Random Stuff!

[TheLocalYokel]

Always remember 1 episode with the castle of comfort pub up on the mendips.They came out the pub and across the car park trough a gate and they were on the beach. That said gate is still there to this day.

I've never been a great fan of tv drama and I didn't watch Shoestring regularly but I seem to remember a red lightship featured. Did he not live on it? It was moored at Welsh Back near Bristol Bridge adjacent to what I think was a building used by BT which doubled as the local radio station in the series. The site is now occupied by the Mercure Brigstow Hotel.

An old red lightship has been moored for many years at Bathurst Basin near the former General Hospital (now converted into apartments). I suspect it might be the one that was used in the Shoestring series.

 

[superking]

Happy easter to all on these forums.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Happy easter to all on these forums.

And to you, superking.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Out and About

Today was a good day for walking so I did one of my longer ones. Having started wih a two-mile jaunt through the Open Space (former tip now a nature reserve) to Brislington in south-east Bristol, I got off the A4 Air decker from there outside the Airport Tavern at Lulsgate (I still think of it as the New Inn) and began the most unpleasant part because of the traffic - south along the A38 to just past Corner Pool.

The recent dry weather allowed a walk along public footpaths without boots becoming clogged with mud, so after a stroll through a couple of fields Winters Lane was crossed just south of the airport. There followed the best part of the walk - four miles through the narrow wooded and steeply sided Goblin Combe. Its name sometimes provokes sniggers, especially as in the days of yore (my youth) it was a favourite place for village boys and girls to do a bit of snogging (is that expression understood these days?). I was told that there is a story about a young girl on a picnic (too young to be snogging) supposedly seeing elves or pixies or goblins in the combe, so its name was changed from the more descriptive Eagle Combe (I'd much rather see birds of prey than goblins) although all this easily pre-dated my days of yore.

Although there are some colour-coded walks throughout the combe there are other footpaths, some very steep, that are not signposted. They are my favourites as few if any other people are encountered

Every so often the bird song would be drowned by the noise of an aircraft on final approach to 09. Sometimes it was possible to make out the shape through the foliage above.

The A370 was reached at Cleeve followed by a short bus ride to Congresbury Bridge. Thereafter the route took me through the fields alongside the Congresbury Yeo to Wrington, three miles distant. What was particularly pleasant for someone interested in aviation was the sight of aircraft off to my left heading into BRS at the end of a journey. One was a TUI Boeing 757 inbound from, I think, Palma. To me the 757 is one of the most aesthetically pleasing airliners ever built, particularly when in its natural environment, the air. This might have been one of the last times I would have seen a TUI 757 at BRS, or strictly speaking approaching BRS, but because of the MAX issue their tenure seems to have been extended into the summer.

At Wrington I hopped onto the ' Village Flyer' (service A5 officially) to get to the airport and, lo and behold, what did I see taking off as I arrived but a TUI Boeing 757, probably the one I'd seen earlier, heading off to Morocco (Marrakech). A wonderful sight and sound as it graced the east end of the airfield before looking down on Felton Common.

A couple more buses took me back home after a thoroughly enjoyable and relaxing 12-mile hike - pensioners bus passes are very useful for keeping the elderly off the roads!

There are some wonderful what I call airport walks around BRS. A couple of weeks ago I was up at Dolebury on Western Mendip. It was one of those fresh, clear and sunny days where visibility was almost unlimited with South Wales and its hinterland beyond the Bristol Channel, Bridgwater Bay and the edge of Exmoor all clearly in view. Closer on the far hillside across the wide Wrington Vale BRS could be seen atop the Broadfield Down plateau, about four miles away. 09 was again in use and with binoculars it was possible to track inbound aircraft over the last half dozen miles or so of their approach from the direction of the Severn estuary.

Another walk with aircraft interludes is Sand Point between Weston and Clevedon whch I usually aproach via Weston Woods with its Stone Age hillfort. At Sand Point it's possible with decent binoculars to view aircraft from/to BRS and CWL at certain times. An added bonus there is the sight of huge container ships heading to or from Bristol Port (Avonmouth/Royal Portbury) if the tide is co-operating.

Nearer to BRS is Dundry Hill where aircraft can almost be touched as they arrive or depart the airport - not quite but it almost seems like it, and the view from the top of Dundry is stupendous. The apocryphal reason for the name Dundry is that when the builder finished constructing the church it was supposedly the third church he had built. That was enough and he said he had dun dree (vernacualr for done three) and would build no more. The whole of Bristol can be seen laid out below from Dundry top, and further afield the Brecon Beacons stand out to the west and the Marlborough Downs to the east. On a very clear day those with 20:20 vision can make out one of the Wiltshire white horses carved in the chalk downs, this one at Cherhill between Calne and Marlborough.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-street-named-one-three-2801027

Another quirky award might be coming Bristol's way. St Mark's Road, Easton is shortlisted in the final three for the UK's top street award.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/filton-arena-absolutely-unique-say-2811873

The next stage in the controversial plan to build a 16,000-seater arena on the edge of Filton has been taken with the appointment of a design team for the project. It's hoped that a planning application will be submitted later this year with a completion date pencilled in for 2022.

One planning complicator might be the fact that most of the Filton site is in South Gloucestershire but the Brabazon Hangar (in which the UK-built Concordes were constructed) is actually within the Bristol boundary. That could lead to South Gloucestershire Council being responsible for some of the access planning.

The Temple site seems to have been ruled out completely by the city mayor in favour of a mixed-use development - yet another in the city. Many millions of pounds have been expended on preparing the Temple arena site (Arena Island as it's called). I suppose that will at least be useful to access a mixed-use development. Currently the £11 million Bridge To Nowhere sits forlornly in the shadow of Temple Meads station.

The saga of the Bristol Arena has run for most of this century. It was originally supposed to be opened on the Temple site by 2009 but the recession and other matters put the whole thing into the long grass. Then the first elected city mayor made opening the arena one of the major planks of his campaign. 2016 was the date earmarked for the first acts to take the stage but it never happened and the next mayor (the current one) put a block on the Temple Arena project saying he could get better value for money for the city with other projects on the site.

Would I put money on the Filton Arena opening by 2022? No.

Would I put money on it opening at all? No.

 

[superking]

With the local council elections recently ,1 of our councilers for north somerset and he was deputy head counciler Elfin Ap Rees lost his seat.He was in charge of all transport matters in North Somerset. Also he was and still is a big noise in the helicopter mueisum in Weston, and he started it about 15 years ago.Im wondering with him not around now who would take on the transport role and if it would affect the planning for BRS airport.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

With the local council elections recently ,1 of our councilers for north somerset and he was deputy head counciler Elfin Ap Rees lost his seat.He was in charge of all transport matters in North Somerset. Also he was and still is a big noise in the helicopter mueisum in Weston, and he started it about 15 years ago.Im wondering with him not around now who would take on the transport role and if it would affect the planning for BRS airport.

Elfan Ap Rees never seemed to me to be an enthusiastic supporter of Bristol Airport, despite his aviation links.

The real problem for BRS might now be the change in the make-up of North Somerset Council with the Conservatives' solid overall majority (36 out of the 50 seats prior to last week) reduced almost to a cameo level. They now have just 13 seats with Independents 12 and Lib-Dems 11, and other parties/groups holding the other seats.

When the Conservatives were in such strong control it was always likely that they would approve the airport's planning application to enable it to handle 12 mppa, with the raising of the current 10 mppa limit also part of the application.

I now have serious doubts that the new council will approve the current applications. It will depend on the constitution of the planning committee, but the Conservatives are likely to be in a significant minority on that committee. The secretary of state could still 'call in' the application but this government has shown itself reluctant to do so in such matters, preferring decisions to be made locally.

If the local authority did reject the application, or major parts of it, it would be open to the airport to appeal to the Planning Inspectorate when a planning inspector would be appointed to determine the appeal.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink/its-official-bristol-best-city-2851208

Bristol has won another award - the best UK city for eating out.

It's also the city with the most Michelin star restaurants outside London.

The city's food scene must also be very dynamic because it seems that hardly a day goes by without the local paper highlighting a restaurant closure or the opening of a new restaurant.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/sunday-times-rich-list-lansdown-2859609

Steve Lansdown, co-founder of the eponymous Bristol-based stockbroking and asset management group, Hargreaves Lansdown now a FTSE100 company, and owner of Bristol City FC is estimated by the Sunday Times to be the sixth richest person involved in British football with a personal fortune of £1.72 billion.

The richest Championship club owners are the Coates family of Stoke City FC, owners of Bet365, with a fortune estimated at £6.856 billion.

Steve Lansdown also owns Bristol Bears RFC, Bristol City Women FC, Bristol Flyers basketball club and a number of other sporting interests through his Bristol Sport group.

There is no doubt that both Bristol City and Bristol Bears would be struggling to reach and remain at their current levels without Steve Lansdown's backing. Some criticise him for residing in Guernsey for tax purposes. He always comes to watch his clubs as often as he can each year without falling foul of his 'tax exile' status. In that sense he is a true fan.

His Hargreaves Lansdown co-founder, Peter Hargreaves, lives in Bristol and is equally wealthy but doesn't seem to be interested in owning sports clubs, although I believe he owns some race horses. He would have made a wonderful truly Independent city mayor in Bristol had he fancied putting his name in the hat. He is a Northerner who is 'Joe Blunt' and gets things done, unlike most of our local politicians.

 

[superking]

I see the last inter city 125 from Bristol to Paddington ran today. This model has been in service for 40 years. The trains that replaced the 125 are diesel/electric. It wonders if these will last 40 years.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I see the last inter city 125 from Bristol to Paddington ran today. This model has been in service for 40 years. The trains that replaced the 125 are diesel/electric. It wonders if these will last 40 years.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-48327739

Yes, the last one ran as a high speed train on the GWR system yesterday between Paddington and Exeter via (from the picture) Bristol Temple Meads.

I have some cine film (which I've since trasferred to video) of the first 125 service from Paddington to Temple Meads as it travelled along the embankment to the west of Keynsham station - the embankment that bore the logo 'Somerdale' for many years.

The BBC report states that some will be retained on local services in Cornwall and South Wales.

I've used the Western 125s many times but never found them particularly appealing. I don't feel the same pang of nostalgia with their leaving as I did, for instance, when steam was finally withdrawn from British Rail or for that matter when the Warship class diesel hydraulic express engines of the Western Region (the ones that took over from the steam Kings and Castles) came to the end of their working lives.

The new Hitachi bi-mode trains that replace the 125s will still be operating under diesel power nearly everywhere in the government's South West Region (a huge area) for many years to come, so anyone who pines for diesel traction will be well satisfied.

I once managed to get myself a ride in the cab of a 'Hymek' diesel hydraulic locomotive (even at this distance in time I won't say how), a type used on the Western Region mainly for semi-fast passenger trains in the 1960s. It was running 'light engine' from Temple Meads to Weston-super-Mare in the early hours of one morning. They weren't the most graceful of locos (I think one might be preserved on the West Somerset Railway), and it was rather unnerving for someone not used to the experience to be hammering along through the darkness and rocking and rolling up to 70 mph.

 

[superking]

With the sad news of Nikki lauda passed away stirred up some memories. Back in the late 80s Lauda air did a winter season of ski flights into BRS from Austria.I think aircraft used was either a 757 or 737- 400 It only ran for 1 season. RIP Nikki Lauda

 

[TheLocalYokel]

With the sad news of Nikki lauda passed away stirred up some memories. Back in the late 80s Lauda air did a winter season of ski flights into BRS from Austria.I think aircraft used was either a 757 or 737- 400 It only ran for 1 season. RIP Nikki Lauda

Yes, very sad news. RIP.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Somerset County Cricket Club

Many congratulations to the team I've followed and supported, and was a member of the club for many years, since first watching them at the Weston-super-Mare cricket festival in the mid-1950s, a venue no longer used by the county as these days all home matches are played at their Taunton headquarters.

Today at Lords they won the Royal London One-Day Cup (50 overs per side) easily beating an admittedly under-strength Hampshire.

For many years Somerset won nothing and frequently inhabited the bottom part of the County Championship. In those days they always played entertaining, if not successful, cricket and it was often said that they were the second favourite team of all other cricket followers in the country - if that was the case it probably involved a degree of sympathy for honest endeavours that brought no reward.

All that began to change in the early 1970s when the legendary Yorkshireman, Brian Close, moved to the south-west to captain Somerset. Closey put the fear of God into the players and into many committee men. Results began to improve and a new confidence emerged.

By the late 70s Somerset had turned into the most entertaining side in the country with Viv Richards, Ian Botham and Joel Garner in their pomp ably assisted by the new captain, Brian Rose (now club president) and Vic Marks (both England test players), along with the salt of the earth professionals such as Colin 'Herbie' Dredge from a Frome cricketing dynasty, and Pete 'Dasher' Denning from Chewton Mendip where his father ran the butchers shop, sadly to leave us far too early when not even out of middle-age.

Another member of that side was Peter Roebuck, Cambridge graduate and opening batsman, probably good enough to have played for England. He was an introvert, his own man in so many ways and very much a loner. He went on to captained Somerset in the late 1980s but was always a controversial figure at the club. After he finished as a player he became a highly acclaimed writer and broadcaster on the game but tragically committed suicide in South Africa eight year ago following allegations about his private life.

The side of the late 70s and early 80s swept all asunder in the one-day formats, winning several competitions. Over the next 20 years they were very much 'up and down' and until today the last competition they won was in 2005. However in the intervening period they finished as runners-up no less than ten times in various competitions including three in the County Championship, the competition I still regard as the most important ('proper cricket'), and which they have never won although currently they sit top of that table.

I'ver had some wonderful times following Somerset, not least because of the fans. They are funny and dedicated - they have to be supporting such a team.

I always quote one instance as an example of what I regard as the typical Somerset supporter's priorities. It was Monday 27 August 1979, a bank holiday, and Somerset were playing the 'old enemy' Gloucestershire at Taunton on the second day of a County Championship match. I had left the ground on a 'pass out' at lunchtime to find refreshments (these days the ground itself supplies a wide-ranging selection) and as I returned to the ground through the gate the elderly, white-coated gate steward spied a pal to whom he shouted, "Have you heard? Mountbatten's been blown up. He's dead" (no Internet or mobile phones then - the gate steward had gleaned the information from his transistor radio). "Is he?" said the mate. "Botham's batting well isn't he?" I was going to write it in the Somerset dialect in which it was spoken but that would have been unintelligible to anyone not born in wellies with a straw in their mouth. Nevertheless, even on such a sad occasion it showed what a Somerset cricket follower regarded as important.

 

[superking]

Im putting this post here,rather than hijack the CWL thread. The DC9 was seen in nearly every UK airports for many years.If my memory is working good a Aviaco DC9 came off the end of the runway at BRS. I hope im right saying this.Cant remember much about it or what ever caused it to do this accident.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Im putting this post here,rather than hijack the CWL thread. The DC9 was seen in nearly every UK airports for many years.If my memory is working good a Aviaco DC9 came off the end of the runway at BRS. I hope im right saying this.Cant remember much about it or what ever caused it to do this accident.

Aviaco carried a lot of passengers for the International Leisure Group, although ILG's own airline Air Europe was the main carrier for them.

The aircraft you might be thinking of that came off the end of runway 27 and finished up partly down the slope beyond it was an Iberia Airbus A300. It aquaplaned when landing. From memory it was probably in the early to mid 1980s.

 

[superking]

First bus and Greyhound in the USA has been put up for sale.First bus run a lot of services in Bristol and surrounding areas. They also run the airport flyer to the airport.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

First bus and Greyhound in the USA has been put up for sale.First bus run a lot of services in Bristol and surrounding areas. They also run the airport flyer to the airport.

Yes, it seems that First Group is to concentrate on its non-Greyhound ventures in the USA which are responsible for over two-thirds of its annual earnings and its rail franchises in the UK.

First has become the dominant bus company in the Bristol area and wider city region. All we locals know that its reputation is poor. It's ironic because the de-regulation of the bus industry in the mid 1980s was intended to remove monopolies such as that existing at the time in the Bristol region with the Bristol Omnibus Company. All that happened was the replacement of one monopoly with another which is a good example of the Law of Unintended Consequences that often raises its head when governments try to regulate by legislation.

In fact, First's genesis is directly related to the Bristol Omnibus Company which by the mid-1980s had been split into two - Badgerline that ran the country services and Cityline the Bristol services (the path was slightly more involved than that but that's how it finished up). Badgerline was then bought out by its management and set off on an acquisition trail bringing other bus companies into its fold.

Grampian Regional Transport, based in Aberdeen, was similarly acquiring other bus companies. Grampian and Badgerline came together to form First Bus, later re-styled First Group. Perhaps surprisingly, given that the Badgerline Group supplied nearly three-quarters of the buses for First Bus, the headquarters was sited at Aberdeen and not Weston-super-Mare which was Badgerline's headquarters.

First Group was the first private sector owner of Bristol Airport when it assumed a majority holding (51%) with the city council's 49% in 1997.

What happens now is anyone's guess. There have been calls for a while for the Bristol area buses to be controlled by the local authority in a similar way to Transport for London. The West of England combined authority mayor, Tim Bowles, who has assumed responsibility for transport policy in the West of England since city mayor Marvin Rees effectively handed over the power is apparently not keen on the idea. Rees is Labour and Bowles Conservative.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

Rain, rain go away.......

Not a lot of luck with the Cricket World Cup for Bristol. There isn't much high level international sport in the West Country and when there is the weather intervenes. Of the three matches scheduled for Bristol, two have been abandoned without a ball being bowled, including today. The competition does not feature reserve days.

Somerset also have three matches scheduled for Taunton. They've had one and the next is tomorrow with the third next week. The weather forecast for tomorrow isn't too bad and next week seems to be improving. Can't get much worse in June than the last few days!

Arena - who needs one?

Whilst on the entertainment scene, the lack of an arena has partially been overcome by using Ashton Gate in recent weeks. In the past there have been occasional high-profile performers such as Elton John and the Rolling Stones at the football ground but this year there has been a series - one a week for the past month culminating with last night.

Last night the Spice Girls performed in the rain before 32,000 spectators, 80% of whom were female according to reports, with previous performers being Take That, Rod Stewart and a band whose name escapes me (I'm not well versed in modern entertainment, ie anything over the past 50 years). I believe all four performances attracted over 20,000 at each one which is more than an arena would be able to hold.

Another series is reportedly planned for next year.

On a related issue, Bristol's main concert venue the Colston Hall which has been shut for a while whilst a multi-million pound renovation scheme takes place will be closed for a year longer as they've run into unanticipated difficulties with the work. It will also cost a few million quid more and won't re-open now until 2021 (unless they find something else they hadn't bargained for, I suppose).

It won't be the Colston Hall when it re-opens. Because of the philanthropist Edward Colston's links with the Slave Trade his name will be removed from the hall's name and replaced with..........well, no-one's quite sure yet. No doubt Colston Street, Colston Avenue, the Colston schools and anyone in Bristol named Colston will also have to find a new monicker.

It's a bit like the major roadworks at Temple Gate.They started a year late, should have taken 18 months to complete but will now take an extra year and won't be ready until the end of this year. All because an underground cellar and pipes that were previously unknown came to light during the early stages of the work.