It is with a slightly melancholic nature that I write this blog, sitting in Clarence Park with a paper and a bacon and egg sandwich, appreciating Saturday afternoon bathed in swathes of September sunshine.
None of that is, in itself, reason to be gloomy; the paper full of promise, the sandwich full of fatty goodness, and my tan slowly improving!
However, the knowledge that the opportunity to enjoy a sunny day narrows as the evenings get darker, and this brief moment of glorious weather will surely decline into terminal grey is sad indeed.
Put bluntly, the dark and rainy season will soon be upon us, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.
It would take some pretty crazy tinkering with the clocks to give us the weather and daylight we deserve. In fact, we don’t need to waste time with changing the clocks, we need a time machine! Destination? Summer 1967! I hear it was a good one – summer of love and all that. Or, if you want to go one better, summer 1966 – the year of the World Cup.
Like it or not, dark evenings are soon going to be a reality.
Things will be colder, wetter and, well, darker. But rather than just letting the inevitable get on top of you, I recommend enjoying what is left of the daylight, and looking forward with optimism
Is there a more wasted resource in the whole of Weston-super-Mare, neigh North Somerset, than The Winter Gardens? I don’t think so. In the 60’s and 70’s we were talking The Beatles, David Bowie, Pink Floyd, and T Rex; a never ending merry-go-round of events that I would kill to have access to on my doorstep. Whilst never exactly being home to ‘the scene’, Weston-super-Mare and The Winter Gardens could once attract some serious talent.
Whilst I’m sure that kept our Mums and Dads happy, the days of The Fab Four tearing up Weston are but a hazy memory, and the 2008 equivalent of The Beatles in their pomp? Quarterly visits by The British Wrestling Tour, a tea dance or ten, and the occasional “Record Fair”. In fact, it was a chance visit to the “Record Fair” on Saturday that prompted this little tirade! If I was a newcomer to the town and somebody told me that Pink Floyd had once played The Winter Gardens, I think I would have a sudden outbreak of bad manners and laugh in their face!
There was certainly not much in the way of cutting edge music at the “Record Fair”. It dismays me to report that a building, once temporary home to Ziggy Stardust and his Spiders, now found itself at the mercy of “eccentric” types, with dubious fashion tastes, requesting Dennis “write the theme tune” Waterman LP’s! I couldn’t make up my mind whether he specifically wanted LP’s because Dennis Waterman had never been released on CD, or if it was because he’d never actually heard of CD’s!*
I appreciate that Sir Paul McCartney’s touring schedule no longer has room for The Winter Gardens, but it is outrageous that Weston-super-Mare has been allowed to slip completely off of the musical radar, bar the annual T4 event. Although not to my taste, and only because Sir Paul can’t make it, I’d rather have McFly here than an endless succession of the same old non-events. Sadly, I fear it’s too late to rebuild a musical tradition that is frankly in tatters having not held a decent concert for decades.
If the town’s cultural decision makers have to constantly look at the past for direction and inspiration, let’s not allow Dennis Waterman and tea dances to be the sum extent.
* Apparently, for those of you interested in the outcome of The Great Dennis Waterman LP Hunt, the vendor didn’t have any on sale, but had some at home! Even worse, from his own personal collection!