EPB-E01-S4

TimesBristol

Celebrating our proud history and keeping your memories alive

TUE29OCT2013

Mining40yearssincetheycloseddownthecollieries

Page 7 Themessage I’ll carveinto my pumpkin

Page 4

Page 8 Farewell toMarion’s Memories

� Beverley Forbes createdthe Plantation Restaurant onGloucester Road in 2003,serving authentic Jamaicandishes including severaldifferent ways of servingcallaloo.

Brought to you in association with

HOW OUR FOOD HASSHAPED OUR HISTORY From Cod To

Callaloo:Pages 2&3

EPB-E01-S4

EPB-

E01-

S4

2 Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013 3Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013w w w. bristolpost.co.uk w w w. bristolpost.co.uk

COD BATTLESAND SUGARADDICTIONS

SUE Shephard is, frankly, ajournalistic disappointment.She’s written a fascinatingnew book which tells “theStory of Bristol through Food

and Wine” but she cheerfully admitsthat she doesn’t do much cooking.

So there goes any chance of usleading this article with a big photoof the author, in her Domestic God-dess kitchen, doing theh e re ’s-one-I-cooked-earlier thing. Noposes of her holding some or otherclassic Bristolian dish from the 17thcentury that she’s made from an ori-ginal recipe that begins “first, killyour turtle.” No, nothing like that.

“I’m not really a cooking person,”she says. “I’m not really into chefs.Yo u ’ll never see me on The GreatBritish Bake-Off. I can’t bake to savemy life.”

From Cod to Callaloo is one of themost interesting social histories ofBristol to come along in ages.

It’s not just an account of that ourBristolian ancestors ate and drank;it’s also about the profound influ-ences that food and booze have had onthe city’s history.

Now fair enough, most of us cangrasp the fact that there was a timewhen ready meals, sliced bread andsupermarkets had not yet been in-vented. But nothing bears out thefamous line from LP Hartley’s Th eGo-Between about how “the past is aforeign country” as much as thethings they used to eat.

True, Bristolians did used to go andshop at Iceland. The country, that is.

The cod of the book’s title was,during the Middle Ages, an essentialpart of Bristolians’ diet.

Caught by Icelandic fishermen inhuge quantities, the fish were guttedand hung out on racks in the coldnorthern air to dry.

Known as stockfish, it could keepalmost indefinitely if it was driedproperly, and was brought back toBristol by traders who exchangedsalt, flour, butter, pots and pans and,of course, woollen cloth for it.

It was a cheap and plentiful sourceof protein for the poor, but the richhad to eat it as well, as before theReformation the calendar included

� Above, the cover ofFrom Cod To Callaloo

A new book has just been published which is goingto interest Bristol foodies and history buffs alike.Not only does it look at the story of eating anddrinking in the city from earliest times to thepresent, but it also traces the often surprising waysin which food and drink have influenced Bristol’shistory. Eugene Byrne lets his Clark’s pie go coldwhile he explains.

staple, particularly of the poor. WhenBristol merchants set up their sugarplantations in the Caribbean, theslaves were often fed on cheap saltcod. Ackee and saltfish remains apopular Caribbean dish to this day;you could probably say it’s the na-tional dish of Jamaica.

“I’ve always been interested in theidea of telling history through food,”explains Sue. “Lots of people writeabout the history of food, especially ifit’s about agriculture or rural areasor about the sorts of things peopleused to eat in stately homes. But asfar as I know nobody has really writ-ten about the history of a citythrough food, and Bristol is of coursea very good place because of its his-tory of trading in food and of coursew i n e.

“So the book is not just about cook-

ing and eating, it’s also about thebusiness of food and how it feeds intoother things such as spices and sugarand how that of course fed into theslave trade.”

Bristol’s growth and prosperity inthe Middle Ages depended on im-ports of wine from France and laterSpain and Portugal as well. Obvi-ously the wine producers weren’tgiving the stuff away; it was tradedfor woollen cloth, and of course thisstimulated what was Bristol’s mostimportant manufacturing industryuntil the early 1600s and beyond.

Bristolians wanted other things,too. Luxuries like spices to jazz up adreary diet, raisins, currants andoranges to add a little sweetness.

And then there was sugar, stuff thatwas so popular, so utterly desirablethat there were no depths to which

merchants would no stoop in order tomeet a seemingly bottomless de-mand.

The part that sugar played in Bris-tol’s growth and the way in which itcreated huge fortunes is known wellenough. What’s not always so obviousis the other ways in which food un-derpins our history.

Sue Shephard has written a num-ber of books about food and garden-ing, subjects she got interested inwhile working as a producer at Chan-nel Four. She won an award for herbook Pickled, Potted and Canned: TheStory of Food Preserving.

“Working on that was really in-t e re s t i n g , ” she explains, “because thestory of food preserving is all abouthow people who were poor were bet-ter able to survive the winter if theycould store food. But there are other

sides to this as well. Preserving foodalso meant that you could undertakelong sea journeys.”

So without preserved food, Bris-tol’s merchants and explorers wouldnot have been able to get very far.Preserved food made the slave tradepossible, likewise the great privat-eering voyages of the 17th and 18thcenturies. Preserved food permittedAtlantic crossings to America andback – the return journey could takeeight weeks or more in the days of sail– and this in turn enabled Europeansto bring back new foodstuffs – t o-matoes, potatoes, turkeys and moreb e s i d e s.

Turkeys were a big hit in Bristol, aswere turtles. The West Indian greensea turtle could be brought backalive, and while nobody eats turtlemuch nowadays it was hugely pop-

plenty of days on which religion for-bade the eating of meat.

The Icelandic trade was, however,relatively short-lived. The aggressivemerchant federation of the NorthGerman ports, known as the Hanseat-ic League or ‘Hanse’ d i d n’t like theseEnglish interlopers muscling in ontheir business and put a stop to it.

It is widely suggested that beingcut off from this lucrative market andimportant source of supply led dir-ectly to Cabot’s voyages of discovery.According to this theory, Bristol’smerchants, eager to find new busi-ness, were willing to finance expens-ive and hazardous voyages ofexploration far out into the Atlantic –the “Ocean Sea” – in search of therumoured land known as Hy-Brasil.

Before and after the Icelandictrade, the cod came, usually salted,from Ireland, along with supplies ofother fish species, usually shippedfrom Waterford, and usually tradedfor woollen cloth. The local sayingwe n t :Herring of Sligo and Salmon ofBann,Has made in Bristol many a richman.

Salt cod remained for centuries a

ular until well into the 19th century.The centrepiece of many a big civicfeast, where fat aldermen and Mer-chant Venturers stuffed their facesand drank themselves into a stupor,would have been a big turtle weigh-ing 100lb or more.

There were always associationsbetween food and power. Putting on agood spread meant you were a personof standing and influence. And ofcourse if the monarch was visitingthe catering would have to be ab-solutely spectacular.

When Queen Elizabeth I visitedBristol in 1574 she was entertained bythe wealthy merchant John Young athis home on St Augustine’s Back.

The menu would have includedthings like sparrows stewed in ale,larks cooked in wine with bone mar-row, raisins, sugar and cinnamon and

capons boiled with bitter oranges orlemons. There would have been pea-cock, roast venison in a sauce ofvinegar, sugar, cinnamon and butter.There have been rabbits, chickens,pheasants, corncrakes … and veryfew vegetables.

And at the end of all this would bethe final ‘banquet’ course, fruit tarts,sweet wines, preserved fruits, com-fits and elaborate confections of mar-zipan.

While the upper classes were livingit up, the diet of those further downthe social scale gradually improvedas well, thanks to the import of foodfrom elsewhere. By 1900 everyonecould have sugar in their tea, ordrink coffee, or treat themselves to abar of chocolate from Fry’s.

Shortly before the First World Warbroke out, Bristol was Britain’s main

port for the arrival of shipments ofbananas from the Caribbean andSouth America.

Indeed, it was only wars whichinterrupted this continuous im-provement in the variety and choicethat all but the very poorest couldafford in their diet. The dietary priva-tions Britons endured with food ra-tioning in the Second World War areknown well enough.

“No, the diet wasn’t very nice,”says Sue. “But people were healthier,the children grew taller.

“We might think that rationingmeant that people became thin andsickly, but this was a time whenscience was really starting to un-derstand nutrition and vitamins andso on. The wartime diet was dreary,but it was healthy.”

All this is true, but if you ask

anyone who lived through thosetimes if they would be happy to re-turn to the wartime diet, the replyyo u ’d get would be short and quitepossibly rather rude.

Food rationing continued well intothe post-war era, but as things gradu-ally improved, people craved moreglamorous dining.

Two Welsh/Italian brothers inBristol had the solution.

In a passage in her book whichmany Bristolians will find partic-ularly interesting, Sue describes howTony and Aldo Berni opened theirfirst steak restaurant at the Rummerpub in St Nicholas Market in the1950s and went on to build a hugeempire of pub/restaurants servinggood quality competitively-pricedfood which revolutionised Britons’idea of dining out.

And the rest, you know. Thoughyou might not know the story thebook relates of how celebrity res-taurateur Keith Floyd was frequentlyconned into providing free food forunscrupulous diners who wouldbring slugs with them to his bistro,drop them into the salad, and thencomplain…

Bristol is now a major destinationfor the region’s foodies, if not foodiesfrom across the country, with res-taurants offering a bewilderingrange of different cuisines fromaround the world. The callaloo of thebook’s title is the generic name of adish based on leaf vegetables fromthe Caribbean.

Has anything, anything at all,stayed the same in Bristol’s diet fromearly times to the present day?

Well, actually, yes.“In the middle ages, there were

always cases in which people werebeing charged with adulteratingfo o d , ” says Sue. “You might say thatt h at ’s still going on with the horse-meat scandal.”

The other common strand, shesays, is takeaway food. We mightthink that takeaways originated withfish and chip shops, but they havebeen around for ever. In medievalBristol, in among all the unpleasantstinks of the town, you’d also get afrequent whiff of something morepleasant from the cook-shops andstreet vendors hawking anythingfrom cooked fresh peas to “hotshee p’s feet” and, of course, pies.

“That whole takeaway thing hasbeen going on for a very long time,”she says. “And now takeaways are aspopular as ever. That’s a very im-portant Bristolian motif, the idea oftreating yourself to some nicetakeaway food.”

From Cod to Callaloo is publishedby Redcliffe Press, price £15.

� Above, childrenenjoying ice-cream froma van operated bywell-known Bristol icecream firm Verrecchia’s,in Romney Avenue,Lockleaze, around 1960Photograph:Peter Dainton� Right, a turnspit dogat work in a kitchen inSouth Wales,watercolour by ThomasRowlandson, 1790.Specially-trained dogswere used to turn spitsin many Bristolkitchens, and there’s adog-wheel at BlaiseCastle Museum. ( P i c t u re :Private collection/TheStapleton Collection/TheBridgeman Art Library)

� Above, St Michael’sChurch, April 1958.“Tuppenny starver” buns arestill handed out to childrenon Easter Tuesday.� Left, the oyster women’sshed on Welsh Back. Inearlier times, oysters wereeaten in huge quantities,even by working people.(Watercolour by GeorgeDelamotte, 1824. Courtesy BristolMuseums, Galleries & Archives.)� Right, Bristol nowadayshas shops and delicatessensoffering food from all aroundthe world. This one is thefamous Bristol Sweetmart inSt Mark’s Road, Easton.

(Pic: Stephen Morris)

Sue Shephard

Yo u ’ll never see me onGreat British Bake-Off. Ican’t bake to save mylife.

“

EPB-E01-S4

EPB-

E01-

S4

2 Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013 3Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013w w w. bristolpost.co.uk w w w. bristolpost.co.uk

COD BATTLESAND SUGARADDICTIONS

SUE Shephard is, frankly, ajournalistic disappointment.She’s written a fascinatingnew book which tells “theStory of Bristol through Food

and Wine” but she cheerfully admitsthat she doesn’t do much cooking.

So there goes any chance of usleading this article with a big photoof the author, in her Domestic God-dess kitchen, doing theh e re ’s-one-I-cooked-earlier thing. Noposes of her holding some or otherclassic Bristolian dish from the 17thcentury that she’s made from an ori-ginal recipe that begins “first, killyour turtle.” No, nothing like that.

“I’m not really a cooking person,”she says. “I’m not really into chefs.Yo u ’ll never see me on The GreatBritish Bake-Off. I can’t bake to savemy life.”

From Cod to Callaloo is one of themost interesting social histories ofBristol to come along in ages.

It’s not just an account of that ourBristolian ancestors ate and drank;it’s also about the profound influ-ences that food and booze have had onthe city’s history.

Now fair enough, most of us cangrasp the fact that there was a timewhen ready meals, sliced bread andsupermarkets had not yet been in-vented. But nothing bears out thefamous line from LP Hartley’s Th eGo-Between about how “the past is aforeign country” as much as thethings they used to eat.

True, Bristolians did used to go andshop at Iceland. The country, that is.

The cod of the book’s title was,during the Middle Ages, an essentialpart of Bristolians’ diet.

Caught by Icelandic fishermen inhuge quantities, the fish were guttedand hung out on racks in the coldnorthern air to dry.

Known as stockfish, it could keepalmost indefinitely if it was driedproperly, and was brought back toBristol by traders who exchangedsalt, flour, butter, pots and pans and,of course, woollen cloth for it.

It was a cheap and plentiful sourceof protein for the poor, but the richhad to eat it as well, as before theReformation the calendar included

� Above, the cover ofFrom Cod To Callaloo

A new book has just been published which is goingto interest Bristol foodies and history buffs alike.Not only does it look at the story of eating anddrinking in the city from earliest times to thepresent, but it also traces the often surprising waysin which food and drink have influenced Bristol’shistory. Eugene Byrne lets his Clark’s pie go coldwhile he explains.

staple, particularly of the poor. WhenBristol merchants set up their sugarplantations in the Caribbean, theslaves were often fed on cheap saltcod. Ackee and saltfish remains apopular Caribbean dish to this day;you could probably say it’s the na-tional dish of Jamaica.

“I’ve always been interested in theidea of telling history through food,”explains Sue. “Lots of people writeabout the history of food, especially ifit’s about agriculture or rural areasor about the sorts of things peopleused to eat in stately homes. But asfar as I know nobody has really writ-ten about the history of a citythrough food, and Bristol is of coursea very good place because of its his-tory of trading in food and of coursew i n e.

“So the book is not just about cook-

ing and eating, it’s also about thebusiness of food and how it feeds intoother things such as spices and sugarand how that of course fed into theslave trade.”

Bristol’s growth and prosperity inthe Middle Ages depended on im-ports of wine from France and laterSpain and Portugal as well. Obvi-ously the wine producers weren’tgiving the stuff away; it was tradedfor woollen cloth, and of course thisstimulated what was Bristol’s mostimportant manufacturing industryuntil the early 1600s and beyond.

Bristolians wanted other things,too. Luxuries like spices to jazz up adreary diet, raisins, currants andoranges to add a little sweetness.

And then there was sugar, stuff thatwas so popular, so utterly desirablethat there were no depths to which

merchants would no stoop in order tomeet a seemingly bottomless de-mand.

The part that sugar played in Bris-tol’s growth and the way in which itcreated huge fortunes is known wellenough. What’s not always so obviousis the other ways in which food un-derpins our history.

Sue Shephard has written a num-ber of books about food and garden-ing, subjects she got interested inwhile working as a producer at Chan-nel Four. She won an award for herbook Pickled, Potted and Canned: TheStory of Food Preserving.

“Working on that was really in-t e re s t i n g , ” she explains, “because thestory of food preserving is all abouthow people who were poor were bet-ter able to survive the winter if theycould store food. But there are other

sides to this as well. Preserving foodalso meant that you could undertakelong sea journeys.”

So without preserved food, Bris-tol’s merchants and explorers wouldnot have been able to get very far.Preserved food made the slave tradepossible, likewise the great privat-eering voyages of the 17th and 18thcenturies. Preserved food permittedAtlantic crossings to America andback – the return journey could takeeight weeks or more in the days of sail– and this in turn enabled Europeansto bring back new foodstuffs – t o-matoes, potatoes, turkeys and moreb e s i d e s.

Turkeys were a big hit in Bristol, aswere turtles. The West Indian greensea turtle could be brought backalive, and while nobody eats turtlemuch nowadays it was hugely pop-

plenty of days on which religion for-bade the eating of meat.

The Icelandic trade was, however,relatively short-lived. The aggressivemerchant federation of the NorthGerman ports, known as the Hanseat-ic League or ‘Hanse’ d i d n’t like theseEnglish interlopers muscling in ontheir business and put a stop to it.

It is widely suggested that beingcut off from this lucrative market andimportant source of supply led dir-ectly to Cabot’s voyages of discovery.According to this theory, Bristol’smerchants, eager to find new busi-ness, were willing to finance expens-ive and hazardous voyages ofexploration far out into the Atlantic –the “Ocean Sea” – in search of therumoured land known as Hy-Brasil.

Before and after the Icelandictrade, the cod came, usually salted,from Ireland, along with supplies ofother fish species, usually shippedfrom Waterford, and usually tradedfor woollen cloth. The local sayingwe n t :Herring of Sligo and Salmon ofBann,Has made in Bristol many a richman.

Salt cod remained for centuries a

ular until well into the 19th century.The centrepiece of many a big civicfeast, where fat aldermen and Mer-chant Venturers stuffed their facesand drank themselves into a stupor,would have been a big turtle weigh-ing 100lb or more.

There were always associationsbetween food and power. Putting on agood spread meant you were a personof standing and influence. And ofcourse if the monarch was visitingthe catering would have to be ab-solutely spectacular.

When Queen Elizabeth I visitedBristol in 1574 she was entertained bythe wealthy merchant John Young athis home on St Augustine’s Back.

The menu would have includedthings like sparrows stewed in ale,larks cooked in wine with bone mar-row, raisins, sugar and cinnamon and

capons boiled with bitter oranges orlemons. There would have been pea-cock, roast venison in a sauce ofvinegar, sugar, cinnamon and butter.There have been rabbits, chickens,pheasants, corncrakes … and veryfew vegetables.

And at the end of all this would bethe final ‘banquet’ course, fruit tarts,sweet wines, preserved fruits, com-fits and elaborate confections of mar-zipan.

While the upper classes were livingit up, the diet of those further downthe social scale gradually improvedas well, thanks to the import of foodfrom elsewhere. By 1900 everyonecould have sugar in their tea, ordrink coffee, or treat themselves to abar of chocolate from Fry’s.

Shortly before the First World Warbroke out, Bristol was Britain’s main

port for the arrival of shipments ofbananas from the Caribbean andSouth America.

Indeed, it was only wars whichinterrupted this continuous im-provement in the variety and choicethat all but the very poorest couldafford in their diet. The dietary priva-tions Britons endured with food ra-tioning in the Second World War areknown well enough.

“No, the diet wasn’t very nice,”says Sue. “But people were healthier,the children grew taller.

“We might think that rationingmeant that people became thin andsickly, but this was a time whenscience was really starting to un-derstand nutrition and vitamins andso on. The wartime diet was dreary,but it was healthy.”

All this is true, but if you ask

anyone who lived through thosetimes if they would be happy to re-turn to the wartime diet, the replyyo u ’d get would be short and quitepossibly rather rude.

Food rationing continued well intothe post-war era, but as things gradu-ally improved, people craved moreglamorous dining.

Two Welsh/Italian brothers inBristol had the solution.

In a passage in her book whichmany Bristolians will find partic-ularly interesting, Sue describes howTony and Aldo Berni opened theirfirst steak restaurant at the Rummerpub in St Nicholas Market in the1950s and went on to build a hugeempire of pub/restaurants servinggood quality competitively-pricedfood which revolutionised Britons’idea of dining out.

And the rest, you know. Thoughyou might not know the story thebook relates of how celebrity res-taurateur Keith Floyd was frequentlyconned into providing free food forunscrupulous diners who wouldbring slugs with them to his bistro,drop them into the salad, and thencomplain…

Bristol is now a major destinationfor the region’s foodies, if not foodiesfrom across the country, with res-taurants offering a bewilderingrange of different cuisines fromaround the world. The callaloo of thebook’s title is the generic name of adish based on leaf vegetables fromthe Caribbean.

Has anything, anything at all,stayed the same in Bristol’s diet fromearly times to the present day?

Well, actually, yes.“In the middle ages, there were

always cases in which people werebeing charged with adulteratingfo o d , ” says Sue. “You might say thatt h at ’s still going on with the horse-meat scandal.”

The other common strand, shesays, is takeaway food. We mightthink that takeaways originated withfish and chip shops, but they havebeen around for ever. In medievalBristol, in among all the unpleasantstinks of the town, you’d also get afrequent whiff of something morepleasant from the cook-shops andstreet vendors hawking anythingfrom cooked fresh peas to “hotshee p’s feet” and, of course, pies.

“That whole takeaway thing hasbeen going on for a very long time,”she says. “And now takeaways are aspopular as ever. That’s a very im-portant Bristolian motif, the idea oftreating yourself to some nicetakeaway food.”

From Cod to Callaloo is publishedby Redcliffe Press, price £15.

� Above, childrenenjoying ice-cream froma van operated bywell-known Bristol icecream firm Verrecchia’s,in Romney Avenue,Lockleaze, around 1960Photograph:Peter Dainton� Right, a turnspit dogat work in a kitchen inSouth Wales,watercolour by ThomasRowlandson, 1790.Specially-trained dogswere used to turn spitsin many Bristolkitchens, and there’s adog-wheel at BlaiseCastle Museum. ( P i c t u re :Private collection/TheStapleton Collection/TheBridgeman Art Library)

� Above, St Michael’sChurch, April 1958.“Tuppenny starver” buns arestill handed out to childrenon Easter Tuesday.� Left, the oyster women’sshed on Welsh Back. Inearlier times, oysters wereeaten in huge quantities,even by working people.(Watercolour by GeorgeDelamotte, 1824. Courtesy BristolMuseums, Galleries & Archives.)� Right, Bristol nowadayshas shops and delicatessensoffering food from all aroundthe world. This one is thefamous Bristol Sweetmart inSt Mark’s Road, Easton.

(Pic: Stephen Morris)

Sue Shephard

Yo u ’ll never see me onGreat British Bake-Off. Ican’t bake to save mylife.

“

EPB-E01-S4

EPB-

E01-

S4

4 Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013 5Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013w w w. bristolpost.co.uk w w w. bristolpost.co.uk

MINING ARICH SEAMOF HISTORY

OLDER residents of Bristol,or Kingswood, SouthGloucestershire or NorthSomerset will know per-fectly well that coal was

once one of the area’s majori n d u s t r i e s.

To younger people, or new arrivals,it may come as a surprise. ModernBritish folk-memory of coal miningassociates it with the Welsh Valleys,or Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.

To the untrained eye, there are veryfew traces left of our local industry.And yet, coal mining is somethingthat happened within Bristol’s bound-aries, and in the surrounding areas,well within living memory. Coal wasstill being mined in north Somersetinto the early 1970s.

Nowadays the old colliery tips havebeen grassed over, and former pitheadbuildings have been demolished orconver ted.

This autumn has just seen thepassing of the 40th anniversary of thelast of these collieries closing, whenB r i t a i n’s state-run coal industry, inthe form of the National Coal Board,closed the last two north Somersetpits, Writhlington and Kilmersdon.

The last trucks of coal were wheeledfrom the pitheads at the two collierieson September 28, 1973.

The closure marked the end of anindustry which had lasted for at least500 years. In all, there were more than60 collieries working in North Som-erset at one time or another.

It was used by metalworkers, and inlime kilns, and in the earliest times itwas simply dug from shallow pits inthe ground.

Coal was growing in importance bythe late middle ages because theforests which once covered much ofEngland had long-since been felled forbuilding and for fuel. Only when thewood was running out did coal be-come a domestic fuel.

As the demand increased “drifts”were dug into the hillsides and, later,small mines, seldom more than 50ftdeep, were developed. By the 1750s theappearance of the pits started tochange as the mines became deeperand pumps (powered by horses, andsteam a few generations later) wereintroduced to extract water.

Early mines were either leasedfrom landowners or developed byfarmers. They were worked by just ahandful of men, usually with othermembers of their families helpingwhen needed to supply the fuel totheir neighbours.

It’s now 40 years since the very last mines in theNorth Somerset coalfield ceased operating. EugeneByrne looks back at a time when coal was king.

around Clutton owned by the Earls ofWarwick, and the Duchy of Cornwallalso began to exploit the coal depositson land around Farrington Gurneyand Midsomer Norton. The ChewtonMendip-based Waldegrave family de-veloped the mines around Radstock.

(A scion of the same family, WilliamWaldegrave, a son of the 12th EarlWaldegrave, was Conservative MP forBristol West from 1979 to 1997)

It was Frances, Countess Walde-grave who, in 1847, appointed a man-ager, James McMurtrie, who laterbuilt South Hill House in Radstock.McMurtrie was a canny operator, andhe made his employer vast amounts ofmoney, enabling her to maintain anextravagant lifestyle in Londonwhere she was a prominent societyhostess. McMurtrie remained incharge until the turn of the centuryand was succeeded by his son, George,who retired in 1925 when the 11th Earlsold the family’s mines.

The Waldegraves’ Radstock collier-ies were brought by William Beau-champ, a former manager of a smallmine at Vobster. Beauchamp had in-vested in a number of smaller pits forsome years and his purchase pro-pelled him into a bigger league. TheNorton Hill pit, in particular, was soprofitable that it was known locally as“B e a u ch a m p ’s goldmine”.

His son, Frank, later inherited hisf ather’s interests and his ability andin 1918 was created a baronet for hiswar work.

When the industry was national-ised in 1947 Sir Frank’s pits were pro-ducing more than half the total outputof the area, about 600,000 tons a year.

After his death in 1950, the NationalCoal Board actually took over his oldfamily house, Woodbrough House,which became the area office. Both ofhis sons, Sir Peter and Ian, took upmanagement positions with the newnationalised firm.

North Somerset’s problem, though,was that its coal was of indifferentquality, and the narrow seams weredifficult to work. They did not lendthemselves well to the new ma-chinery that the industry was bring-

ing in.Through the 20th century, as in

many other coalfields, decliningprofits led owners to try and reduceminers’ pay and conditions from timeto time. Some pits were simplycl o s e d .

By the time of nationalisation therewere only 12 pits remaining in NorthSomerset, and their productivity wasfalling. The coalfield had producedone and a half million tons annually atthe end of the First World War, butnow it had dropped by two thirds.

At the same time, the country wascrying out for coal. The Somerset pitscould sell every last ounce of the stuffthey produced, and it still wasn’tenough.

Much of the field’s output went tothe power station at Portishead and to

Demand for coal really took off withthe industrial revolution in the late1700s and early 1800s, particularlywith the increased use of steam en-gines in mining, factories and, ofcourse, the railways.

From being a cottage industry, coalwas now being extracted on an in-dustrial scale. Landowners who hadonce lived off the sweat of agriculturalworkers now saw an opportunity tomake huge fortunes from what layunder the ground on their estates.

Coal was first mined in an area

National Smelting at Avonmouth. In adesperate effort to meet demand, theNational Coal Board started pouringmoney into the coalfield. In 1954, morethan £500,000 was committed to Nor-ton Hill, creating what was, in effect, anew mine and briefly lifting the out-put to more than 320,000 tons a year.

By the end of the 1960s, however,production stood at barely 200,000tons a year, and falling. The complexgeology of the coalfield made condi-tions more costly and difficult.

Working at the coal face was be-coming increasingly hazardous. Asthe miners dug their way further andfurther from the shaft bottom, therewere increasing problems with water.The thin coal seams were broken upgeological faults.

Pensford pit was closed in 1958, and

Norton Hill, once a goldmine, fol-lowed in 1966. New Rock closed twoyears later.

By the late 1960s, only Kilmersdonand Writhlington remained, supply-ing the Portishead power station. Bynow, though, commercial customerswere using more and more oil. Cleanair laws had also reduced domesticdemand.

(The Somerset coal was also notori-ously dirty; if you visit Bathnowadays, you can admire the hon-eyed hues of the city’s elegant Geor-gian buildings. If you were taken bytime-machine to the Bath of the 1950syou would be shocked to find the pre-dominant colour of the place wasblack. The buildings had been dis-coloured by almost two centuries ofburning particularly dirty coal).

Portishead converted to oil-firingin 1972 and the two pits, losing£500,000 a year between them, weredoomed. Some 430 miners were laidof f.

The passing of the industry was notreally a cause for regret. While con-ditions had improved vastly since thedays of the local coal barons, miningwas always a dangerous and unpleas-ant job.

There was the constant threat offlooding, explosions, or falling roofs.Miners who made it to middle agewere often victims of respiratory dis-eases because of the high levels of dustunderground. Every family in thearea had its own tales to tell of thehorrible conditions in which theirforefathers, and often young children,had worked.

The fine lifestyle of Lady Walde-grave and her ilk came at a pricewhich was paid by working people.

For example, until 1949 the “gussand crook” remained in use to haulcoal from the face. The guss was atar-coated rope worn around thewaist; this was attached to a chainwhich pulled a small sledge or wagononto which the coal was loaded.

This apparatus was used by “car t-ing boys” – usually aged around 14 or15 – who pulled the sledge on handsand knees along a shaft often no morethan three feet high – too low for pitponies – to take the coal to the sur-f ace.

A former miner, AJ Parfitt, de-scribed in 1930, how as a young boy,his legs and waist were raw until hisskin hardened. His mother bathed hiswounds with urine which wasthought to toughen and cleanse theskin.

At the time the pit foreman atWrithlington memorably remarked:“We have worked hard and playedhard but it’s a wonder to think that Iwo n’t have to go down a pit again.”

The 40th anniversary of the closurewas recently remembered by formercolliery workers and their families,

though the years have taken a toll ontheir numbers. A permanent recordof the district’s mining heritage isstored at Radstock Museum, wherepeople can see a collection of collieryequipment, photographs and otherm e m o r ab i l i a .

“The industry defined the grittycharacter of this area, its economyand its very appearance,” said mu-seum volunteer Wendy Walker. “T hemuseum is surrounded by hills cre-ated by old slagheaps, now woodedover, and memories are still sharp.Every year the Somerset miners holda reunion here, and every year theyenjoy exchanging stories of theiryears in the pits.”

In 1973, Vic Sage, who had worked inthe coalfield for 46 years, was inter-viewed by the Somerset Guardian. Atthe age of 14 he had been harnessed tothe coal trucks by the guss andc ro o k .

“It’s been bloody hard graft and I’mnot sorry to see it go,” he told theSomerset Guardian.

But like many of his colleagues, hedid mourn the loss of the powerfulbonds of comradeship between themen who did this dirty, dangerous,back-breaking work.

The museum has recently beenawarded £10,000 from the HeritageLottery Fund for Mining the Past, aproject which will enable local school-children to record the memories ofsurviving miners.

“Through this project, and throughthe permanent record of the SomersetCoalfield contained in the museum,we are paying tribute to the minerswho gave this district its industrialheritage and special character,” saidWendy Walker.

Radstock Museum is at WaterlooRoad, Radstock, North Somerset BA33EP, open 2pm-5pm Tues-Fri & Sun,11am-5pm Sat. Closed December &January. Admission £5 adult/£3.50seniors, students/£2.50 age 6-15/£12 2adults, 2 children.

See w w w. ra d s t o ck m u s e u m . c o. u k

Vic Sage, a miner for 46years, speaking in 1973. Atthe age of 14 he had been

harnessed to the coal trucksby the ‘guss and crook’.

It’s been bloody hardgraft and I’m not sorry tosee it go

“

� A 19th century picture of a Somerset miner with “guss and crook”

� Miners pose for a memento of the last day at Writhlington colliery, 1973 � The last load to be brought up from the Kilmersdon pit

� The Radstock museum

EPB-E01-S4

EPB-

E01-

S4

4 Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013 5Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013w w w. bristolpost.co.uk w w w. bristolpost.co.uk

MINING ARICH SEAMOF HISTORY

OLDER residents of Bristol,or Kingswood, SouthGloucestershire or NorthSomerset will know per-fectly well that coal was

once one of the area’s majori n d u s t r i e s.

To younger people, or new arrivals,it may come as a surprise. ModernBritish folk-memory of coal miningassociates it with the Welsh Valleys,or Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire.

To the untrained eye, there are veryfew traces left of our local industry.And yet, coal mining is somethingthat happened within Bristol’s bound-aries, and in the surrounding areas,well within living memory. Coal wasstill being mined in north Somersetinto the early 1970s.

Nowadays the old colliery tips havebeen grassed over, and former pitheadbuildings have been demolished orconver ted.

This autumn has just seen thepassing of the 40th anniversary of thelast of these collieries closing, whenB r i t a i n’s state-run coal industry, inthe form of the National Coal Board,closed the last two north Somersetpits, Writhlington and Kilmersdon.

The last trucks of coal were wheeledfrom the pitheads at the two collierieson September 28, 1973.

The closure marked the end of anindustry which had lasted for at least500 years. In all, there were more than60 collieries working in North Som-erset at one time or another.

It was used by metalworkers, and inlime kilns, and in the earliest times itwas simply dug from shallow pits inthe ground.

Coal was growing in importance bythe late middle ages because theforests which once covered much ofEngland had long-since been felled forbuilding and for fuel. Only when thewood was running out did coal be-come a domestic fuel.

As the demand increased “drifts”were dug into the hillsides and, later,small mines, seldom more than 50ftdeep, were developed. By the 1750s theappearance of the pits started tochange as the mines became deeperand pumps (powered by horses, andsteam a few generations later) wereintroduced to extract water.

Early mines were either leasedfrom landowners or developed byfarmers. They were worked by just ahandful of men, usually with othermembers of their families helpingwhen needed to supply the fuel totheir neighbours.

It’s now 40 years since the very last mines in theNorth Somerset coalfield ceased operating. EugeneByrne looks back at a time when coal was king.

around Clutton owned by the Earls ofWarwick, and the Duchy of Cornwallalso began to exploit the coal depositson land around Farrington Gurneyand Midsomer Norton. The ChewtonMendip-based Waldegrave family de-veloped the mines around Radstock.

(A scion of the same family, WilliamWaldegrave, a son of the 12th EarlWaldegrave, was Conservative MP forBristol West from 1979 to 1997)

It was Frances, Countess Walde-grave who, in 1847, appointed a man-ager, James McMurtrie, who laterbuilt South Hill House in Radstock.McMurtrie was a canny operator, andhe made his employer vast amounts ofmoney, enabling her to maintain anextravagant lifestyle in Londonwhere she was a prominent societyhostess. McMurtrie remained incharge until the turn of the centuryand was succeeded by his son, George,who retired in 1925 when the 11th Earlsold the family’s mines.

The Waldegraves’ Radstock collier-ies were brought by William Beau-champ, a former manager of a smallmine at Vobster. Beauchamp had in-vested in a number of smaller pits forsome years and his purchase pro-pelled him into a bigger league. TheNorton Hill pit, in particular, was soprofitable that it was known locally as“B e a u ch a m p ’s goldmine”.

His son, Frank, later inherited hisf ather’s interests and his ability andin 1918 was created a baronet for hiswar work.

When the industry was national-ised in 1947 Sir Frank’s pits were pro-ducing more than half the total outputof the area, about 600,000 tons a year.

After his death in 1950, the NationalCoal Board actually took over his oldfamily house, Woodbrough House,which became the area office. Both ofhis sons, Sir Peter and Ian, took upmanagement positions with the newnationalised firm.

North Somerset’s problem, though,was that its coal was of indifferentquality, and the narrow seams weredifficult to work. They did not lendthemselves well to the new ma-chinery that the industry was bring-

ing in.Through the 20th century, as in

many other coalfields, decliningprofits led owners to try and reduceminers’ pay and conditions from timeto time. Some pits were simplycl o s e d .

By the time of nationalisation therewere only 12 pits remaining in NorthSomerset, and their productivity wasfalling. The coalfield had producedone and a half million tons annually atthe end of the First World War, butnow it had dropped by two thirds.

At the same time, the country wascrying out for coal. The Somerset pitscould sell every last ounce of the stuffthey produced, and it still wasn’tenough.

Much of the field’s output went tothe power station at Portishead and to

Demand for coal really took off withthe industrial revolution in the late1700s and early 1800s, particularlywith the increased use of steam en-gines in mining, factories and, ofcourse, the railways.

From being a cottage industry, coalwas now being extracted on an in-dustrial scale. Landowners who hadonce lived off the sweat of agriculturalworkers now saw an opportunity tomake huge fortunes from what layunder the ground on their estates.

Coal was first mined in an area

National Smelting at Avonmouth. In adesperate effort to meet demand, theNational Coal Board started pouringmoney into the coalfield. In 1954, morethan £500,000 was committed to Nor-ton Hill, creating what was, in effect, anew mine and briefly lifting the out-put to more than 320,000 tons a year.

By the end of the 1960s, however,production stood at barely 200,000tons a year, and falling. The complexgeology of the coalfield made condi-tions more costly and difficult.

Working at the coal face was be-coming increasingly hazardous. Asthe miners dug their way further andfurther from the shaft bottom, therewere increasing problems with water.The thin coal seams were broken upgeological faults.

Pensford pit was closed in 1958, and

Norton Hill, once a goldmine, fol-lowed in 1966. New Rock closed twoyears later.

By the late 1960s, only Kilmersdonand Writhlington remained, supply-ing the Portishead power station. Bynow, though, commercial customerswere using more and more oil. Cleanair laws had also reduced domesticdemand.

(The Somerset coal was also notori-ously dirty; if you visit Bathnowadays, you can admire the hon-eyed hues of the city’s elegant Geor-gian buildings. If you were taken bytime-machine to the Bath of the 1950syou would be shocked to find the pre-dominant colour of the place wasblack. The buildings had been dis-coloured by almost two centuries ofburning particularly dirty coal).

Portishead converted to oil-firingin 1972 and the two pits, losing£500,000 a year between them, weredoomed. Some 430 miners were laidof f.

The passing of the industry was notreally a cause for regret. While con-ditions had improved vastly since thedays of the local coal barons, miningwas always a dangerous and unpleas-ant job.

There was the constant threat offlooding, explosions, or falling roofs.Miners who made it to middle agewere often victims of respiratory dis-eases because of the high levels of dustunderground. Every family in thearea had its own tales to tell of thehorrible conditions in which theirforefathers, and often young children,had worked.

The fine lifestyle of Lady Walde-grave and her ilk came at a pricewhich was paid by working people.

For example, until 1949 the “gussand crook” remained in use to haulcoal from the face. The guss was atar-coated rope worn around thewaist; this was attached to a chainwhich pulled a small sledge or wagononto which the coal was loaded.

This apparatus was used by “car t-ing boys” – usually aged around 14 or15 – who pulled the sledge on handsand knees along a shaft often no morethan three feet high – too low for pitponies – to take the coal to the sur-f ace.

A former miner, AJ Parfitt, de-scribed in 1930, how as a young boy,his legs and waist were raw until hisskin hardened. His mother bathed hiswounds with urine which wasthought to toughen and cleanse theskin.

At the time the pit foreman atWrithlington memorably remarked:“We have worked hard and playedhard but it’s a wonder to think that Iwo n’t have to go down a pit again.”

The 40th anniversary of the closurewas recently remembered by formercolliery workers and their families,

though the years have taken a toll ontheir numbers. A permanent recordof the district’s mining heritage isstored at Radstock Museum, wherepeople can see a collection of collieryequipment, photographs and otherm e m o r ab i l i a .

“The industry defined the grittycharacter of this area, its economyand its very appearance,” said mu-seum volunteer Wendy Walker. “T hemuseum is surrounded by hills cre-ated by old slagheaps, now woodedover, and memories are still sharp.Every year the Somerset miners holda reunion here, and every year theyenjoy exchanging stories of theiryears in the pits.”

In 1973, Vic Sage, who had worked inthe coalfield for 46 years, was inter-viewed by the Somerset Guardian. Atthe age of 14 he had been harnessed tothe coal trucks by the guss andc ro o k .

“It’s been bloody hard graft and I’mnot sorry to see it go,” he told theSomerset Guardian.

But like many of his colleagues, hedid mourn the loss of the powerfulbonds of comradeship between themen who did this dirty, dangerous,back-breaking work.

The museum has recently beenawarded £10,000 from the HeritageLottery Fund for Mining the Past, aproject which will enable local school-children to record the memories ofsurviving miners.

“Through this project, and throughthe permanent record of the SomersetCoalfield contained in the museum,we are paying tribute to the minerswho gave this district its industrialheritage and special character,” saidWendy Walker.

Radstock Museum is at WaterlooRoad, Radstock, North Somerset BA33EP, open 2pm-5pm Tues-Fri & Sun,11am-5pm Sat. Closed December &January. Admission £5 adult/£3.50seniors, students/£2.50 age 6-15/£12 2adults, 2 children.

See w w w. ra d s t o ck m u s e u m . c o. u k

Vic Sage, a miner for 46years, speaking in 1973. Atthe age of 14 he had been

harnessed to the coal trucksby the ‘guss and crook’.

It’s been bloody hardgraft and I’m not sorry tosee it go

“

� A 19th century picture of a Somerset miner with “guss and crook”

� Miners pose for a memento of the last day at Writhlington colliery, 1973 � The last load to be brought up from the Kilmersdon pit

� The Radstock museum

EPB-E01-S4

EPB-

E01-

S4

6 Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013 7Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013w w w. bristolpost.co.uk w w w. bristolpost.co.uk

Happy memories of steamer trips

RE: Bristol Times, October 15– What a wonderful photo ofthe Bristol Queen, taken inJune 1964. It invokes somany happy memories of

trips on the “paddle steamers from1947 to the early 1960s.

It was a great shame when P & ACampbell withdrew the ships. Per-haps you can say when the BristolQueen was withdrawn.

I was the last booking clerk at Mont-pelier Railway Station from June 1961to the end of November 1964, when theclerical staff were withdrawn.

I remember we still had jointrail/steamer tickets valid betweenBristol and Barry Island – you couldtake the journey out by ship and backby train, or vice-versa

Those were the days!Colin Radford

Hanham

Editor’s reply: Thanks for that,Colin.

In answer to your query, the BristolQueen, which had always been ratheraccident-prone, was laid up in Cardiffin August 1967 with paddle problems.By now, Campbell’s steamer businesswas encountering financial prob-lems, partly because of competitionfrom the new Severn Bridge. Whileshe was laid up she was further dam-aged when hit by another ship. Camp-bell’s hoped to get her going again,but the costs were too high and shewas sold for scrap and broken up inthe Netherlands at the end of 1967.

But here’s another picture of her inhappier times. Here she is steamingdown the Avon to the sea on August 61950.

Vice and virtuein Old Market�TRINITY Community Arts is setto launch a new local history projectto document the real history of OldMarket, Bristol. Vice and Virtue willlook beneath the area’s reputation toexplore the many cultures that havelived here, its national significanceas an area of architectural con-servation and key moments of his-torical interest.

Themes will include the riots of1932, the Black GI presence, thehistory of Bristol’s Gay Village, theHigh Street’s sex industry and theever-changing face of Old Market.

The project – funded by HeritageLottery Fund, Quartet CommunityFoundation and the Old MarketCommunity Association – will con-sist of oral history and reminiscenceactivities designed to encouragemembers of the community, of allages, to share their experiences,photos, documents and memorab-ilia.

This rigorously researched projectwill build on existing online and

Grand reunion for 1968-1970 nurses

�WERE you in the 1968-1970 set at Winford OrthopaedicHospital, Bristol? Are you in the picture above, does anyoneknow other nurses that were in our set at WOH?

Sue Blithe, Aileen Morgan, Pam Jones Dru Pickard andKathy Giles are having a grand reunion in 2014 – come and joinu s.

Really looking forward to catching up!Email: sueswanborough@ btinternet.com

Mobile: 07905208728

enjoy being nasty to small children. If agang of teenage thugs from the nearbyestate drop round at 10 in the evening, Iwill also offer them a treat. Some applesand fresh vegetables, as I reckon the littledarlings could use some proper nutri-tion.

Then again, I am also considering en-tering into the spirit of the occasion byhollowing out a pumpkin. Not with a scaryface; I’m carving the words GO AWAY!*into it.

(*NB: Use of the words GO AWAY shouldnot be taken literally in this case. I wasthinking of rather stronger language. MrsLatimer is taking legal advice on this aswe speak.)

Old buildings and whatto do about them

If you find yourself in Broadmead anytime between now and November16, then drop in to Wesley’s NewRoom in the Horsefair, where

they have an exhibition en-titled Bristol’s HeritageBuildings: Relics orLe gacies’

The exhibition looks atold buildings that Bristolhas lost, and at the dif-ferent ways in which cer-tain buildings have beensaved and put to new uses. Itincludes material on thePierean Centre in PortlandSquare, Ashton Court mansion,the work of the Bristol Civic Society andlots more.

Some of the panels were prepared by thelate Dorothy Brown, reflecting her con-cerns and achievements around heritageissues affecting Bristol and SouthG l o u c e s t e r s h i re.

The Exhibition is open from 10am-4pmMondays to Saturdays until November23rd and admission is free. There is also anevent with talks and discussions on thetheme on November 16 from 2pm. There isno admission charge and no advance re-gistration is necessary. All are welcome.See www.newroombristol.org.uk for fur-ther information, or email jamesgibbs@btinter net.com.

Korean War bookThe Korean War has

particular resonance inthe Bristol area, partic-ularly on account of theastonishingly heroicpart played by the 1stBattalion of theG l o s t e r s.

If this is of interest toyou, you might want totake a look at a new bookby Stephen F. Kelly titledBritish Soldiers of theKorean War in TheirOwn Words.

The author has inter-viewed a number of vet-erans, all of whom arenow in their eighties,(though none are fromBristol). The result is avivid account of the con-flict from the viewpointof the ordinary soldier. He takes usthrough call-up, shipping out, combat, cas-ualties and, in a series of passages thatleave you filled with admiration for these

blokes, about the experiences of some whowere taken prisoner and had to endure aregime of captivity that was both brutaland insanely stupid.

British Soldiers of the Korean War ispublished by the History Press at £16.99.

Don’t forget Cecil!A couple of weeks ago, after Cotham

Grammar School alumnus Peter Higgsbagged the Nobel Prize for Physics, BristolTimes ran an article about the deeplystrange life and stranger personality ofanother Bristolian physics laureate, PaulD i r a c.

This prompted an email from BT readerLew Pedler who was slightly alarmed thatpeople would get the impression thatHiggs and Dirac were Bristol’s only win-ners of the Nobel for Physics. What, heasked, about Cecil Powell (left)?

Good question, although thething is that Cecil Powell

(1903-1969) won his prizewhile he was Professor of

Physics at Bristol Uni.And you sort of expect afair few Nobel winnersdown the years to be as-sociated with one of thewo rl d ’s major researchuniversities. Higgs and

Dirac, on the other handwent to school in Bristol.But fair do’s. Powell was

another Nobel winner con-nected with Bristol. He was born

in Kent into an academic family, wentto Cambridge and worked at the Cav-endish Laboratory as a postgraduate andwent on to spend much of his career inBristol, first as a lecturer, then as MelvilleWills Professor of Physics.

At Bristol his work included developingways of measuring the mobility of positiveions, and establishing the nature of theions in most of the common gases. He builta Cockcroft generator for accelerating fastprotons and deuterons, researched cosmicradiation and developed methods for de-termining the energy of neutrons.

He became a Fellow of the Royal Societyin 1949 and won the Nobel the followingyear “for his development of the pho-tographic method of studying nuclear pro-cesses and his discoveries regardingmesons made with this method”.

In the 1950s he was one ofthe scientists who signedup to the manifesto put for-ward by Bertrand Russell,Albert Einstein and scient-ist Joseph Rotblat callingattention to the dangers ofnuclear weapons and call-ing for peaceful resolutionof conflict. He was a lead-ing member of this move-ment until just before hedied.

So then, Cecil Powell. Hewas a pretty cool dude.And not nearly as odd asPaul Dirac.

PS: The Nobel Prize forPhysics in 1977 was won byNevill Mott, also associ-ated with Bristol Uni. Butt h at ’s another story.

Cheers then!� Get in touch: EmailBristol.Times@b-nm.co.uk or write toBristol Times, Bristol Post, Temple Way,Bristol BS2 0BY

Latimer’sDiary

Halloween, heritage,and heroes ofwar and science

Was ‘Clifton Village’ anestate agent invention?�FOLLOWING the article aboutthe origin of the term “CliftonVilla g e” ( L at i m e r ’s Diary, BT, Oc-tober 15) I spoke to several otherlongstanding Clifton residents.

They all agreed that although theywould talk about ‘Going to thevilla g e’ and still do, they thoughtthat the term ‘Clifton Village’ wascoined in the 1970s by estate agents –much like their much-derided andshort lived ‘Lower Clifton’ fo rS o u t h v i l l e.

I helped organise the Clifton Vil-lage Fayres and at our first meetingwe agreed that we wanted to give theatmosphere of an old-fashioned vil-lage fair.

We obviously had to preface thiswith ‘C l i f t o n’ for publicity etc. Littledid we know that the fairs wouldlater attract as many as 9,000 peopleat a time!

Michael PascoeClifton

�AT the recent StPhilips Marsh OpenDay an appeal wasmade for photographsof the St Silas FootballTeam, who were quitea force in the 1950sand early 60s whenthey played in theFirst District Leagueand the Premier Com-b i n at i o n .

The attached teamphoto and Ev eningPo s t caricature ofteam captain BrianBanfield was broughtin by his daughter.

The Marsh was ahotbed of soccer andboasted two senioramateur sides, StSilas and St PhilipsMarsh Adult School.There was greatrivalry between the two teams, and derby matches took placeon a regular basis.

The Banfield family played a huge part in the organisationof the club. Brian Banfield (back row, second from right) was afine player and played in the left half position.

It was every Bristol amateur footballer’s ambition to havehis caricature in the Po s t – this was a sign that you had “madeit” in the local soccer world.

I am trying to put names to all the players in this team photo,and would be grateful if anyone could assist.

Brian DaviesS a l t f o rd

Briandavies17@btinter net.com

OH hi! Journalists refer to thehigh summer as the “silly sea-son” because there’s not enoughnews. The cops, on the otherhand, refer to the period from

Halloween to Bonfire Night as the “s i l lyseason” because there’s, well, too muchn ew s.

Now when I were a nipper, you’d getyour Dad’s best shirt and trousers, stuffthem with newspaper, use your Mum’s

gloves for hands, make a head out of an oldfootball, stick a fright mask on it and thenpile the lot into the pram (taking care tofirst remove your baby sister and put hersomewhere safe, like the rabbit hutch) andthen wheel the lot into town.

Yo u ’d find a decent pitch, put together asign requesting a penny for the Guy andstand around waiting for the moolah toroll in, hopefully in tanners and thrup-pences rather than mere pennies.

Our gang perfected the racket over theyears. There were two kids a few yearsyounger than me living up the road. Theyhad these big sad eyes that make old ladiesgo all weak-kneed. One year we actuallyoffered them 50 per cent of the entire takebecause they looked so cute, so deserving… Worked a treat. Kept us in cheap sweetsall the way to Christmas.

It’s not often you see kids seeking moneyfor the Guy nowadays. Now it’s all aboutHalloween and trick-or-treating. Sobetween this and the sale of high ex-plosives to clueless youngsters (and in-deed adults), the local constabulary is keptpretty busy.

Bonfire night and the detonation of vari-ous pyrotechnics around the neighbour-hood in the weeks before and after I cankind of deal with. It is traditional, afterall.

Halloween, on the other hand, I detestbecause it’s a dumb American import that– listen up, kiddies – NEVER USED TOHAPPEN HERE BEFORE THE 1980s!!

Pardon my shouting.Folklorists will tell you that in Britain

there are many regional and local Hal-loween traditions, some of which look a lotlike trick-or-treating.

Yeah, right.It is also true that hardly any British

kids used to do it. The current Halloween“tradition” is nothing of the sort. It onlycaught on with the huge popularity ofSteven Spielberg’s film E . T. and the bigtrick-or-treating scene in that.

Now look; if your children or grand-children live in my neighbourhood andthey come knocking at a reasonable hour,accompanied by a responsible adult, I’llpunt them some sweets because I don’t

Picture ofthe Week� WORN smooth bycountless generations,the rocks close to theClifton Observatory havebeen used as a slidesince … well, we don’tk n o w.

So here’s a group ofhappy kiddies snappedby a Post photographerin 1961.

Who was the firstperson to think of using itas a slide? Surely it mustoriginally have been fairlyrough? Or was it simplythat our forebears hadtougher backsides?Maybe it wasn’t used bychildren at all originally,but by drunken androwdy young men.

T h e re ’s also a story.You know the artistRichard Long? Makesthings out of sticks androcks and mud and otherbits of nature. Wellapparently he was oncebeing interviewed abouthis art by an Italianmagazine journalist. Theywere walking by here andit’s said he managed toconvince the gullibleItalian hack that theClifton rock slide wasone of his artinstallations.

hard copy archive information. Itwill culminate in an exhibition,booklet and heritage trail featuringall the work gathered through thep ro j e c t .

Much coverage has been given tothe area in recent years, often re-ferring to its “‘seedy reputation”.But comments from other residentsand traders have worked to counterthis image, including Mr Ferris, alocal publican saying in a localnewspaper article, “It’s amazingwe ’ve done so well in the reces-sion...more and more people arechoosing to live here.”

Paul Bradburn, Chair of Old Mar-ket Community Association, said: “Aproject that celebrates the rich her-itage of the area and allows thegeneral community to appreciatethat heritage will be a great benefitto the people of Bristol.”

The project will run until spring2015.

If you have an Old Market story,photo, or memorabilia you wouldlike to share, or would like furtherinformation, please contact 01179351200 or email stor y@3ca.org.uk.

Visit our website for more in-for mation:

w w w. 3 c a . o r g . u k / a c t i v i t i e s / h e r i t a g e

� Old Market Street around 1908

� Life in ‘Clifton Village’

� Above, a photograph of the St Silas Football Team; below,the Post caricature of captain Brain Banfield (back, 2nd right)

Every player’s ambition tohave caricature in Post

EPB-E01-S4

EPB-

E01-

S4

6 Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013 7Tu e s d a y, October 29, 2013w w w. bristolpost.co.uk w w w. bristolpost.co.uk

Happy memories of steamer trips

RE: Bristol Times, October 15– What a wonderful photo ofthe Bristol Queen, taken inJune 1964. It invokes somany happy memories of

trips on the “paddle steamers from1947 to the early 1960s.

It was a great shame when P & ACampbell withdrew the ships. Per-haps you can say when the BristolQueen was withdrawn.

I was the last booking clerk at Mont-pelier Railway Station from June 1961to the end of November 1964, when theclerical staff were withdrawn.

I remember we still had jointrail/steamer tickets valid betweenBristol and Barry Island – you couldtake the journey out by ship and backby train, or vice-versa

Those were the days!Colin Radford

Hanham

Editor’s reply: Thanks for that,Colin.

In answer to your query, the BristolQueen, which had always been ratheraccident-prone, was laid up in Cardiffin August 1967 with paddle problems.By now, Campbell’s steamer businesswas encountering financial prob-lems, partly because of competitionfrom the new Severn Bridge. Whileshe was laid up she was further dam-aged when hit by another ship. Camp-bell’s hoped to get her going again,but the costs were too high and shewas sold for scrap and broken up inthe Netherlands at the end of 1967.

But here’s another picture of her inhappier times. Here she is steamingdown the Avon to the sea on August 61950.

Vice and virtuein Old Market�TRINITY Community Arts is setto launch a new local history projectto document the real history of OldMarket, Bristol. Vice and Virtue willlook beneath the area’s reputation toexplore the many cultures that havelived here, its national significanceas an area of architectural con-servation and key moments of his-torical interest.

Themes will include the riots of1932, the Black GI presence, thehistory of Bristol’s Gay Village, theHigh Street’s sex industry and theever-changing face of Old Market.

The project – funded by HeritageLottery Fund, Quartet CommunityFoundation and the Old MarketCommunity Association – will con-sist of oral history and reminiscenceactivities designed to encouragemembers of the community, of allages, to share their experiences,photos, documents and memorab-ilia.

This rigorously researched projectwill build on existing online and

Grand reunion for 1968-1970 nurses

�WERE you in the 1968-1970 set at Winford OrthopaedicHospital, Bristol? Are you in the picture above, does anyoneknow other nurses that were in our set at WOH?

Sue Blithe, Aileen Morgan, Pam Jones Dru Pickard andKathy Giles are having a grand reunion in 2014 – come and joinu s.

Really looking forward to catching up!Email: sueswanborough@ btinternet.com

Mobile: 07905208728

enjoy being nasty to small children. If agang of teenage thugs from the nearbyestate drop round at 10 in the evening, Iwill also offer them a treat. Some applesand fresh vegetables, as I reckon the littledarlings could use some proper nutri-tion.

Then again, I am also considering en-tering into the spirit of the occasion byhollowing out a pumpkin. Not with a scaryface; I’m carving the words GO AWAY!*into it.

(*NB: Use of the words GO AWAY shouldnot be taken literally in this case. I wasthinking of rather stronger language. MrsLatimer is taking legal advice on this aswe speak.)

Old buildings and whatto do about them

If you find yourself in Broadmead anytime between now and November16, then drop in to Wesley’s NewRoom in the Horsefair, where

they have an exhibition en-titled Bristol’s HeritageBuildings: Relics orLe gacies’

The exhibition looks atold buildings that Bristolhas lost, and at the dif-ferent ways in which cer-tain buildings have beensaved and put to new uses. Itincludes material on thePierean Centre in PortlandSquare, Ashton Court mansion,the work of the Bristol Civic Society andlots more.

Some of the panels were prepared by thelate Dorothy Brown, reflecting her con-cerns and achievements around heritageissues affecting Bristol and SouthG l o u c e s t e r s h i re.

The Exhibition is open from 10am-4pmMondays to Saturdays until November23rd and admission is free. There is also anevent with talks and discussions on thetheme on November 16 from 2pm. There isno admission charge and no advance re-gistration is necessary. All are welcome.See www.newroombristol.org.uk for fur-ther information, or email jamesgibbs@btinter net.com.

Korean War bookThe Korean War has

particular resonance inthe Bristol area, partic-ularly on account of theastonishingly heroicpart played by the 1stBattalion of theG l o s t e r s.

If this is of interest toyou, you might want totake a look at a new bookby Stephen F. Kelly titledBritish Soldiers of theKorean War in TheirOwn Words.

The author has inter-viewed a number of vet-erans, all of whom arenow in their eighties,(though none are fromBristol). The result is avivid account of the con-flict from the viewpointof the ordinary soldier. He takes usthrough call-up, shipping out, combat, cas-ualties and, in a series of passages thatleave you filled with admiration for these

blokes, about the experiences of some whowere taken prisoner and had to endure aregime of captivity that was both brutaland insanely stupid.

British Soldiers of the Korean War ispublished by the History Press at £16.99.

Don’t forget Cecil!A couple of weeks ago, after Cotham

Grammar School alumnus Peter Higgsbagged the Nobel Prize for Physics, BristolTimes ran an article about the deeplystrange life and stranger personality ofanother Bristolian physics laureate, PaulD i r a c.

This prompted an email from BT readerLew Pedler who was slightly alarmed thatpeople would get the impression thatHiggs and Dirac were Bristol’s only win-ners of the Nobel for Physics. What, heasked, about Cecil Powell (left)?

Good question, although thething is that Cecil Powell

(1903-1969) won his prizewhile he was Professor of

Physics at Bristol Uni.And you sort of expect afair few Nobel winnersdown the years to be as-sociated with one of thewo rl d ’s major researchuniversities. Higgs and

Dirac, on the other handwent to school in Bristol.But fair do’s. Powell was

another Nobel winner con-nected with Bristol. He was born

in Kent into an academic family, wentto Cambridge and worked at the Cav-endish Laboratory as a postgraduate andwent on to spend much of his career inBristol, first as a lecturer, then as MelvilleWills Professor of Physics.

At Bristol his work included developingways of measuring the mobility of positiveions, and establishing the nature of theions in most of the common gases. He builta Cockcroft generator for accelerating fastprotons and deuterons, researched cosmicradiation and developed methods for de-termining the energy of neutrons.

He became a Fellow of the Royal Societyin 1949 and won the Nobel the followingyear “for his development of the pho-tographic method of studying nuclear pro-cesses and his discoveries regardingmesons made with this method”.

In the 1950s he was one ofthe scientists who signedup to the manifesto put for-ward by Bertrand Russell,Albert Einstein and scient-ist Joseph Rotblat callingattention to the dangers ofnuclear weapons and call-ing for peaceful resolutionof conflict. He was a lead-ing member of this move-ment until just before hedied.

So then, Cecil Powell. Hewas a pretty cool dude.And not nearly as odd asPaul Dirac.

PS: The Nobel Prize forPhysics in 1977 was won byNevill Mott, also associ-ated with Bristol Uni. Butt h at ’s another story.

Cheers then!� Get in touch: EmailBristol.Times@b-nm.co.uk or write toBristol Times, Bristol Post, Temple Way,Bristol BS2 0BY

Latimer’sDiary

Halloween, heritage,and heroes ofwar and science

Was ‘Clifton Village’ anestate agent invention?�FOLLOWING the article aboutthe origin of the term “CliftonVilla g e” ( L at i m e r ’s Diary, BT, Oc-tober 15) I spoke to several otherlongstanding Clifton residents.

They all agreed that although theywould talk about ‘Going to thevilla g e’ and still do, they thoughtthat the term ‘Clifton Village’ wascoined in the 1970s by estate agents –much like their much-derided andshort lived ‘Lower Clifton’ fo rS o u t h v i l l e.

I helped organise the Clifton Vil-lage Fayres and at our first meetingwe agreed that we wanted to give theatmosphere of an old-fashioned vil-lage fair.

We obviously had to preface thiswith ‘C l i f t o n’ for publicity etc. Littledid we know that the fairs wouldlater attract as many as 9,000 peopleat a time!

Michael PascoeClifton

�AT the recent StPhilips Marsh OpenDay an appeal wasmade for photographsof the St Silas FootballTeam, who were quitea force in the 1950sand early 60s whenthey played in theFirst District Leagueand the Premier Com-b i n at i o n .

The attached teamphoto and Ev eningPo s t caricature ofteam captain BrianBanfield was broughtin by his daughter.

The Marsh was ahotbed of soccer andboasted two senioramateur sides, StSilas and St PhilipsMarsh Adult School.There was greatrivalry between the two teams, and derby matches took placeon a regular basis.

The Banfield family played a huge part in the organisationof the club. Brian Banfield (back row, second from right) was afine player and played in the left half position.

It was every Bristol amateur footballer’s ambition to havehis caricature in the Po s t – this was a sign that you had “madeit” in the local soccer world.

I am trying to put names to all the players in this team photo,and would be grateful if anyone could assist.

Brian DaviesS a l t f o rd

Briandavies17@btinter net.com

OH hi! Journalists refer to thehigh summer as the “silly sea-son” because there’s not enoughnews. The cops, on the otherhand, refer to the period from

Halloween to Bonfire Night as the “s i l lyseason” because there’s, well, too muchn ew s.

Now when I were a nipper, you’d getyour Dad’s best shirt and trousers, stuffthem with newspaper, use your Mum’s

gloves for hands, make a head out of an oldfootball, stick a fright mask on it and thenpile the lot into the pram (taking care tofirst remove your baby sister and put hersomewhere safe, like the rabbit hutch) andthen wheel the lot into town.

Yo u ’d find a decent pitch, put together asign requesting a penny for the Guy andstand around waiting for the moolah toroll in, hopefully in tanners and thrup-pences rather than mere pennies.

Our gang perfected the racket over theyears. There were two kids a few yearsyounger than me living up the road. Theyhad these big sad eyes that make old ladiesgo all weak-kneed. One year we actuallyoffered them 50 per cent of the entire takebecause they looked so cute, so deserving… Worked a treat. Kept us in cheap sweetsall the way to Christmas.

It’s not often you see kids seeking moneyfor the Guy nowadays. Now it’s all aboutHalloween and trick-or-treating. Sobetween this and the sale of high ex-plosives to clueless youngsters (and in-deed adults), the local constabulary is keptpretty busy.

Bonfire night and the detonation of vari-ous pyrotechnics around the neighbour-hood in the weeks before and after I cankind of deal with. It is traditional, afterall.

Halloween, on the other hand, I detestbecause it’s a dumb American import that– listen up, kiddies – NEVER USED TOHAPPEN HERE BEFORE THE 1980s!!

Pardon my shouting.Folklorists will tell you that in Britain

there are many regional and local Hal-loween traditions, some of which look a lotlike trick-or-treating.

Yeah, right.It is also true that hardly any British

kids used to do it. The current Halloween“tradition” is nothing of the sort. It onlycaught on with the huge popularity ofSteven Spielberg’s film E . T. and the bigtrick-or-treating scene in that.

Now look; if your children or grand-children live in my neighbourhood andthey come knocking at a reasonable hour,accompanied by a responsible adult, I’llpunt them some sweets because I don’t

Picture ofthe Week� WORN smooth bycountless generations,the rocks close to theClifton Observatory havebeen used as a slidesince … well, we don’tk n o w.

So here’s a group ofhappy kiddies snappedby a Post photographerin 1961.

Who was the firstperson to think of using itas a slide? Surely it mustoriginally have been fairlyrough? Or was it simplythat our forebears hadtougher backsides?Maybe it wasn’t used bychildren at all originally,but by drunken androwdy young men.

T h e re ’s also a story.You know the artistRichard Long? Makesthings out of sticks androcks and mud and otherbits of nature. Wellapparently he was oncebeing interviewed abouthis art by an Italianmagazine journalist. Theywere walking by here andit’s said he managed toconvince the gullibleItalian hack that theClifton rock slide wasone of his artinstallations.

hard copy archive information. Itwill culminate in an exhibition,booklet and heritage trail featuringall the work gathered through thep ro j e c t .

Much coverage has been given tothe area in recent years, often re-ferring to its “‘seedy reputation”.But comments from other residentsand traders have worked to counterthis image, including Mr Ferris, alocal publican saying in a localnewspaper article, “It’s amazingwe ’ve done so well in the reces-sion...more and more people arechoosing to live here.”

Paul Bradburn, Chair of Old Mar-ket Community Association, said: “Aproject that celebrates the rich her-itage of the area and allows thegeneral community to appreciatethat heritage will be a great benefitto the people of Bristol.”

The project will run until spring2015.

If you have an Old Market story,photo, or memorabilia you wouldlike to share, or would like furtherinformation, please contact 01179351200 or email stor y@3ca.org.uk.

Visit our website for more in-for mation:

w w w. 3 c a . o r g . u k / a c t i v i t i e s / h e r i t a g e

� Old Market Street around 1908

� Life in ‘Clifton Village’

� Above, a photograph of the St Silas Football Team; below,the Post caricature of captain Brain Banfield (back, 2nd right)

Every player’s ambition tohave caricature in Post

EPB-

E01-

S4

8

I HAVE just celebrated my 81st birth-day and was fortunate to receivemany lovely cards and presents. Oneof my presents, a bottle of perfumecalled ‘Wo m a n’ gave me an extra reas-on to smile.

It took me right back to a scene fromCoronation Street when Hilda Ogdenwas using a bright red lipstick andhusband Stan said “W h at ’s thatsmell, Hilda?” and Hilda replied:“T hat’s WOMAN, Stanley, WOMAN.”

Hilda and Stan were my all-timefavourite comedy duo in the soap.

We also enjoyed a lovely familymeal in Bristol Fashion and I thought“T hat’s it for another year!”

Then a few days later Derek said hehad another treat for me. We lunchedagain in Bristol Fashion and, afterlunch, we spent a lovely, quiet, timetogether in St James Priory church,

where my dear mum and dad marriedin 1927, eighty six years ago.

I wondered what hopes and dreamsthey had on that day and how glad Iwas to know their lives had beenh ap py.

Mind you, our next sojourn into thepast didn’t go quite so well. We de-cided to walk into Bedminster orBe’minster as we called it, whichDerek, since he grew up in Kings-down, never knew in its prime.

Although we had, on occasion,shopped in Bedminster, it was the

first time we had ever walked togeth-er into East Street from Redcliffe Hilland telling how it was nearly reducedme to tears.

Living in Regent Street, as a littlegirl, Bedminster was a noisy, exciting,place full of smells. From RedcliffeStreet right down through East Streetto the toilets on the London Inn therewere so many shops.

My Dad used to tell me how manypubs there were in Bedminster – Ithink he only drank in one or two ofthem – and how on Saturday nights

there were more people using the‘loos’ than could possibly have drunkin any one pub. All the men scurryingto empty their bladders before gettingon the number 10 or 10a bus to KnowleWest. On the right was the faggots andpeas shop.

Only rarely was I allowed out atnight with my Gran, but when I was Iloved it when we went to get a basin offaggots and peas.

The ‘cop shop’ was also on the right,along with the Hippodrome, wheremy, then young, mum and dad, used to

This week in the finalMarion’s Memories, ahappy birthday, anostalgic stroll aroundBedminster and thescent of Woman

For the last time... God bless, love, Marion

go on a Saturday night whilst Granbaby sat. So was WD & HO Wills,where so many young people startedtheir working lives, including myfirst husband. George used to work inthe warehouse and sometimes, if heknew I was coming to Bedminster, heused to look out for me and give me alittle wave. Apparently you had to bevery polite and well turned out to getinto Wills. Though I was reliably toldthat on Fridays the girls, who had towear a turban, used to wear their haircurlers underneath so that theylooked their best for their night out.When I was little my dad used to takeme to Verricha’s for a lovely bananasplit but when George and I went inthere years later I always used to havea strawberry milkshake.

When George and I got married wegot all our ‘Beautility’ furniture inBedminster. We used to say if youc o u l d n’t get it in Bedminster, youd i d n’t want it or didn’t need it.

My first job, when I left school, wasat Coventry and Jeffs, but then, luredby the promise of more money I wentto work at Curry’s, East Street. Mymanager was a Mr Walsh, and I didaccounts which mostly consisted ofmaking out the hire purchase agree-ments for cycles, and radiograms – avery popular item in 1949. Customerswere supposed to come in weekly andmake their payments which would besuitably recorded, and, if customersmissed more than one payment, Iwould send a warning letter, remind-ing them of their obligations.However, one family steadfastly ig-nored all reminders and Mr Walsh,bravely decided to go and tackle themiscreants! However, as he went upthe garden path, he spotted the cycle,a blue Raleigh, leaning against thewall. Quick as a thought, he wheeledit down the path, jumped on it andcycled back to Curry’s.

Much to my surprise that was theend of the matter.

So, did I enjoy my nostalgic strolldown memory lane?

To tell the truth it was quite sad.The Hippodrome got bombed dur-

ing the Second World War and most ofthe other shops no longer exist.

God Bless, love Marion.

Coming up

In your Bristol Times next week -Remembrance specialWITH Remembrance Day comingup, Bristol Times will be looking atthe stories behind some ofBristol’s war memorials.

THE CENOTAPHBristol’s main civic monument tothe dead of the First World War,the cenotaph in the city centre,was not built until the 1930s, longafter every other major UK cityhad unveiled theirs. We look atsome of the reasons why, and the

surprising story of its designers.

LOCAL MEMORIALSThere are some moving andsurprising stories behind some ofthe other war memorials aroundBristol. One was tended forseveral decades by a lone womanwho had lost two brothers in theGreat War, another wasdenounced by the local vicar fromthe pulpit, while Bristol alsoerected the first memorial to boy

scouts who had been killed in theFirst World War.

BRISTOL 2014With next year’s centenary of thestart of the First World War, welook at some of the plans to markthe anniversary in Bristol and athow you can help, by telling yourfamily stories, and showing oldletters and mementoes.� Published only with the BristolPost, next Tuesday, November 5.

THANK YOU, MARION

� T O D AY ’S column is the lastMarion’s Memories for BristolTimes. We cannot let such apopular columnist finishwithout putting on record ourappreciation for Marion’swriting that has always beenwitty, wise, generous in spiritand a celebration of life aslived then – and now.

Tim Davey, Features Editor

� Stan and Hilda Ogden - Marion’s all-time favourite Coronation Street comedy duo