Bristol | Steve Woods

Padlocks and Pero

15/11/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Politics

One of the many bridges that crosses Bristol’s city docks is Pero’s Bridge which spans St Augustine’s Reach, formerly St Augustine’s Trench. It is a pedestrian bascule bridge, linking Queen Square on the eastern side and Millennium Square on the west.

It was opened formally in 1999 by Paul Boateng MP, then a Home Office minister.

The bridge is named after Pero, also known as Pero Jones, who lived from around 1753 to 1798, arriving in Bristol from Nevis in the Caribbean in 1783, as the slave of the merchant John Pinney (1740–1818) at 7 Great George Street.

Hundreds of people now attach padlocks – so-called ‘lovelocks’ – to the bridge as a sign of affection to each other. This is a practice that began on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris.

The city council does not technically allow padlocks on the bridge, but they are not routinely removed, and over the years hundreds – possibly thousands – have been attached to it, which could just affect the proper operation of the bridge.

Your ‘umble scribe wonders if those who attach padlocks – a means of confinement and restraint -to the bridge have really thought through the implications of their action. It is, after all, named in memory of an enslaved person.

Moreover, your correspondent is not the only person with misgivings.

A petition has been launched by Helen Tierney calling on the Mayor of Bristol to order the removal of the padlocks and to ban any more being placed on there. The petition reads as follows:

To Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol. In the heart of Bristol is a pedestrian bridge crossing the harbour. The City Council agreed the name Pero’s Bridge to honour a young enslaved African, Pero Jones, who in the 18th century was sold into slavery aged 12 & brought by his ‘owner’ to live in Bristol. Pero was never granted his freedom & died enslaved. A tiny plaque by the bridge tells this story.
Pero’s Bridge is now defaced with thousands of padlocks, so called ‘lovelocks’ locked on to its structure. The keys most likely dropped into the water below. Only a few steps from the bridge is the place where, in 2020, the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was thrown into the harbour. I call upon the Mayor & City Councillors of Bristol to remove these hideous padlocks, not symbols of love at all but of oppression down the centuries, of enslaved people chained & padlocked with the keys thrown away, those people disrespected still today in the very place where they should be honoured.

Beneath the petition, Ms Tierney has added: “Pero’s Bridge is named after an enslaved person, someone our city chose to honour by naming the bridge for him. To have it weighed down by the very symbols of oppression disrespects his memory“, to which your ‘umble scribe would add that those affixing padlocks to the bridge have clearly considered the implications of their action.

Sign the petition here.
Dumb Britons bought property in Italy but voted for Brexit

31/10/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics
In what clearly counts as an instance of buyer’s remorse, today’s inews carries a piece about two Britons – one in his thirties and from Bristol, the other a pensioner from Winchester, who both voted for Brexit and now seem surprised they cannot get visas to live permanently in their respective properties, as per the screenshot below of the report’s headline and byline.

Both are now suffering remorse and a feeling of betrayal (remember all those smooth-talking right-wing politicians who lied to the public saying nothing would really changed in our relationship with the EU and its member states? Ed.).

As defined by the dictionary, the phrase buyer’s remorse has two meanings:
- a sense of regret or uneasiness after having purchased a house, car, or other major item; and
- a sense of regret after having committed to an endorsement, policy, plan of action, etc.
Either of both of those definitions may be applicable in these two instances.

These stories have a moral, i.e. think before you vote (bearing in mind that all politicians lie. Ed.) and always remember the law of unexpected consequences.
Barton Hill’s monthly litter pick

10/10/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Barton Hill’s monthly community litter pick took place last Saturday.As usual, we assembled outside the Wellspring Settlement (formerly Barton Hill Settlement. Ed.) at 10 am on Saturday to decide where needed our attention most.

We then tackled some of the Urban Park before proceeding to Cobden Street and its associated public open space and picnic table, a favourite spot with locals for drinking beer.

This month saw the biggest turnout for several months – 5 in total; and whilst we were in the Urban Park organiser Shona took the email address of another prospective volunteer to add to the mailing list.

At the end of one hour’s picking in pleasant, warm sunshine, we posed for the obligatory group photo before heading back to the Settlement for a well-deserved hot drink.

Here’s the swag we collected divided into recyclable materials (translucent bags) and general waste (green bags) awaiting collection by Bristol Waste.

Once again, many thanks to Shona for organising the event (as well as for the photos above. Ed.) and my fellow volunteers to turning out and working so willingly.
Happy retirement, Lesley!

04/10/2023 Steve WoodsBristol

Regular readers will recall that the lovely community café at St Mark’s Baptist Church in Easton closed at the end of August (posts passim).

Saturday last, 30th September, saw a retirement party for Lesley at the church. This was well attended by a broad range of people from Easton and beyond, all gathered to wish Lesley a happy retirement and partake of Lesley’s excellent cakes over which she’d laboured. These included not just church members, local traders, café users, foodbank volunteers and Abdul Malik from Easton Jamia Masjid, the mosque that faces the church across the street.

Lesley with Abdul Malik the church’s close neighbour, Easton Jamia Masjid.
After a question and answer session with Lesley that covered the whole history of the café from its inception up to its closure in August, various people were invited out to the front, given a microphone and said a few words about the café, Lesley and so on. Abdul paid a great tribute (from what I could see wholly unscripted. Ed.) to Lesley and the collaboration between the chapel and mosque, particularly on large community events such as the Grand Iftar at the end of Ramadan.
One of those invited to address the assembled throng was your ‘umble scribe, who was asked to read out his above-mentioned blog post, which was composed on the café’s final day and was received with general approbation.

Lesley did drop some very serious hints that even though the café had now closed, that did not mean the end of catering activities for the community. Your correspondent will keep his ear to the ground and relay any information that comes to light.

In the meantime, have a happy retirement, Lesley; and don’t be afraid to use your bus pass! 😉
City rejoins Gloucestershire – Bristol Live exclusive

29/09/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

One time long ago there was a county called Gloucestershire. It was a large county that included the city of Bristol as one of its major centres of population. However, that all changed in 1373 when Bristol was granted county status in its own right by the king through the usual expedient of paying him a sufficiently large quantity of cash.

However, that has now all changed and Bristol is once again in the embrace of Gloucestershire, even though the news has been suppressed and can only be found by a creful reading of the Bristol Live website, where it appears in a piece by Emma Flanagan inviting readers to vote for their favourite Chinese takeaways.

The headline to the article asks Where can you get the best Chinese takeaway in Bristol?. There’s no mention there about the city being returned to its former historical county 650 years after making its escape from the clutches of the county that grew up based on the old Roman settlement of Glevum.
The clue to Bristol returning to Gloucestershire is well concealed, hiding in the photo caption near the top of piece; it reads Tell us the best Chinese takeaway in Gloucestershire and we’ll crown a winner.

Will this mean a change in the city’s extortionate rate of council tax? Better public services? Improved public transport? Not a word mentioned.

No corresponding article asking readers to rate Chinese takeaways in Bristol has been found on Bristol Live’s sister title, Gloucestershire Live (so far. Ed.), so this dreadful piece of copy has not been shared with other Reach publications.

Moving Bristol to Gloucestershire was not the only inaccuracy of the geographical kind appearing on the Bristol Live website today. By some strange alteration in geophysical forces, the city has been moved from nestling on the banks of the Bristol Avon to those of the mighty Severn/Hafren, as per the screenshot below.

Since this morning the text of the headline has now been changed to read Five-star Severn Bore live as ‘the greatest ride on earth’ rolls through West Country.

If the Bristol Live website ever had a corrections and clarifications column, it would be several times larger than the paper’s website! 😀
Barton Hill litter pick

11/09/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

On Saturday 9th just gone, one of the hottest days of the year so far, four of us met at Barton Hill’s Wellspring Centre at 10 a.m. to take part in the monthly community litter pick organised by Shona Jemphrey (to whom thanks are die for the photos. Ed.).
We covered part of the Urban Park and some of the surrounding streets, plus an alleyway off Victoria Avenue, which some desperate folk had been using as an emergency urinal. The ‘swag‘ we collected is shown below.
After an hour’s sweating and tidying, the team retired to the Centre for a well-deserved brew and some biscuits. As per usual, we got a few thanks and kind smiles from passers-by.
Boat for sale – suitable project for DIY enthusiast

06/09/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities

When your correspondent was enjoying a pint at a quayside pub down Bristol’s city docks (which some call the ‘Harbourside’. Ed.) some years ago, the subject of boats came up somehow, along with a fine adage, i.e. “a boat is a hole in the water into which you shovel money“.

Yesterday in on the banks of the Avon in Bath, quite near the railway station, your ‘umble scribe came across evidence of what happens when one stops shovelling money into that hole in the water…

For sale – needs some attention
Syndicated bad English

06/09/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

Local news titles owned by Reach plc, which also owns the Daily Mirror and Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.) frequently share stories so frequently that anyone would think either that slow news days were commonplace or that the the country’s major cities had annexed vast swathes of territory well removed from their location.

An example of this practice occurred earlier this week in the Bristol Post, supposedly the city’s (former) newspaper of record, as per the following screenshot.

Last time your ‘umble scribe looked, Fowey in Cornwall was not – and has no intentions of being – a suburb of Bristol. The entire story has been copied and pasted en bloc from Cornwall Live, a sister title to the Bristol Post/Live, including a glaring spelling error – busses – in both the headline and the copy.

That spelling error is one that should have been eradicated in primary school, not allowed to persist into the professional life of an alleged ‘journalist‘.

Your correspondent recalls talking to a former sub-editor some years ago, who was then lecturing at the University of the West of England, teaching online journalism to media studies students. He remarked that before before he could start training them in how to report stuff online, he had to teach them basic English first!
A sad day in BS5

25/08/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Politics

Friday 25th August 2023 marked the end of an era and a sad day for Easton in Bristol. After 14 years of serving the public St Mark’s Community Café based at St Mark’s Baptist Church opened for the very last time after 14 years.

Of the local media outlets, only the BBC appears to have covered this event, but gave it a very sympathetic write-up.

Your ‘umble scribe has been going there 2 or 3 times a week for the past few years to enjoy baked potatoes, good cooking and the undisputed best cakes in all BS5, the latter baked by the remarkable Lesley, whose baking skills put my own late mother’s to shame (and that’s saying a lot, coming from a loyal eldest son!). My own particular favourites amongst her regular baked wares were farmhouse fruit, barra brith and anything with gooseberries or ginger. Furthermore, all the food served and the ingredients used to prepare it were ethically and locally sourced wherever possible.

However, this was a café with a difference: paying customers like your correspondent meant that the homeless could eat there for free. Below is a short video with interviews of both customers and café staff/volunteers to give an idea of what has now entered the annals of local history.

Although I’ll miss you all terribly, here’s wishing Lesley a happy retirement and I’d like to express my thanks to you, Nettie and all the café volunteers for keeping me fed over the years and being such wonderful people.
The benefits of literacy

03/08/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities

As seen on Roman Road, Easton in Bristol.

Not only can this particular driver not read, it would appear he is also suffering from colour-blindness. Are those double yellow lines denoting no parking at any time that I see to the left of the vehicle?

This driver is not only illiterate and colour-blind, but is also blissfully ignorant of the fact that parking restrictions extend over the full width of the highway from boundary to boundary, so parking on the footway (which some call the pavement. Ed.) will not absolve him or her from getting a thoroughly well-deserved parking ticket!

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