SUPER WESTON
Weston-super-Mare in all its true glory, for this week’s Holidays At Home -
OVER recent weeks we’ve been recommending history-flavoured places to visit around the West Country, so you’d only expect us to mention every Bristolian’s favourite seaside town sooner or later.
So we’ve have raided the archives for pictures of happy holidaymakers and day-trippers at Westonsuper-Mare. Bristol Times does this every year, but we need to do it this year more than ever.
In a survey (which we have just made up) it’s where 40 per cent of Bristolians had their first kiss, where 50 per cent of them had their first ice cream and where 90 per cent of them first lost a week’s wages to gambling (though in most cases this was less than 20p in new money and it went on the penny falls at the pier).
With foreign holidays looking a bit iffy this summer, we have to hope that in the summer of 2021 dear old Weston will experience a tourist bonanza reminiscent of its glory days of the mid-20th-century.
OK, Weston has less style than Brighton, but it has none of its airs and pretensions either, and Weston is open for business. For beer and ice cream and chips, for strolls along the prom, for the Grand Pier (grandpier.co.uk), for the wonderful Helicopter Museum (www.helicoptermuseum.co.uk) for the museum that tells you about the town’s rich history and heritage (westonmuseum.org) and much more.
Things are a bit different this year. If you’re planning on visiting specific attractions, check first about Covid measures. Pre-booking may be needed at some places, but if you’re thinking of nipping down there for a day or half a day, do it before the school holidays start. Because with a bit of luck and some decent weather, the place will be heaving come August.
1. A rare shot of the beach in the 1890s. At this time, only the middle classes could afford holidays at the seaside. The working classes might count themselves lucky if they could get to Weston for a day-trip on a factory or church outing; most would have arrived by train, but right up to the early 1900s, many Bristolians would walk to Weston, often stopping at several pubs en route, and then catch the train home. (Mirrorpix)
2. By the 1930s and 40s (barring wartime interruptions) a week at the seaside was well within the reach of most families, and Weston was one of the most popular resorts of them all. With post-war austerity slowly lifting, the Daily Herald sent a photographer to catch some shots of people having fun there in 1949. Here we see Dad about to get a rude awakening. It took us ages to work out that the girl on the left is about to tickle his nose with one of those little paper flags you used to get to stick in sandcastles. (Mirrorpix)
3. Strange to relate, but getting yourself weighed by a man in an official-looking uniform was obviously one of the many attractions of the seaside. Little Shirley Tanner can’t have disturbed the scales all that much in August 1953. (Mirrorpix)
4. It’s 1970 and by now youthful aggro has become an established and unwelcome part of many seaside bank holidays. But consider this: the skinhead yobs here being frogmarched away by the cops might well be grandfathers by now.
5. But even in the 1970s, a day or even a week at Weston was still popular with many. Just hire a deckchair for the day and relax, as here on the May Bank Holiday in 1971. A time when older men wearing suits and ties on their deckchairs were still a common enough sight.
6. May 1976, the old pier is still in its pomp and … Yep! There’s a man to the centre/left of the picture who’s still got his tie on.
7. One of the things that was guaranteed to draw crowds to Weston in later years were the annual air days (nowadays the Weston Air Festival & Armed Forces Day, though sadly this year’s has been cancelled due to the virus). Here we are in July 1981 and the visiting celebrity who has opened the show is signing autographs. Do I know who he is? I say yeh yeh; it’s Georgie Fame. 8. July 1982. Weston has a lovely long seafront with big wide pavements. Perfect for strolling along in your Kiss Me Quick hat and with a bag of chips. Also perfect for a trainload of happy kiddies. Of all ages.
9. April 1993: What’s better than a donkey ride and an ice cream? Why a donkey ride and two ice creams, of course!
10. Another Weston fixture from the 1970s to the 1990s was the annual visit of the Radio One Roadshow. Here are happy punters in the front row from one of the later ones, August 1997.