Photos by historybuff : on the map, in Google Earth (KML)

When I was the public relations officer for British Gas, I was asked whether the production company for Fools and Horses could use the old gas works at Canons Marsh for filming. Of course I said yes, if I could be present to watch the filming. The resultant episode involved full sized female dolls being exploded.

Saturday morning club. This is where the boys from St Andrews and Bishopston went for two hours of Hopalong Cassidy, Tom Mix, the Three Stooges etc.

I spent hours of my misspent youth in the News Theatre.Remeber one of the usherettes walking round pumping what looked like a "Flit" spray into the air. Some form of disinfectant or flea spray I suppose.

Charlie Stephen's son also named Charlie worked in a shop in Stokes Croft, almost opposite the City Road junction in the '50's. It was a shop owned by my parents and Charlie rented a gents barbers next door within the shop from where my mother ran a ladies' hairdressers. Charlie cut my hair on innumerable occasions. He could touch his nose with the end of his tongue and also earned beer money playing the piano in various Bristol pubs in the evenings. He couldn't read music but played by ear and very well, too.

I remember The Locarno for a dramatic event in '77, when Jimmy Pursey from Sham 69 was beaten up by bouncers there. He had slagged off security from the stage, and the bouncers cornered him inside his dressing room later. He emerged from the stage door with a black eye. All very nasty.

In 2009 the filling station (Stonehill Service Station) site is awaiting re-developement

I think the junction on the right, just beyond the larger group of childen is Shellards Road

Cleaning up after the floods of 1968 Lypiatt Road St George, Bristol.

Lower Bristol Road Bath after the rainstorm 1968.

Factories in Gloucester, Cheltenham and Staverton were flooded up to three feet deep. In Gloucester some homes were flooded three times in 24 hours. In Wiltshire, Chippenham, Melksham, Trowbridge, Corsham, Swindon and Malmesbury all had floods to varying degrees of severity. The centre of Chippenham looked like a vast lake and shops in Corsham high Street were flooded. Between Warminster and Frome, at Whitbourne Hill, Corsely, the depth of the water on the road was particularly deep. In Frome itself the Market Place was impassable and in the carpet factory fish were seen swimming.

Bath City Centre Somerset 1968.

At the East Reach and Musgrove hospitals the staff fought hard to stop the waters ris­ing and keep the electricity running as well as try­ing to treat the injured in makeshift conditions. In Bridgwater the town centre soon became flooded and later several areas were under several feet of water.

Weston-super-Mare was cut off by flooding and landslides and parts of Burnham and Clevedon were under more than two feet of water. At Congresbury, where the River Yeo burst its banks and the main street filled up with six feet of swirling muddy water, two policemen rescued three men by swimming to them with the aid of ropes. At Draycott an 82 year old lady was found trapped in her house surrounded by her floating furniture.

It may be that the storm received renewed vigour as it passed over the Mendips as around and to the north of the hills the floods seem to have been even more severe. The village of Westbury-sub-Mendip, on the southern slopes, could not be reached even by the fire service as the water poured off the Mendips and into the houses of the village.

A similar occurrence occurred at Easton and Wookey Hole. At Wells the firemen could not even get the second tender out of the sta­tion due to the floods in the city. As well as the roads in the vicinity being flooded to several feet, landslides were another hazard hindering the rescue of those stranded. At Cheddar the Gorge became a raging torrent of water, mud and rocks. The torrent swept down via Velvet Bottom from the former lead mines at Charterhouse to join the road to Cheddar which soon became filled with piles of rocks and debris.

There was even a huge 30 foot hole scoured out of the road, in fact, there was no road at all for half a mile after an estimated hundreds of thousands of tons of rubble destroyed the tarmac. Twelve of the Cheddar Cave workers had a very lucky escape as the water rose and trapped them in the cave all night.

They had been able to get higher than the flood water and survive what must have been a ter­rifying ordeal. Many of the Gorge shops were severely flooded. A Cheddar farmer lost 40,000 chickens in the flood and there was an enormous loss of wildlife. 35 people were rehoused in Cheddar and the main tourist area was closed for at least two weeks. A total of 67 bridges in Somerset were either destroyed or badly damaged.