West's Wintry Weather 1981/2

Whatever the conditions, Points West has always been ready to capture the region’s more extreme spells of weather. Remember the winter of 1981/2 or the snows of the 1960s? Perhaps this selection of films will bring back some chilling memories.

Once the weather experts start predicting any kind of extreme weather, the journalists start packing their thermals or sun block accordingly - after all, weather is big news.

Over the years, the West Country has received its fair share of extremes, including record low temperatures, wind speeds, days of sunshine, degrees of frost and centimetres of snow.

And it's probably the snowfall that people remember best - tinged either with fondness or regret.

Memories of days off school, tobogganing with best mates, or just the sheer wonder of seeing the landscape blanketed by virgin white, crisp and even snow, for some snow is probably the most exciting extreme weather condition.

For others though it means days off work, being cut off from supplies of electricity (or even food), and even the worry of what might happen when the snow begins to thaw and flooding becomes a serious risk.

The snowfall, blizzard conditions and low temperatures experienced in 1981/2 proved to be a difficult time for many parts of the West Country, although snow wasn't the only problem.

A surge in the high tide, coupled with wind direction, meant the coastline was seriously affected, with the resulting damage costing £6m to put right.

The main films we've selected for this section of Bristol Archive On Demand come from a programme that was transmitted in February 1982.

Frozen Buses

Ten Million Pounds - After the Blizzards was a round up of what had happened to the West when it bore the brunt of the worst weather conditions in living memory.

The programme, narrated by Andrew Harvey, includes dramatic footage from in and around Bristol and reflects just how difficult the period from December to January really was.

The film journeys from the snowfields and blizzards of rural Gloucestershire, particularly around Amberley, to the icy conditions experienced in Bristol with frozen busses and stranded lorry drivers, who were catered for at Warmley Community Centre.

Hartcliffe Factory: 1970s

In 1974, WD and HO Wills opened Europe’s largest cigarette manufacturing plant on land at Hartcliffe near Bristol. The factory lasted all of 16 years and closed in 1990 as the tobacco industry felt the squeeze. Points West saw the factory open.

Cigarettes first rolled off the production line at Wills Tobacco’s state-of-the-art Hartcliffe factory in 1974, after the company moved its processing plants from Bedminster and Ashton, home to Wills’s ‘Number One’ factory and site of its ‘Number Four’ plant respectively.

The planners – and the Board at Wills – believed this modern, efficient factory would produce cigarettes for decades to come – but in reality the last cigarette carton was sealed in 1990.

It was a time when greater health awareness (coupled with increased duty on tobacco) seemed intent on stubbing out tobacco sales. In the 1980s, Wills’s 200th anniversary celebrations were tarnished by the closure of its London depot and the company’s Glasgow and Swindon factories.

As Hanson went onto acquire Imperial Tobacco, owners of Wills, sales teams were merged, the old factory buildings in Bristol were demolished and efforts to further streamline the company were put into effect. This culminated with the head office at Hartcliffe closing in 1989, followed by the transfer of cigarette manufacturing from Hartcliffe to Nottingham in 1990.

A decade or so afterwards, the site was cleared (although the office buildings were retained), and the old Wills’s site redeveloped. The company’s history can be traced back to 1786 when a partnership was set up between Henry Overton Wills and Samuel Watkins. Starting life in Salisbury, Wills eventually moved the company to Castle Street in Bristol, while only a few years later it re-located again, this time to Redcliffe Street.

Almost a hundred years since it rolled its first tobacco, the company was valued at more than £30m (in today’s money) with brands such as ‘Woodbine’ soon becoming market leaders. Capstan’ and ‘Gold Flake’ followed suit and so long as there were World Wars to fight, cigarette manufacture was a lucrative way to make a living.

In the 1960s, Wills produced 120,000 cigarettes every hour and with the popularity of ‘Strand’ and ‘Embassy’ brands, the company’s future seemed secure. But with increased health awareness and a steady rise in excise duty, the golden age of cigarettes was over by the end of 70s, and despite the investment made by Wills, production tailed-off dramatically, forcing the Board to cut back while the nation cut down.

In the end, the Hartcliffe factory – despite the superlatives – was too much of a drag on the company’s health and at the end of the millennium it was flattened to make way for a retail park.

Acker Bilk: 1977

The Somerset man who brought Stranger on the Shore to millions of music lovers around the world talks to Points West's reporter Graham Purches ahead of a live show recorded for TV outside The Duke in Bristol back in 1977.

On 23 February 1977, Points West's Graham Purches met up with Acker during rehearsals for a TV show he was recording outside The Duke in Bristol - home to some great jazz musicians over the years.

He'd recently suffered a heart attack - or pericarditis to be more accurate - and although his doctor had warned him off the fags, his liver was still happy to do battle with the odd glass of cider. In the report Graham Purches asked Acker about his early career and how he started playing the clarinet.

What he didn't ask is how the man got away with playing the clarinet with two missing front teeth and a missing finger. Mind you, the answer is quite simple: he didn't have much choice - since Acker lost his teeth in a school fight and his finger came off the loser in an argument with a sledge.

Still, the self-taught musician has nothing to explain really since his music says it all - and still does today - nearly 30 years after Points West caught up with him down at The Duke.

Bath traffic: 1965

Yes, sexism was alive and well in the 1960s but it probably wasn't intentional. In this film from the Points West archives, a reporter attempts to discover why the city's parking planners were targeting businessmen in Bath.

We all know that parking in Bath has never been easy, but it is tempting to think that it has only become a nightmare in more recent years. Not a bit of it. In 1965, the City Council was on the verge of introducing new parking restrictions, particularly aimed at Bath's business community which it deemed was causing a headache for everyone else looking for somewhere to park.

In the spring of 1966, the council was hoping to put into effect hour long waiting times, parking meters and wardens - together with 900 car parking spaces on the edges of the city centre - in the hope of dissuading commuters from leaving their vehicles outside their places of work all day.

This Points West report, broadcast in November 1966, sees our intrepid reporter on the outskirts gamely walking to 'work' (indicated by a briefcase under the arm) and laying out the arguments for and against. In the course of the film, we are introduced to what we can only assume must be a fair and balanced cross section of the business community in Bath - together with visitors to Bath, expounding their views on the City fathers' plans.

Naturally, because this is 1966, there isn't a single woman's viewpoint expressed - business or otherwise! It seems incredible that a simple report about cutting back on parking spaces can reveal so much about a society at a particular point in its evolution.

How far we've come in the last 40 years! We may be less sexist and, certainly, there may be more women running their own businesses in Bath and beyond, but it seems we have still to work out how best to deal with our desire to park as close as possible to the action, whether we're at work, rest or play.

Back in 1966 Bath City Council was making a start; today, according to the Visit Bath website, parking your car in the city centre for longer than allowed could be a costly affair.

'You will be towed away if you do not observe the following rules:

'Not displaying a valid paid ticket, parking on double yellow lines at any time, parking on single yellow lines at restricted times. If you are towed away it will cost you over £100 to get your car back plus a £25 parking fine.'

Rules indeed - and ones that no doubt would have made our Bath businessmen boil over in their doubled-breasted suits way back in 1966!

SS Great Britain: 1970

There were some tricky moments as salvage experts brought the ss Great Britain back from the Falkland Islands in July 1970. With only inches to spare, the ship was returned to the Jefferies Dock from where she was launched back in 1843.

The world’s first propeller-driven, ocean going iron ship was salvaged from the icy waters around Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands in an operation made possible by the property tycoon Sir Jack Hayward.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s ship almost ended her days as a rusting hulk but was rescued from decay by a dedicated team of salvage experts who oversaw the process of preparing the ship and sailing her back across the Atlantic to her homeport of Bristol.

The most difficult part of the voyage was the journey along the River Avon into the heart of the city’s docks, where the infamous Horseshoe Bend was successfully negotiated, although had the tugs made the slightest error of judgement, we could now be visiting the ss Great Britain as an out-of-town attraction!

The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip, had followed the ss Great Britain’s return to the UK with much interest and was there to see the ship come home.

The ss Great Britain had been in The Falklands since 1886 after a fire on board had put her beyond repair. In the 1930s the ship was scuttled having been sold to the Falkland Islands Company as a storage hulk. In her ocean-going career, as a steamer, the ss Great Britain was used chiefly between England and Australia, but in later years she was converted to a sailing vessel and used to carry coal.

The ship came back to Bristol exactly 127 years after her launch and was returned to the same dock where she started her ocean-going life. In June 1970, BBC2 broadcast “The Great Iron Ship” as part of the history series “Chronicle”, and our first film clip shows footage from the programme, which was written by Richard Wade and narrated by Dudley Foster.

The second film features highlights from an outside broadcast introduced by Magnus Magnusson and which followed the steady process of piloting the Great Britain into the Jefferies Dock.

Although strictly the films aren’t from Points West, we felt they were too good not to be included in this selection from the archives – and we hope you agree!

Severn Bridge: 1966

Since 1926 a ferry carrying cars and passengers helped shortened the distance by road between England and Wales – forty years later and the world’s newest suspension bridge – over the River Severn - takes over the job.

Her Majesty the Queen has opened and launched some hefty things in her time and amongst the objects to receive her blessing is one of the largest - The Severn Bridge.

Officially opened on 8th September 1966, the bridge ended Enoch Williams’s lucrative business as ferryman – a post he had occupied since setting up a passenger and motorcar ferry service on the first day of the General Strike in 1926.

No doubt on the day he was the only man with a heavy heart. For everyone else the opening of the new Severn crossing spoke about the future - a future of greater prosperity and understanding between Wales and England – and vice versa, of course!

With commentators Tom Flemming, Alan Williams and Tom Salmon in place, and the BBC’s Outside Broadcast cameras ready to capture the spectacle, the official opening ceremony began – on the English side at Aust.

Her Majesty was introduced to those responsible for stretching steel and concrete across the Severn, including 25-year-old John Roberts from Chepstow who began working on the bridge’s construction in 1963 and later skippered one of the vessels used to float into position the huge sections of roadway that would eventually carry three hundred million vehicles from 1965 to 1996 when the second Severn Crossing was opened.

Another worker introduced to The Queen was the bridge’s foreman who had the tricky task of planning the shifts of his workers around the demands of the force nine tide that swept in and out regardless of the efficiency demands of the contractors.

Once they had crossed the bridge – The Queen and her entourage arrived at Newhouse Junction for the second part of the ceremony, where the then Welsh Secretary of State, Cledwyn Hughes, invited Her Majesty to unveil a plaque.

The final words, spoken by one of the commentary team, struck a note of optimism as coverage of the official opening of the Severn Bridge drew to a close:

“The newest bridge in the world the bridge that links England and Wales, and will change the lives of people to what extent is anybody’s guess.

“The dream has come true – and ‘Severn Bridge’, one of man’s better innovations, more graceful than many of his ideas, more useful than most, has become an accomplished fact.”

After thirty years’ hard work, relief came for the Severn Bridge with the opening by Prince Charles of the Second Severn Crossing, whereupon thousands of road users caught their first proper sight of the original bridge, running parallel alongside the new crossing a few miles upstream.

Cary Grant: 1986

When Cary Grant died in November 1986, Points West paid its own tribute to Archie Leach, the tailor’s boy who went on to dominate Hollywood for some forty years. Points West’s very own ‘matinee idol’ Chris Vacher traced Grant’s Bristol connection...From the age of 13, and after a childhood spent living in the Horfield district of Bristol, Archie Leach – alias Cary Grant – took one sniff of the greasepaint at the Bristol Hippodrome and knew he want to be a performer.

His resulting career spanned forty years, during which he made more than 70 films and earned the reputation of being one of the most sought after actors in Hollywood. With his films came the fame and the fortune – and the seemingly endless women - but despite the movie star lifestyle he never turned his back on Bristol completely.

Whenever he came home to see his mother, who towards the end of her life was cared for at Chesterfield Hospital in Clifton, he would raise the blood pressure of the nursing staff in anticipation of his arrival, and his mother would often spend Sunday afternoons watching his old movies and pointing him out to anyone interested.

The then manager of the Grand Spa Hotel remembered Grant’s visits and by all accounts his stays in Bristol proved quite an occasion. Chris Vacher’s 1986 film takes us around the city and shows the locations most associated with Cary Grant – his home at 15 Hughenden Road, Horfield, his old school - Fairfield Grammar, and the Hippodrome where it all started for him as a callboy.

A particularly poignant moment shows Grant talking at the unveiling of a memorial in New York, where rubble from the Bristol Blitz was brought over as ballast. Grant spoke about how he lost members of his family in the bombing raids over Bristol as he unveiled a memorial plaque in New York’s Bristol Basin in 1974, the inscription of which reads:

“BENEATH THIS EAST RIVER DRIVE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK LIE STONES, BRICKS AND RUBBLE FROM THE BOMBED CITY OF BRISTOL IN ENGLAND BROUGHT OVER HERE AS BALLAST FROM OVERSEAS. THESE FRAGMENTS THAT ONCE WERE HOMES SHALL TESTIFY WHILE MEN LOVE FREEDOM TO THE RESOLUTION AND FORTITUDE OF THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN THEY SAW THEIR HOMES STRUCK DOWN WITHOUT WARNING IT WAS NOT THEIR WALLS BUT THEIR VALOR THAT KEPT THEM FREE.”

Cary Grant died on 29th November 1986 and at the time, as Chris’s report reveals, there were calls for a statue of the actor to be put up in honour of the City’s Hollywood legend. This eventually came in 2001 and Cary Grant can now be seen striding out casually across Millennium Square in the city centre.

One of Grant’s famous quotes reveals his dilemma to understand who he really was – it also underlines his yearning to remain connected with Bristol and the place of his birth:

'I have spent the greater part of my life fluctuating between Archie Leach and Cary Grant, unsure of each, suspecting each.'

One thing is certain – the name Cary Grant ended up being worth more than Archibald Leach ever could have dreamed of – and Bristol is the better for it too.

Ashton Gate: 1970/80

The start of the 70s and 80s saw Points West at Ashton Gate, but not because of Bristol City FC. It was the appearance of Sir Alf Ramsey’s England team and ten years on the arrival of floodlit cricket that drew the attention of the TV cameras.

It might be argued that the opening of Ashton Gate’s Dolman Stand in 1970 was overshadowed by the appearance in April 1970 of the England World Cup team.

Led by legendary manager Alf Ramsey, Points West filmed members of the squad, which included Bobby Moore, Alan Ball and Geoff Hurst, stepping off the coach and avoiding the autograph hunters (“we’re too busy” said Sir Alf).

We see team players Emlyn Hughes with Bobby Moore emerging from the tunnel, again avoiding the eye of the fans, and stepping on to the pitch.

And after seeing some ball action, the film concludes with shots of Ramsey leaving the pitch and, again, refusing to sign autographs!

People who were there say it was quite an occasion, even if you did go home with your autograph book empty. After managing Ipswich Town in the mid-fifties, Ramsey was eventually made England manager in 1963. He saw England to victory in the 1966 World Cup, seeing off Argentina, Portugal in the semi-finals before beating West Germany 4-2 in the now famous World Cup final.

Ramsey and his World Cup team came to Bristol just as their success began to waver; they lost 3-2 to Germany in the quarterfinals of the 1970 World Cup.

Sir Alf was given the footballer’s boot from the game in 1974 when he was sacked after his side failed to qualify for that year’s World Cup.

Ten years after the appearance at Ashton Gate of the England team, the stadium was caught in the glare of the media spotlight once again. On this occasion it was the glare of its own lights that was causing the interest. In September 1980, Points West reported on a game between the England cricket side and The Rest of the World played under floodlights at Ashton Gate.

In a move that saw the ground used for more than just playing football, nightime cricket came to the stadium and by all accounts was deemed a huge success by the players. The film includes an interview with Brian Rose, the England lefthander who famously led Somerset to victory in the Gillette Cup and the John Player League the year before.

There are also comments from former Gloucestershire wicket keeper Andy Brassington, who was replaced by Jack Russell in 1983. With a white ball (said to be much easier to see than the traditional red ball), coupled with the floodlit football stadium, it seems rather odd to watch a game of cricket played under such conditions, but the consensus by those involved was that the idea seemed pretty sound.

Points West also talked to the fans; one admitted he had been cynical about the whole idea of night time cricket but showed signs of being convinced after seeing the game at Ashton Gate that evening.

Certainly floodlit cricket is more popular today than it was 25 years ago when it was in part first pioneered in Bristol.

High Speed Train: 1976

Points West can lay claim to many achievements, including having British Rail name one of their fleet of 125 High Speed locomotives after the programme. In 1976 they launched the new service and Points West was there to try it out.

On the 4th October 1976, with little ceremony or fuss, British Rail launched its high speed 125 Inter-City service on the line between London and Bristol.

Naturally, and despite the low profile inaugural run, the Points West cameras joined the first few passengers to gauge for themselves just what the new service was like. What strikes you when watching the film is just how few passengers there are.

Admittedly, it’s an 8am service leaving the capital for Bristol but even in 1976 there must have been reason to visit the West Country. In the report we hear from the passengers, who, apart from one colonial cousin from the States hasn’t really got anything bad to say about day one of the new service. But give it time, and things would end up very different!

It is strange the things you forget – First Great Western’s fleet of carriages have obviously been much overhauled, but watching this film brings back the colour of the seats and that square knob on top of each aisle-side seat designed to help you steady yourself.

Of course, one of the criticisms levelled at the rail operator today is just how unsteady the ride is nowadays – years of poor investment is offered as a reason and it must be said that seeing the first 125 in action, the ride does appear to be a great deal smoother.

Another revelation is the fabulous cooked breakfast being prepared by a full-blown chef – even if he is using a microwave oven to produce the goods.

Even greater things are to come – such as then witnessing the said breakfasts being served by a neatly turned out waitress – oh, as well as the train arriving three minutes head of schedule at Bristol Temple Meads.

Apparently the new service managed to shave of 15 minutes from the timetable, although, as the film tells us (as if it was some big secret), the record time was achieved by having three fewer stops.

Now those were the days, weren’t they?

Bristol Carnival: 1987

The late Caron Keating came to Bristol in 1987 to switch on the Christmas lights and launch the carnival procession. Points West reported on events, which were broadcast on 19th November. Plus Clifton Suspension Bridge's 1988 firework night... Even the magic of Snow White wasn't powerful enough to eventually prevent the demise of Bristol's city centre carnival.

In 1987, the sight of three abseiling dwarves along with Snow White scaling the face of Avon House heralded the start of the eighth Bristol Carnival and Points West's Beverley Thompson was on hand to report on the spectacle.

Part of Beverley Thompson's report includes an interview with the late Caron Keating, who in 1987, was enjoying the limelight as a Blue Peter presenter.

Caron Keating had been invited to switch on Bristol's Christmas lights and start the procession as part of her role as Snow White in the Hippodrome's pantomime production. Joining her fellow actors, she accompanied three of her seven dwarves in abseiling 200 feet down the front of Avon House. The number of floats in 1987 was down on the previous year, organisers blamed rising costs.

However, they remained confident of raising a substantial amount for the Bristol Children's Hospital - to buy equipment to help children with breathing difficulties.

Sadly, the Bristol Carnival was to fall victim to a lack of entrants and ever-increasing pressure from health and safety legislation and the 1987 event was one of the last occasions.

We've also included a second film, which comes from the following year when Clifton Suspension Bridge became the focus for a magnificent firework display - the like of which hasn't been seen since!

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