Inspirations

ONCE again the A1 Camera Club did it – put on a really great exhibition of members’ work – truly inspirations.

I would advise all professional photographers to go and take a look next time. As professionals we think we know it all, by the work that was on display it’s clear we don’t.

Thanks again to the members, the works shown and the inspiration given.

PETE BROWNETT

Emotions Photography, Orchard Place, Weston

Achievable

THIS will be the second letter I have written concerning Clarence Park caf� and hope it will be my last on the subject.

I am writing this time in response to two letters printed in last week’s Mercury. First of all if Helen Broderick had bothered to frequent the caf� prior to the reopening, she would have seen for herself that any hot drink and cake for �1 was and still could be achievable.

Read my letter from last week for even more previously affordable prices. Does she think I made them up?

As for staying at home, does she not think that the nation has had quite enough of this activity, during this, so far, dismal summer?

As for the comments from Alison Bond, who is she to tell us to use another caf�? In any case this would be of no use as prices would be the same, or even higher, unless of course, she can point us in the direction of something more reasonable.

In any case why should we go elsewhere, when the caf� we want is on most of our doorsteps?

Also, readers, please note, the address locations of the people who can afford higher prices. We are not all so privileged.

On a closing note my father sadly passed away back in April, a month before his 91st birthday. He was neither a poor nor a mean man, but always commented, why charge so much for a mug of boiled water, a drop of milk and a look at a tea bag? I echo his words.

SARAH JONES

Totterdown Road, Weston

Thank you

JUST to say a very big thank you to Mr Williams and the lovely waitress that looked after my family and friends on the occasion of my 90th birthday at the Grove Bistro.

Everyone enjoyed the meal and service. The food was excellent, and served in a nice environment. Nothing was too much trouble. It turned out to be one of the happiest days of my lifetime.

EDNA WILLIAMS

Charter Road, Weston

Kept apart

THE front page report last week on Town Hall weddings features some very worrying aspects.

The fact that brides-to-be are not enamoured by the new wedding chamber and by the fact that they share the waiting area with council staff does not bode well for the future.

The current register office in the Boulevard has a lot going for it.

At one time brides leaving the venue came face-to-face with the bride for the following wedding but this was improved by introducing a new exit so that the brides did not meet.

The wedding is the bride’s special day and it is the golden rule that each wedding party should be kept apart.

I would be interested to know how this will be achieved at the Town Hall.

Another question - will the front door of the old part of the Town Hall be opened under the canopy?

Having run a chauffeur service I have taken part in many weddings at the Boulevard register office and there is always room for wedding cars to park and wait. If the driveway under the canopy at the Town Hall is not made available to wedding cars where will the cars be able to park, with double yellow lines all around the building?

Surely brides will not have to be dropped off and then ring the drivers to pick them up?

I am sure that North Somerset Council, in its infinite wisdom, has taken these points into consideration but early signs are such that we still have grounds to worry.

GEOFF MALHAM

Clarence Grove Road, Weston

Fragrance

I HOPE lots of residents and visitors will visit and enjoy the fragrance garden just off Grove Park.

It is a delight to look at and to smell now that Weston Soroptimists have weeded and tidied it up.

Some years ago they donated the beautiful Art Nouveau style wrought iron gate to the garden as well. My thanks and congratulations to these public spirited ladies.

MARTHA PERRIAM

Upper Church Road, Weston

Dog toilet

DID I miss the announcement about the change of use of Weston Woods from ‘area for everyone to enjoy’ to ‘dog toilet’?

It is now yet another no-go area for people with kids, unless you are happy for your children to come home covered in dog faeces.

And not from walking through the undergrowth (still unacceptable) but on the main paths, tracks and disabled/pedestrian routes.

Add Weston Woods to a long list of dog-poo saturated zones, including the woods at the Bluebell Field in Uphill, some of the parks and most of the pavements between Moorland Road and the town centre. Truly, truly disgusting.

HANNAH JONES

Moorland Road, Weston

Air show

TODAY I woke to see a heron on the rooftop opposite. Not often you see one of these lovely birds that close, and I grabbed my camera and got some pics.

Just as well he wasn’t here yesterday because a bunch of fighter jets flew along the street at high speed and low altitude.

If they had struck the heron, or indeed a seagull there would have been a major incident with much of the centre of Weston demolished by the impact of those expensive RAF flying machines.

At air displays there are strict rules, ever since the tragic Farnborough accident when so many spectators were killed by flying debris. There is a line dividing the public from the flying display area, so that any accident occurs away from the public.

Yet the Red Arrows think they can fly at high speed and zero feet through a highly populated area. They claim to be highly experienced yet this has not saved them from having two fatal accidents, one most likely a bird strike.

Accidents happen. Fast jets do crash. Birds are a constant hazard. It is necessary to organise an airshow so that an accident occurs where it is safe for pilots to eject and leave the jets to crash into the sea. It is totally unacceptable to fly at high speed and low level over a densely populated area. Pilots are not gods and their flying machines are not infallible. Don’t put our lives and properties at risk.

MIKE ROGERS

Baker Street, Weston

Moaners

SO THE moaners are out in force again, Betty Robertson. Well add another one - : me!

You are obviously not a local, or you would know that for years we have wanted a pool.

As a seaside town we need one, if it had a roof on it all the better, visitors and locals alike could use it all year round.

This is a place for day trippers these days. I am sure it would bring in more people, and money.

Who wants to swim in the dirty old sea?

As most of us know, we will never get a pool or a Tropicana, our council has seen to that.

You called the Tropicana ‘ghastly’. For some of us it was once a lovely place, with the beautiful pool before it. As for the ‘Zimmer frames’ and the ‘Berlin wall’, now that is what I call ‘ghastly’ .

MARGARET WOOD

Byron Road, Weston

Removed

I AM wondering if reader Betty Robertson is a long-standing member of Weston, a new import into the town, or just seeing Weston through rose tinted spectacles?

Her comments in the Mercury as to the presentations of the newly re-vamped promenade and Pier Square as being complete for her, and in her words, “when the Tropicana is removed”.

Weston needs more than those few projects to make it popular again. The more amenities that are available the better it is for the town, it has been and still is today a ‘day trippers’ destination as was in the past when thousands came over from Wales on the steamers and the excursion platform was crowded with people all for a good day out by the sea.

Unfortunately for you by your letter you have now joined the long list of moaners (by your comments on the Tropicana, or as I prefer to call it as it was originally ‘the swimming pool’).

Yes we are in the 21st century, but it was around the 1950s era that you comment on that the pool helped to make Weston one of the top seaside resorts in the country with its unique feature of the high diving stages, Modern Venus competition and, most important of all, a good place for both visitors and residents to bathe/swim in. We do not have that facility these days and remain one of the few seaside towns not to have one.

While moaning of the ‘ghastly’ Tropicana and praising the Promenade, Pier/Dolphin Square project remember it is the same people you praise who allowed the contractor to dump all their rubbish without a clause in the contract to clear it up afterwards, thus making the Tropicana looking such a mess.

On your comment about Dolphin Square as I walked through the Sovereign Shopping Centre last weekend and seeing the closed shops and those that appear to be about to shut down I fear for the new Dolphin Square project and its fate. I think before you shout its praises of how good it will be before it is even started. I would prefer to quote an old proverb: “Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched”.

As a last comment I spent my childhood years playing on the sands during the school holidays and when the money was available spent it in the clean waters of the ‘pool’ enjoying its facilities, much as I feel sure many tourists would like to do so now.

COLIN MIDDLE

Greenhill Close, Worle