The fun and fervour of this year’s carnival may only just have begun to die down, but 50 years ago attention focussed on bringing the event back to Weston’s streets.

%image(14262844, type="article-full", alt="A spectacular Carnival at Burnham and Highbridge. . Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

The town had axed its carnival in 1962, but the Weston Mercury and Somerset Herald reported the summer and winter events could return after a seven-year break in 1969.

Weston Lions spearheaded the calls for the carnival’s revival.

Although Weston had stopped its, the event remained in Burnham and pictures from its festival were carried 50 years ago this week.

%image(14262845, type="article-full", alt="A spectacular Carnival at Burnham and Highbridge. . Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262846, type="article-full", alt="A spectacular Carnival at Burnham and Highbridge. . Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

* Austerity may have been a buzz word of the Government’s in recent years, but it is nothing new.

Weston Borough Council was having to cut its capital expenditure in 1968, despite the Mercury reporting buildings, roads and other services had not received much financial attention for a while.

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* The future of library services was up for debate too.

Cllr D G Grigg told a Weston Borough Council meeting the town’s main library was ‘oversubscribed’ and a new branch facility in Worle was ‘essential’.

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But concerns over costs – amid the uncertain financial picture – meant councillors deferred on whether to push the project back by 12 months or not.

%image(14262850, type="article-full", alt="A spectacular Carnival at Burnham and Highbridge. A group of enthusiastic collecters. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

* The scale of the problem facing patients in Weston was revealed.

Some were having to wait for ‘three to four years’ for a procedure, while hundreds faced at least a 12-month delay.

The figures – which in a modern context seem startling – were announced as part of Weston’s battle to get a new hospital.

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Cllr C D Curtis said they showed why the new centre was needed.

Work for a new hospital was meant to have begun three years before in 1965, and with delays until the early 1970s rumoured, the councillor said the project should get underway within one year.

%image(14262852, type="article-full", alt="A spectacular Carnival at Burnham and Highbridge. "The White Horse Inn" a prize winning entry by the Lime Kiln Carnival Club. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262853, type="article-full", alt="A spectacular Carnival at Burnham and Highbridge. "Mexican Fiesta" was entered by the Golden Lion Carnival Club. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

* And Weston Cage Bird Society held its open show.

The group remarked entries were down in 1968 however, with organisers convinced poor transport links stopped people from getting to the show to enter their birds.

%image(14262854, type="article-full", alt="A spectacular Carnival at Burnham and Highbridge. . Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262855, type="article-full", alt="Schools Table Tennis Championships. Pictured with Mr. D. Brown, headmaster of Worle Secondary School, are award winners (in front) Sheilagh Henderson, Zyllah Horler, and Julia Sailsbury with (behind) Christopher Pollard, David Stephens, Mrs. D. Henderson (coach), Nigel Richardson and Michael Stephens. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262856, type="article-full", alt="A spectacular Carnival at Burnham and Highbridge. . Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262857, type="article-full", alt="An evening with insects sounds an itchy affair, but Sidcot Schools production of the Insect Play, by the Capek brothers, proved to be enchanting and there was no need to call on supplies of DDT. The butterflies - Eleanor Sedwick, Lyndall Shanks, Patrick Phillips, Sebastian Knight and Stephen Large. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262858, type="article-full", alt="An evening with insects sounds an itchy affair, but Sidcot Schools production of the Insect Play, by the Capek brothers, proved to be enchanting and there was no need to call on supplies of DDT. The yellow ants invade the colony watched by the tramp, Nigel Johnson. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262859, type="article-full", alt="With 160 full time students and a staff of 16, the Department of Business Studies and Languages is the largest at Weston Technical College. A typing class in action. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262861, type="article-full", alt="With 160 full time students and a staff of 16, the Department of Business Studies and Languages is the largest at Weston Technical College. Mr. V.G. Summers explaining the working of a calculating machine. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262862, type="article-full", alt="Janet Osborne and Carolyn Hodges looking at one of the many canaries at Weston-super-Mare Cage Bird Society's open show. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262863, type="article-full", alt="Company at the Weston and Uphill Old-Time Dance Club's annual ball, held at the Winter Gardens Pavilion. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262864, type="article-full", alt="Ads 15th November 1968 Edition. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")

%image(14262865, type="article-full", alt="Front Page 15th November 1968 Edition. Picture: WESTON MERCURY")