Avon Local History & Archæology – ALHA – does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s an organisation for local history and archæology in the Avon area, serving some 80 affiliated societies, with a collective membership of about 10,000. Founded in 1976, it has outlived Avon County Council, recognising the economic and social –ContinueContinue reading “The Founding Fixers”
Tag Archives: Bristol
Castles in the Air?
In our previous post we described the across-the-board hypocrisy of Wessex MPs who still claim to be able to deliver unlimited growth while simultaneously protecting all of the environment that locals cherish. Wednesday’s Western Daily Pressfurnishes a classic example. Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy was reported as initiating a debate at Westminster on the protectionContinueContinue reading “Castles in the Air?”
Leccy Goes Local
Until 1948, the electricity supply in Bristol, as in many towns, was run as a council department, with its own power stations at Temple Back, Avonbank and Portishead. In that year it was effectively confiscated by the London regime, without payment of full compensation, only to be sold on in 1990 as part of SouthContinueContinue reading “Leccy Goes Local”
Love the Land, Live the Life
It would make such a great slogan for our Wessex. It is in fact already taken, as the English-language slogan of the Normandy Tourist Board. There is such a thing, based not in one of the great cities – Caen or Rouen – but in a much smaller place, Evreux. It exists despite the factContinueContinue reading “Love the Land, Live the Life”
Growing Into What?
Labour announced last month that it will return to its bad old ways with a vengeance. Towns and cities will be given ‘the right to grow’, that is, the right to build over adjoining land. Neighbouring areas that resist will simply be stamped upon.It appears that Ed Miliband really is thick enough not to realiseContinueContinue reading “Growing Into What?”
Winners & Losers
Writers on Bristol, from the Rev. George Heath in the 18th century to Bryan Little in the 20th, have seen in it ‘the London of the West’, a city that would dearly love to outshine its larger rival but is not above copying its every move. So ‘a Boris for Bristol’ stands firmly in thatContinueContinue reading “Winners & Losers”
Analysing ‘Dave’
The MP for Witney is a Tory Prime Minister for our times. Not too blatant a representative of the landowning and military class (though do scratch and sniff), nor the child of a grocer, but a public relations man. What you see is anything but what you get. Like Blair, Cameron is first and foremostContinueContinue reading “Analysing ‘Dave’”
Jubilee Hangover
Here.
Managing Complexity
Dig up ancient gold or silver in your garden and there’s a strong chance you’ll need to declare it as ‘treasure’. Which means, usually, that ownership gets claimed by the Crown, originally under the feudal doctrine that every man must have a lord and so abandoned property reverts to the paramount lord, the Queen herself.ContinueContinue reading “Managing Complexity”
The Tiny Society
It’s often said, with an air of superiority, that the Russians don’t really get democracy, that they prefer strongman rule. Democracy, in the sense of open public debate followed by free and fair voting, is something we used to do tolerably well in most areas. But recent decades have seen us slide more and moreContinueContinue reading “The Tiny Society”
Wessex Regionalists 