Picture Past: September 6, 1968 – TV presenter David Frost in Weston

A visit by TV personality David Frost and experiences of being in Doctor Who were featured in the Weston Mercury and Somerset Herald in 1968. Here is the news from that week.

• David Frost, the often controversial TV interviewer hosted a different style of programme live from Weston.

Mr Frost was best known for challenging leading personalities with some probing questions, but Frost On Saturday was given a fresh feel when he visited the town.

Westonians and holidaymakers were the guests, with the first half of the programme recorded on the beach.

The second half was filmed in the Winter Gardens.

During the morning, Mr Frost watched children build sandcastles and discussed the donkeys with Don Trapnell.

• There were complaints motorists had trouble parking outside the information bureau in Weston.

Weston Borough Council considered moving it to Oxford Street.

• There was a possibility the Gaumont Theatre in Weston would be changed into a bingo hall.

• The future of the Bristol Channel was being considered by several Government departments.

They were examining a plan to build a series of dams across the Severn.

They would be large enough to carry road and rail links and would make it possible to walk from Weston to Cardiff.

Needless to say, this idea did not come to fruition.

• The village of Christon was faced with raising £2,000 so the roof on St Mary the Virgin Church could be repaired.

• Peter Greene, who acted in Weston’s Charles Vance Company, played a Cyberman in a Doctor Who episode.

He described his time inside the rubber suit and said: “I was often killing myself with laughter inside my suit because we all looked so silly.”

• Members of the Somerset education committee were divided over a potential meat ban from countries where foot and mouth disease was endemic.

It was proposed meat from those places should not be used in school meals.

However, it was felt if there was such a ban it should apply to all meat used by the county council.

• In the Mercury’s 1968 Picture Past equivalent, it was said how a seal was entertaining people around Birnbeck Pier in 1943.

Seals had become a rarer sight in Weston by 1943, though once they had played havoc with fishermen’s nets.