Farewell, Andy: Bristol owes a great debt to heritage supremo Andy King
FRANKLY, yes, 2019 is history now. Not just because it was the past, but because the world has changed so very much since then. From now until September 4, the Somerset Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury is celebrating the work and achievements of the Royal Bath and West of England Society with an exhibition of photos by Bristolbased photographer Peter Hall.
Hall’s photos were taken in 2019, months before Covid changed everything and they give us a vivid record of a much-loved annual local event, the Royal Bath and West Show has been at the heart of the West Country’s rural life since the first show was held in 1852.
We’ve seen a lot of the pictures Hall has taken and they are wonderful; they really capture the atmosphere of the Show, so if you’re down Glastonbury way, don’t miss it. For details and booking, see https://tinyurl. com/54ts472x
The Bath & West Show itself is this year replaced with the Bath & West Country Festival at the end of August. See www.bathandwest. com
Farewell Andy
ANDY King, the former Senior Curator of Social, Industrial & Maritime History and Working Exhibits at M Shed died last Monday aged 65.
Andy’s retirement earlier this year was forced on him earlier than he would have wished, the result of a long-term illness which he bore with characteristic humour and resourcefulness. He will be known to many BT readers, and his work will be known to every Bristolian. He joined the staff of the former Industrial Museum in 1981 and since then has done more than anyone to preserve and promote the industrial and maritime heritage of his adopted city.
Printing presses, dockside cranes, tugs, buses and commercial vehicles as well as one of Britain’s earliest cars were all part of his brief, and in the end nobody ever amassed more knowledge of the City Docks on which he spent much of his working life.
It is thanks to Andy that so much of the machinery which formed part of Bristol’s everyday work in the past has been conserved and restored. In the process he had a huge influence in shaping Harbourside as it is today, with so much living heritage.
Furthermore, all of this was achieved at minimal cost. The secret of his success was in his tactful and matter-of-fact ways in recruiting and enthusing a huge army of volunteers, often people with know-how which would cost commercial clients large amounts of money.
Bristol owes him an immense debt of gratitude, not just for the priceless work in saving so much of its history, but because he made Harbourside a fun place and not just an accretion of waterside apartments, bars and cafés.
One other thing he should be remembered for was his great generosity. He was always on hand to answer queries from historians, journalists and the public alike. He was kind enough to speak to BT for a considerable length of time earlier this year, for an article looking at the achievements and events of which he was most proud. The resulting article (BT, March 2 2o21) was three times the size we originally planned for – but rightly so.
He will be greatly missed by his work colleagues and his very many friends who know that Bristol is a poorer place without him. We extend our condolences to his partner, and to his family.
Local history treat
VETERAN local historian D.P. Lindegaard, who’s also the sister of the late Prof Colin Pillinger, has been a meticulous and diligent researcher for decades.
Her greatest talent is in uncovering the stories of countless ordinary working-class people in the Bristol, Kingswood and neighbouring areas and much of her collected work is now published online and available for free download.
There’s an extensive collection of articles about Brislington, Kingswood and on Kingswood miners, the biography of a Victorian girl
who worked “in service” as well as “indexes” – lists of things like inmates of a female penitentiary, a list of Black Bristolians in the 18th and 19th centuries and – one that sounds very alluring – “Was your ancestor in the Bristol Riots?”
That’s just a taster. There’s loads more besides. Forget the buildings, the big companies, the rich men; D.P. gives us the stories, or what we know of them, of ordinary folk who would otherwise be forgotten. See www.bristolhistory.co.uk
Rash predictions
A FRIEND tells me that in an article published in a local magazine about 20 years ago I wrote that we were more likely to have a Severn Barrage before the Colston Hall changed its name.
He has yet to produce evidence I said anything of the kind, but it wouldn’t surprise me, partly because I’ve always been full of shi… er, I mean nonsense, and partly because of my age.
In the olden, pre-internet days, you could hack out any old nonsense on your armour-plated Imperial typewriter confident in the knowledge that whatever appeared in print would be wrapping chips or protecting the carpet from the overspill of the cat’s feeding-bowl the day after.
Now of course thanks to digital technology everything we say or write for public consumption can come back and bite us on the bum. I don’t doubt that at some point I was advising readers to invest in Betamax rather than VHS, that Neil Kinnock was a cert for Prime Minister and that the Second Coming was scheduled for next Thursday
The barrage haunts the memories of respected local journalists long since passed to the Great Afternoon Pub Lock-In In the Sky. The idea of using the Severn to generate electricity has been seriously discussed, on and off, since 1920, and it became a staple of the summer “silly season” between the wars. With not much happening and newspaper space to fill, hacks would seize on the slightest hint that the scheme might be back on the cards.
So it was in more recent decades; the plan would be dusted off every so often, and certainly, about 20 years ago, when serious talk of renaming the Colston Hall first started, my forecast didn’t seem quite so rash.
I would now like to single-handedly revive the Barrage plan. If you’ve been out at all, you’ll have noted that the whole of Bristol is knee-deep in garbage, partly because so many of those whose job it is to clear it are off sick or having to self-isolate.
So how would it be if we not only built a Severn Barrage (Brean Down to Lavernock Point near Penarth is the usual configuration) but filled in most of the area upstream of the barrier with all our trash?
We could leave a channel through the middle for the Severn, while then covering all the garbage with some gravel and a bit of topsoil. would then have a load of reclaimed land which you could farm or build houses on. The little explosions and pops of the methane coming up would look lovely at night and attract tourists.
The part south of the Severn would be part of England, county of Greater Bristol, while to the north of it the reclaimed garbage-land would be part of Wales. This Welsh portion could then form the new Welsh county of …
(Wait for it!)
…
Llandffyll!
HARGH! See what I did there?! Llandffyll!
OK, OK, I’m going.
Cheers then!