h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi folks. The team here at the BBC Devon website will definately sign up for a big batch of bumper stickers once they're available. We'll do all we can to fly the flag whereever possible. Keep up the good work!

mr flag,
what sort of design are you thinking of using? and to what extent will the stickers be advertising my flag, itd be nice if the advertising didnt dominate the sticker.

I'll email a mock-up of the sticker to [email protected]

I have (finally) heard back from the printer, who was unable to get an acceptable shade of grey using a black dot stipple effect. So we are going ahead with the grey as a colour.

This puts up the price a little, but we get a better quality product.

Production of the original 250 should occur next week.

Anyone wanting to order some, please email me at [email protected] .

The price will be £1.50 each, for a glorious 10cm by 12 cm bumper sticker.

There will be a discount to those who helped in the design process - including alternative flag designers - as I will pass these on at cost.

I have (finally) heard back from the printer, who was unable to get an acceptable shade of grey using a black dot stipple effect. So we are going ahead with the grey as a colour.

This puts up the price a little, but we get a better quality product.

Production of the original 250 should occur next week.

Anyone wanting to order some, please email me at [email protected] .

The price will be £1.50 each, for a glorious 10cm by 12 cm bumper sticker.

There will be a discount to those who helped in the design process - including alternative flag designers - as I will pass these on at cost.

Oh, and by the way - whilst these will be printed in South Australia, they will have a Devon flavour - the printer is based in Plympton (a suburb of Adelaide) - and my contact was the rather appropriately named Brenton Green!!

I have updated my website ([email protected]) to show the bumper sticker, and how to order it.

My brother (now languishing in North Somerset) has agreed to be the contact point for local orders.

As I have said before, I am happy to let anyone who participated in the flag discussion/debate/design to have some at cost!!

David Jones wrote in with the following comments about the flag: I found the articles on the devon flag very interesting, and must admit that it is quite a nice looking flag, but even though i am not devonian, having only lived there for 62 of my 64 years,(and not yet accepted as a local) i still think that it looks too much like the cornish flag from a distance, and showing no imagination, but imitating closley "that flag" dave

Simon Turrell wrote the following comments about the flag: Hi, it's ridiculous. I was born in Plymouth but there are more than one team in Devon. Well one more playing league football. What next a red and white striped flag for Hampshire. A green and white striped one for Glasgow?!! I always liked the County Council emblem myself. Summed things up nicely.

When will people like Simon Turrell realise that life does not revolve around allegiances to football clubs. The Devon flag has nothing whatsoever to do with any football club. The colours of the flag are historically Devon colours.

The County Council emblem could not be used in the flag, firstly because the County Council own the rights to the design, and secondly because it would be too complicated to make and would thus be very expensive.

Whatever anyone says, the 'Devon Flag Campaign' has been the most successful introduction of a new 'unofficial' regional flag that I can remember.

The flag isn't 'huge' yet, but you've easily outstripped the previous most recent example (Isles of Scilly) even allowing for the disparity in population.

It's a good clean recognisable design, and it'll continue to grow now even if you do nothing else to promote it. As I said during the campaign, everything depends on the people of Devon WANTING to fly it. And you have that. The flag is already a fact, and within a year or two people won't even remember that it's new. Turn around 5 years from now and you'll find it's the 'official' flag of Devon.

With that in mind I'd like to warn everyone that our prices are about to go up. Not by much, but I think we've done all we can now to give it momentum, and now I have to be a bit more commercially minded about it.

Sorry!

I also received an email about the flag from a Simon.

It could well be the same gentleman. He seemed to think the flag poll was the victim of a deliberate 'Argyle' campaign.

Anyhow, after I explained the process we went through and the safeguards we introduced, he responded as follows

"Dear Sir/Madam

Many thanks for your detailed response to my rant. I fully appreciate the process and effort that you went to for establishing the Devon Flag.

As a designer myself, I know it is not always possible to please all of the people all of the time and (for want of a better word) a compromise has to be achieved.

I'm sure the majority of Devonians will embrace the new Devon Flag in time. I suppose I'd rather liked to have seen some variety in the final choices and also some historical origins to substantiate the final outcome.

All the very best"

We must be careful not to have the flag too closely associated with Argyle, but rather ensure it stays aligned with Devon.

I received this piece of information from someone ordering some bumper stickers from me (yes - I have received a couple of orders so far)

"PS. The Cornish firm Warrens Bakers has a shop in Barnstaple which for the last few weeks has had the Devon flag side-by-side with the Cornish flag painted in one of its windows. However, since they left out the black border of the cross, I think they must have got it from a short article which appeared in the 'North Devon Journal' which described it simply as a 'white cross on green'!"

Also a quick search on the WMN site (thisisdevon) showed another small article about the flag - 6th June[Broken link removed by Moderator]

They seem to have picked up on the BBC Devon photo gallery

The Devon Flag is also featuring on a North Devon website. Refer

http://www.northdevonuk.co.uk/NDevonLinks.html

So much for those that think that the flag is a Plymouth beast - the best reactions seem to be from North Devon and the South Hams!

A guy has been emailing me recently and from what i understand he wants the flag to be dedicated to St Petroc. Ive got nothing against it in principal but the things that spring to mind are that a)St Petroc has no historical connection with the flag and b)people may see it as religious and thus it may suggest the wrong thing to people.
whats does everyone else think about this?

I thought people might be interested in the following statistics:

52 individuals and/or organisations have so far bought 138 Devon flags from us, made up as follows:

46x30cm (18x12in) 40
68x41cm (27x16in) 19
91x46cm (36x18in) 10
137x69cm (54x27in) 16
183x91cm (72x36in) 32
183x122cm (72x48in) 13
229x114cm (90x45in) 3
270x137cm (108x54in) 2
366x183cm (144x72in) 2
457x229cm (180x90in) 1

To put this into perspective for a regional flag, that's more than four times the number of Isles of Scilly flags (they're the next newest regional flag) sold in four times as long. Our most popular UK regional flag (Cornwall) sells around 250-300 flags in a normal year (this doesn't include 'Economy' flags and of course I can't give statistics for what other manufacturers may sell).

Ryan, I don't see any problem with calling the flag the 'St. Petroc's Cross'. People don't see the St. George's or St. Andrew's (or indeed the St. Pirran's) crosses as being specifically religious. Devon certainly has a better claim on Petroc than England has on George!

If I remember correctly, didn't the issue of a Devon flag originally arise in the Patron Saints conversation...?

Ryan,

I presume the person contacting you is Kevin Pyne.

He asked me whether I was happy about dedicating the white cross on the flag to St Petroc.

I have no problem with this - but said I would contact you. Seems he beat me to it.

I don't see this as being a problem. I am not sure that the Cornish flag has ancient links with St Piran (I think that is a more recent association), and no-one sees that as being overly religious.

Kevin believes St Petroc was in some way responsible for him surviving a recent illness/accident, and that is fair enough.

So my vote is - why not!

By the way - don't forget to email me your new address so I can mail your bumper sticker.

I am not in the least bit surprised about the Devon Flag sales figures. As I contended some months ago, it shows that patriotism in Devon is every bit as strong as it is in Cornwall. The only difference is that we Devonians tend to be more rational and do not go in for some of the more half-baked notions of patriotism(?) that some of the more fanatical Cornish seem to indulge in.

Plymouth Exile

Ryan - I agree with both Parrferris and Ozzie Exile concerning the association of the Devon Flag with St. Petroc.

Cornwall claims three patron saints (including St. Petroc), although St. Piran is the main one. As the Cornish (St. Piran) Flag is a fairly modern design, it cannot have any direct link with St. Piran himself, but that does not stop the Cornish calling it 'The St. Piran Flag'.

I would contend that Devon has more claim to St. Petroc than Cornwall does, as there are far more dedications to St. Petroc in Devon than there are in Cornwall. As the others have said, the association of a flag with a patron saint does not turn it into a religious symbol.

I say, lets go ahead.

Plymouth Exile

I was pleased to see the Mr Flag sales figures. Certainly a good start.

I would be interested to know if anyone else is making the flags now. I notice that Mr Flag is now claiming to be the first, so that indicates that someone else is out there as well.

As to a dedication to St Petroc, my view is that while I don't have an issue with the link to St Petroc I agree with Ryan that we don't want to make it appear religious because that might put off atheists (like me).

Further we should be careful not to lose the impetus that the word 'Devon' can create. The Devon flag has taken off because it is clearly and obviously a Devon flag. To call it the 'St Petroc' flag may confuse the masses (no pun intended)

I would therefore say a qualified 'yes' but we should be careful how we market that association.