Mike Chappell well known Cornish Campaigner takes well deserved rest

Mike Chappell well known Cornish Campaigner takes well deserved rest
by ThomasGraham

On 12th June, 2008 and at the new Hospital de Torrevieja de Valencia and following a suicide attempt, former Cornwall/Kernow Celtic League Branch Secretary,Celtic Congress Member, Republican writer and poet and animal rights campaigner, Mike Chappell, 50 years,was diagnosed with severe post traumatic stress disorder arising from seeing persons burn to death and then the discovery of a multiple infant deaths coupled with ritualistic murders during his long and highly decorated police career.

This longstanding illness, previously untreated, has recently been complicated by divorce proceedings brought about by his commitment to the Cornish cause.

Death threats and abuse arising from that commitment and so on proved too much for his marriage to endure. One of Europe's finest Trauma specialists, Doctor C. RICHEZ who has a private clinic in Pedro Lorca, Torrevieja, Valencia has arranged for Mike who is heavily medicated, to spend time in a private clinic in La Manga, Murcia away from all contact with the outside world for the forseeable future.The La Manga Clinic has been used by celebrities such is its success rate.

Mike is being visited on a regular basis by his friend, Reverend Dr. Joel Gonzalez Garcia from Cuba, an outspoken Evangelist preacher who has come to respect and admire Mike's rigid Methodist views.

Mike is described as 'utterly devasatated at his wife's request for divorce' and says'no matter what any lawyer or court on earth says, she will always be my wife, recognised by God and our marriage can be put asunder by no man. My vow was before God the Almighty and when I make such a vow, it is until death. She makes her own decision here but the time will come when she will have to answer for her actions in Heaven before the Almighty as we all shall. I shall never crave another woman ever. She was, is and ever shall be my wife.That is the Cornish way. That is the Methodist way.'

Mike values loyalty above all things. He gives it absolutely and he expects it in return. He reads the bible nightly and will doubtless find a passage there which relates to it. Once breached, he rarely leaves a stone unturned to bring those who have been unloyal to book.
For that reason, he virtually worships 'Cornubia - Land of the Saints' by John Miller and a print of it decorates his Bible. Cornwall is such he says, ' a land of the saints and fit only for the Saints. All else will burn in the pit of damnation.'

Mike came to note as a Republican many years ago when as a young policeman, he clambered down a cliff to rescue a holiday maker who had fallen whilst trying to rescue an expensive pair of sunglasses. Breaking his own leg in the process but heaving the holiday maker over his shoulder and climbing back up the 120 feet, a subsequent operation required 14 steel pins to rebuild his smashed left leg. He was awarded a Royal Humane Society Award for Bravery and invited to Buckingham Palace to collect the award.

He accepted the invitation on the grounds of nosiness wishing to see how the other half lived and turned up casually dressed much to the horror of the Palace staff. The conversation ran thus:

Prince Phillip: You've come a long way today ?

Michael : From Cornwall. I doubt you've ever heard of it. It is a long way for a piece of paper and a slice of Lyons Swiss Roll (which he had on a bone china plate held in in hand)

Prince Phillip: How do you feel being in the presence of Royalty ?

Michael: How do you feel being in my presence? If I had my way you lot would be given a council house and made to work for your living.

Exit stage left Prince Phillip. Exit stage right Michael's promotion prospects!

Another amusing yarn occurred during the so called 'Loving Cup of St George' protest in Truro when Royal band wagon member, Bruno Peek who holds a list of Royal Orders and Decorations brought an icon of England's St George to Cornwall, a Celtic Nation, something he dare not do in Scotland or Wales. Faced up by Mike Chappell, Peek started to quote the Bible. This was not a wise move for Mike was brought up a primitive Wesleyan Methodist - Chapel three times a day on Sunday, no alcohol and bible lessons in the Temperence Hall during the week and who virtually knows the good book back to front and upside down as well. Needless to say, Peek looked decidedly peaky !

Mike wishes his friends, particularly those in the Celtic League around Britain his very best wishes and particularly Iwan le Moine, Tony Leamon - who faces severe problems of his own with quite incredible bravery and dignity - and Sue Bowen in Cornwall as well as John Angarrack, Rhisiart Tal-e-bot, Dr Alan Kent and others. He kneels at his bedside and prays every day and will certainly be praying for them all.

The British Consul in Alicante and the Chief of the local Guardia Civil have also been in touch with Mike to offer their best wishes as have former close colleagues from around the world including a former head of Special Branch. His outspokeness has made him many enemies but he has always had money for the needy and the hungry and for stray dogs. Strangely, his outspokeness has also made him many friends amongst what is broadly called 'the establishment'.

He assures those who depend on him for what have become known as his special 'red cross' or as he calls them 'white cross' (after Saint Piran of Cornwall to whom he also prays) parcels that these will continue and that the necessary arrangements have been made with his bank.

Response One :

**Mike - my special pal - I was the IRA man - you were the Copper BUT you never, ever condemned me or my beliefs just my killing ways. Now I write or should I say 'lap top' and we have become buddies. You always have a home here. I know you want for Kernow what I want for all 32 counties of Eire and that made us brothers. Get better slowly, comrade and then come to see me. We can talk about what makes your blue Celtic eyes sparkle and flame - politics !
In solidarity, Tom.**


Response Two:
Maireid Sullivan
at 02:55 on June 23rd, 2008 good stuff:
ThomasGraham, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Response Three:
ThomasGraham, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Response Four:
Thanks Maireid - I'll pass on your thoughts and prayers to Mike. His own Cornish seem to reject him but we shall make him an honorary Irishman and embrace him. He is a true Celt. Kind, tempramental, deep, moody, fun. He has worked hard to bring Irish PoW's home particularly Noel Maguire, he loves the 32CSM with a passion as he does his animals, and he is, or was, always good for an arguement and good craic.

Blow for ETA freedom fighters

This bad news just received. The ETA organisation have shown equal fortitude to some of the Celtic Freedom Fighters in Eire in their battle against the Imperial and Colonialist Spanish and French states.

Spanish and French police arrested the reputed leader of the armed Basque separatist group ETA and five other people, hitting back amid a sustained campaign of bombings by the militant organization, officials said Wednesday.

Francisco Javier Lopez Pena and three other alleged ETA members were detained in the southwestern French city of Bordeaux on Tuesday night, Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.

Two more people were arrested Wednesday, one in Spain and a French citizen in France who was linked to the Bordeaux apartment, he said. French police said handguns and materials that could be used for making bombs were found in the apartment.

"This is not just another police operation in the sense that one of the detained, Francisco Javier Lopez Pena, is in all likelihood at this moment the person with most political and military weight in the terrorist group ETA," Rubalcaba said from Senegal, where he was on an official visit.
The minister was to cut short that visit and fly back to Madrid — evidence of how seriously Spain's takes the first arrest of a reputed ETA chief since 2004.

Since ETA ended a cease-fire in December 2006, Spanish and French police have arrested dozens of alleged members of the organization.

The latest arrests came amid a renewed campaign of attacks by ETA. The group was blamed for killing a policeman in a massive car bombing last week in a Basque village. It claimed another car bombing Sunday near Bilbao — the latest in more than 20 attacks by the organization since it called off the cease-fire after peace talks with the government failed.

Lopez Pena was instrumental in ETA's decision to end the truce, said a Spanish police official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

ETA is blamed for killing more than 825 people since the late 1960s in its campaign for an independent Basque state in territory straddling northern Spain and southern France.
The latest attacks are seen as an attempt by ETA to show it remains a force to be reckoned with and will not be ignored as politicians discuss how to end the region's decades-old conflict.

Besides Lopez Pena, the other three suspected ETA members arrested in Bordeaux were identified as Ainhoa Ozaeta Mendiondo, Igor Suberbiola and Jon Salaberria. A fifth person, Jose Antonio Barandiaran, a former mayor of a Basque town, was arrested in Spain's northern Basque region Wednesday morning. The French citizen arrested in Bordeaux was not immediately identified.

A French police official said four handguns, false identity papers, computers and material that could be used for making explosives — including sodium chlorate and time-bomb equipment — were seized in the Bordeaux apartment.

The official was not authorized to be named publicly.

The suspects have not made any statements since their arrest, the official said.
The office of French Prime Minister Francois Fillon confirmed the arrests in a statement, calling Lopez Pena "one of the historic leaders" of ETA and saying he had been wanted by police for 20 years.

"The success of this operation illustrates again the remarkable quality of the anti-terrorist cooperation between France and Spain," the statement said.

The apartment where the suspects were seized was blocked off by French and Spanish police Wednesday morning. It is located on a busy boulevard in a working class district of the city.
Many ETA members live in French Basque areas in the southwest of the country. The group is considered a terrorist organization by Spain, the European Union and the United States