LATIMER’S DIARY
Our correspondent overindulges by getting in the Christmas spirit
HAPPY New Year! I hope and trust that your Christmas was as satisfactory as the regulations would permit.
I can’t remember much of Christmas Day as I had a few drinks. There was a delicious little number from Marks and Sparks which tasted like liquid Bakewell Tarts, then a glass of that red Spanish stuff that sponsors The Rubbish Action Film Channel (I think it’s called), followed by a fine Cognac with the Stilton, or it might have been a can of Special Brew with the pickled onions. I can’t remember.
I recall nothing much between the Queen’s Speech and Boxing Day, even though I really hadn’t had that much. No, honestly – I’m out of practice. I never drink at home, and barring a glass of fizz for Mrs Latimer’s birthday in July I’d had no alcohol at all since March.
This is a habit I think I picked up from my parents, who didn’t drink at home, except on special occasions like Christmas. I wonder if this is something other families used to follow; a legacy of the days when every family had one or two members who had been Ruined By Strong Drink.
It’s not that they’d taken the pledge, it’s just that there was a time and a place for everything, and the place for drinking was the pub, finishing at 11pm. In a lot of families there was also a mistrust, bordering on fear, of spirits. My dad was fond of beer but never touched what he (being Irish) called “The Hard Stuff”.
I desperately miss the pub, but I don’t particularly miss alcohol. I miss the conviviality and the conversations where we put the world to rights. Here’s to all of us having a better time in 2021!
The hole truth
“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the special Bristol Times Historical Mystorical tour. Can I just check that everyone has paid?
“Yes madam, it is £20 because this is quality history, none of your made-up rubbish.
“No sir, I regret that we cannot give concessionary rates for pensioners or children. This is because of important regulations about me wanting more money.
“So if everyone will just pony up and hand over the cash to my glamorous assistant Mrs Latimer chopchop, we can crack on.
“Right then. The mystery of the Canynge Square hole. Is it a portal to another dimension? I hear you ask. Who knows?
“Is this big, pointless and expensive hole some sort of metaphor? For Brexit or the government’s handling of the pandemic? Perhaps. I couldn’t possibly comment.
“What we do know for certain is that according to the antiquarian Norman Snodgrass, writing in Sixteen-Woffledy-Thing, it is thought to have first been built during the reign of King Joffrey the Second and was used for storing Icelandic prisoners captured during the Cod War.
“When Queen Elizabeth I visited Bristol in 1997, she declared it the fairest and goodliest hole in all of England and commanded the Mayor and Corporation of Bristol to sacrifice a virgin to it each year on Saint Hole’s Day.”
Just practising my patter for the guided tours of The Hole which I shall be offering as soon as possible
Have you been to see the Hole yet? Actually, I haven’t, but am looking forward to doing so soon. Mrs Latimer and I are hoping to make a bit of an occasion of it, taking a flask of tea and some Scotch eggs.
Latimer Junior has been to see it. His social life, which normally revolves around disco-dancing and being sick into the waste-paper bin beside his bed in the early hours of Sunday morning, has been severely curtailed by the pandemic. The Hole has offered him some muchneeded excitement, and he went over to Clifton to meet some of his mates in order to view it.
According to him, the Hole did not disappoint. Best hole in the ground he’s seen in ages, he says.
The sightseers the Hole has attracted are a mark of how starved we have become of real-life spectacle. It’s surprising that no-one has yet set up a stall there selling I’VE SEEN THE HOLE t-shirts or has donned a high-vis jacket and an official-looking fake ID card and started charging people, in the manner of the mythical Zoo car park attendant, to have a look at it.
Hole explanations
Solid ground beneath your feet, guv? Don’t make I laaf! Like a Swiss cheese it is down there, mate!
At the time of writing, we still don’t know what the Canynge Square Hole is, but as every longstanding Bristol resident knows, our city is full of holes.
Every few years you’ll read a story in the Post about how some shocked resident has woken up one morning to find a mysterious abyss has opened up in their back garden.
These can often be ascribed to. old mine-workings. One of the things that most of our fellow citizens have no grasp of is the fact that Bristol used to have a lot of coal mines. Aside from a few books and the occasional article in BT, this is an aspect of our history which has been completely forgotten now.
The Canynge Square Hole is more mysterious, though the visibility of what seems to be quite old brickwork (I’ve only seen photos, mind) suggests that old cellars may be involved. There might be mine workings, as well, given that any self-respecting landowner in the 18th and 19th century would at least carry out a geological survey just in case there was anything of value in the ground.
I’m also wondering if there was a public air raid shelter there during the war, though if there was this was more likely to have been an above-ground brick construction. Anyone know?
At the time of writing, the whole hole thing is all very mysterious. For what it’s worth (i.e. not much) my hypothesis is that part or all of the Hole might be accounted for by cellars which were made for houses which were never actually built. If anyone knows anything for sure, the letters page awaits.
Need a good read?
Mike Leigh, a member of Avon Local History and Archaeology (ALHA), has been in touch regarding our article (BT December 8) about the newly-published medieval map of Bristol, which ALHA helped to fund.
“You mention in your piece the William Worcester topography,” he says. “It was in fact translated and published in 2000 by the Bristol Record Society – a fascinating read and relatively easy to understand.”
There are (or were) hard copies of the book on sale at Bristol Archives, but you can download it as a PDF for free from the Bristol Records Society web site ( – and click on “publications”). The Worcester topography is currently number 51 on the list.
But don’t stop there. The BRS site is an absolute Aladdin’s Cave of local history publications, all downloadable free of charge. If you’re stuck in lockdown (and we all might be again soon) and need some reading matter, there’s loads of truly brilliant stuff there.
Have you met my daughter, Vaccine?
Just before Christmas I was treated to an excellent and suitably distanced informal tour of WW1 graves and memorials in Canford cemetery, and if our most excellent guide is doing them for the public again in future, I’ll be the first to let you know.
One of things we remarked on was the way in which children in Victorian times and even into the 20th century, sometimes had forenames celebrating British military victories, usually from the time they were born.
Do your genealogical history and you find plenty of people with ‘Balaclava’ or ‘Mafeking’ among their forenames. In Canford there’s even someone with ‘Mons’ for a middle name.
This got us to wondering if children born in 2020-21 might end up with names commemorating the events of the present era.
Now you can’t imagine many children being called ‘Covid’ or ‘Corona’, but there’s a nice, and rather glamorous ring to ‘Vaccine’ as a girl’s name don’t you think?
Or we could go with the names of the firms who are going to get us out of this mess. ‘AstraZeneca’ would be a great girl’s name as it has such a nice hippy/science fiction vibe going on.
‘Pfizer’, not so much. Associating a baby with the firm that’s best known for producing Viagra might be a bit of an own-goal for the father.
Cheers then!