at a time after she had married and fallen pregnant. Her husband Iollan Eachtach had been the lover of Uchtdealb who belonged to the Sidhe, which is a supernatural race with magical powers known in Irish, Scottish and Manx mythology. They belong to the Otherworld often associated with the Celtic pantheon of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Uchtdealb was jealous and turned Tuiren into dog. She remained in this form until the spell was broken, but by then she had given birth to the puppies who remained as dogs.

A Cornishman, Richard Lower, conducted the world's first blood transfusion. It took another Cornishman to set up the blood transfusion service.

Percy Lane Oliver was born in St. Ives in 1878 has slipped into relative obscurity since his death in 1944, but his actions will continue to help save the lives of millions of people worldwide as his pioneering blood donation service went from humble beginnings to a global phenomenon.

As a teenager he won a Science and Art Scholarship. He did well in his exams but was rejected by the Medical Board and the aspiring doctor ended up working as an assistant librarian with Camberwell Borough Council in 1893.

In 1901 he was transferred to the Town Hall staff, where he remained until his retirement. In the years leading up to the First World War, Percy was a founder member for the Camberwell Division of the British Red Cross and became its Honorary Secretary in 1910.

During the war, he served in the Royal Naval Air Service, stationed at Crystal Palace, but his contribution to the local war effort was far greater. With the help of his wife, Percy set up and managed four refugee hostels in Camberwell for those fleeing persecution. In 1918 he was summoned to Buckingham Palace to be awarded an OBE by King George V for his charitable work.

But his greatest contribution was yet to come.

Burley was born on 1 August 1914 in Falmouth, Cornwall.

Before he began writing, he was employed in senior management with various gas companies, before giving it up after the Second World War when he obtained a scholarship to study zoology at Balliol College, Oxford.

After obtaining an honours degree he became a teacher.

Appointed head of biology, first at Richmond & East Sheen County Grammar School in 1953, then at Newquay Grammar School in 1955, he was well established as a writer by the time he retired at the age of 60 in 1974.

He died at his home in Holywell, Cornwall, on 15 November 2002.